Minecraft Pocket Edition - shared game on local network

My sons are into playing Minecraft Pocket Edition. I have it installed on a Samsung smartphone, and our Nvidia Shield TV. They would like to play together in the same game, but I haven't been successful getting it to work. When I create a new game with Multiplayer enabled, the other player doesn't see the new game in the list of choices. They are not logged in via Xbox Live (no accounts) but I don't think that is required for local games. No server either; just trying for a simple hosted game that the second player can join.

The NVidia Shield is connected via Ethernet cable, and the smartphone is on the Wifi network of course. Will that work, or do they both need to be on Wifi? Can the Nvidia Shield be connected to Ethernet and Wifi simultaneously, or do I need to pull the cable and default to Wifi when they want to play together?

Both must be connected to the same network. If the Ethernet and Wi-Fi are not part of the same network, multiplayer will not work. Both devices need to be on the same network. Xbox live is not required. Also, be sure to be on the multiplayer tab. Hope that helps!

I got this to work with one device on wifi and one on ethernet, on the same network. One problem was that the phone had automatically updated to a new version of the game, while the Shield still had the prior version. Once I extracted the new APK from the phone and loaded it on the Shield, they were able to see the shared game on both devices. I'm happy to report that my sons can now fight in virtual space, in addition to the physical world!