Connecting the Philips Hue Bridge to Wi-Fi

Author: Rogerio GB

I needed to connect my Philips Hue Bridge to Wi-Fi to use it for a presentation at a conference in Brazil. Most public Wi-Fi networks segments each connection preventing communication between devices, besides the fact the Hue Bridge is Ethernet only (Not sure who at Phillips made that decision). Luckily I was able to come up with a solution.

All I needed was my MacBook Pro, which was connected to the conference WiFi and a Thunderbolt Ethernet adapter (which I always carry just incase there is wired Internet access).

Connect the Hue to the MacBook via the Thunderbolt adapter. Then under System Preferences -> Sharing. Select Internet Sharing. Connect from Wi-Fi to computers using Thunderbolt Ethernet (I usually have sharing set the otherway around). Then activate Internet Sharing (and verify you want to do it).

This granted the Bridge access to the internet, and gave it a 192.x.x.x IP address that I could reach from my MacBook Pro (and the VM) to send commands to the bridge. This worked great for my presentation, but isn’t a solution for home connectivity.

Also, it turns out the Philips Hue Bridge I just purchased is now obsolete thanks to an Apple HomeKit requirement.