‎Doorbell WiFi MAC Filtering | SimpliSafe Support Home
 
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Wednesday, March 17th, 2021 2:00 AM

Doorbell WiFi MAC Filtering

My WiFi is set up for MAC filtering but there is no MAC address on the doorbell device or box and on the phone Simplisafe told me the cameras and base stations have MAC addresses but the doorbells do not. How do I add the doorbell to a MAC Filtered WiFi network without a MAC address? I have an older non-WiFi capable base station.

1.3K Messages

4 years ago

Temporarily turn off MAC filtering, join it to your network, get the MAC address in your router, then add it to the allowed list and reenable the filter.

2 Messages

@whoaru99​ Yes, this is what I needed to do. There is a MAC address encoded in the QR code that is on the doorbell and doorbell box that I received, but that is not the MAC address that the camera actually uses to stream its video. I had to disable my MAC filtering, let it join the network, then look at the traffic on the router and add the new MAC address that I didn't recognize to my filter, then it worked. Not sure the MAC address on the QR code is needed at all. I didn't take it off my list to try though.

3 Messages

4 years ago

As it turns out my MAC Filtering was not on. The modem was replaced with an upgraded model a few days prior and the install must have reset MAC filtering to off. I discovered that the doorbell would not connect to WiFi because my network is set to "hidden". Once I turned off hidden the doorbell connected and the MAC address was visible in the modem preferences and in the camera preferences on the Simplisafe app on my phone. If there is a way to connect to a hidden network I would like to know.

1.3K Messages

4 years ago

Get the camera connected first, then turn off the SSID broadcast in the router. Whether that will work I don't know, but I suspect you know soon enough if you try it.

If it seems to works straight away then I'd give it a stress test by unplugging the camera for a couple minutes to simulate power out then reconnect it. Point being to check if it will reconnect by itself to the hidden network. I'd try that with the router too, then maybe even both together.

OTOH and FWIW...

Not broadcasting the SSID doesn't really improve your security as anyone with freely available tools can still easily "sniff out" the SSID. All hiding it really does is make it harder for you, as you've just experienced.

It's more or less the same with MAC filtering. A sniffer can get the MAC ID of any wireless device you've allowed to connect to your network, then spoof that MAC ID to bypass the filter anyway.

Moral of the story? It might feel good at a high level but in a practical sense neither are effective security and both just make it harder for you.

1. Use WPA2 encryption
2. Use a strong WiFi password
3. Be sure to change the router's default router user name and or password

I also like not to use SSID that's personally identifiable. Not really a network security thing so to speak, but no good reason to put anything like that out there.

3 Messages

I went back and forth turning broadcast on and off and removing the doorbell, pressing the small reset button and reattaching and going through the connection process with the same result. I did not restart the router.

Regarding your setup advice, from what I have read and from videos I believe what you say about MAC filtering and not broadcasting is correct. Another suggestion to set up peripheral devices like this that I thought might be good is to put them on a separate SSID and limiting connectivity to internet only. I have never created a separate network but I'm going to look into that further.
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