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Yloldbttr's avatar
Yloldbttr
Channel Surfer
3 years ago

MAC address zeros on Roku TV

FYI- Some Wi-Fi networks require you to register your MAC Address before you can join the network.  For example a ROKU ONN Smart TV. However, you will not be able to see what your Smart TV’s MAC Address is until your product has been registered.   I know what you’re thinking….. how do I register my tv without being able to connect to the internet?   You can’t and you also cannot  utilize a persons phone as a hot spot either.   So, you will need to find a network that you can access in order to register your product, and then after that you will be able to acquire the MAC Address of your TV.  

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  • atc98092's avatar
    atc98092
    Community Streaming Expert

    The MAC address is hard coded into the network adapter. Connecting a device to a network will NOT create a MAC address. 

    • Yloldbttr's avatar
      Yloldbttr
      Channel Surfer

      The HARD CODED MAC address is not visible to the end user until the device is registered.    

      • atc98092's avatar
        atc98092
        Community Streaming Expert

        Nonsense. It's visible under the Network panel. Same as with any other device with a network adapter. For devices that have both WiFi and wired connections, there's a different MAC address for each one. 

        To quote from the Wiki page:

        media access control address (MAC address) is a unique identifier assigned to a network interface controller (NIC) for use as a network address in communications within a network segment

        MAC addresses are primarily assigned by device manufacturers, and are therefore often referred to as the burned-in address, or as an Ethernet hardware addresshardware address, or physical address.

        The MAC address is unique to each network adapter, although some devices allow spoofing the MAC address. Roku devices are not included in that ability.

        EDIT: let me rephrase that. You can't get to the Roku menus until the device is registered, so that is correct you can't see the MAC address until it's registered to the Roku user account. But the MAC address is already there assigned to the device before it's ever connected to the network. If you must have a MAC address to allow a device on a network, then you can use a phone hotspot to complete the registration and then access the MAC address to allow putting it onto a restricted network.