Apple TV connect to My Apartment Public Wi-Fi?

November 22, 2012 2:41 PM

I have public wi-fi at my new apartment, and am able to stream Netflix just fine via a friend's laptop. I am not sure if there is a way for my Apple TV (2nd gen) to work here. I have googled around and others seemed to be able and others not. Normally when using my home computer or kindle tablet, I have to connect to wi-fi after a given period of time left unattended and then click "connect" from a browser page so perhaps this is why the ATV2 cannot work. Any thoughts? Thanks and have a good Thanksgiving!
posted by snap_dragon to computers & internet (7 answers total)

You might be able to get the wifi provider to add your ATV's mac address so it can bypass the login screen.

Other than that, the only thing I can think of is using your PC as a bridge for the ATV.
posted by empath at 3:10 PM on November 22, 2012

Forgot to add, I have a Mac computer...
posted by snap_dragon at 4:05 PM on November 22, 2012

...and unfortunately my Mac is not 2011 or newer for this idea.
posted by snap_dragon at 4:11 PM on November 22, 2012

Actually empath's idea will work on a Mac. I did it with my apartment building wifi. In system preferences, select Sharing. Then tick the Internet among the list of things to share. Then use wifi in the drop-down box and then ethernet. Then you can either connect an ethernet cable to the Apple TV, or you can connect the cable to a wireless router to supply your apartment devices and the Apple TV via wifi.

Although it worked, I my connection wasn't fast enough or robust enough to stream Netflx or anything else.
posted by birdherder at 4:26 PM on November 22, 2012

@Birdherder ... sounds easy enough. I am not real tech savvy -- would you happen to have any links that talk about this router/ethernet/apple tv in more detail so I don't have to pester anyone here? When I searched, I pulled up all things ethernet to Apple TV and such but not the nifty idea above. At any rate, I appreciate the answer.
posted by snap_dragon at 5:01 PM on November 22, 2012

I just searched for "Apple TV public wireless" to see if there were a way to make it work, but the bridge idea just came from me doing computer stuff for a living.
posted by empath at 5:31 PM on November 22, 2012

Thanks, guys. It isn't a real big deal if it doesn't work. We will be here only a year or so and dvds/etc work fine.
posted by snap_dragon at 5:42 PM on November 22, 2012