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Forum Discussion
How many MAC addresses does the series 7 Orbi have?
I'd wager 10, see table below - X means the character matches exactly in the MAC address, Z means it doesn't. You can see there are groups where they match exactly except for the last 2 least significant characters.
Pretty sure that although my satellite has a wired connection the hidden SSID it would use if it was wirelessly connected is still active
Trying to get some real data on what’s going on with the Wi-Fi and trying several apps all with differing degrees of success. What Wi-Fi monitoring apps are you guys using to troubleshoot? I've looked at Acrylic, NetSpot, HomeDale, PRTG to name but a few
Any recommendations??
8 Replies
You are entirely correct. All of those mysterious MAC addresses are variations on the primary MAC address.
One issue in researching WiFi channels is that most tools are designed to identify Access Points (APs), not user devices.
The Orbi router broadcasts SSID's on these (6) channels:
Primary WiFi - 2.4G and 5G
Guest WiFi - 2.4G and 5G
Backhaul - 2.4G and 5G (This SSID is not broadcast, but is very much "there" Mine is named NETGEAR_ORBI_hidden41
Each Orbi satellite broadcasts SSID's on these (4) channels:
Primary WiFi - 2.4G and 5G
Guest WiFi 2.4G and 5G
In addition, each satellite communicates to the router on the 5G channel (or the 2.4G channel if 5G fails) using a contrived MAC address.
Those WiFi Analysis tools do not pick up this MAC address because it is not an AP. It is a device communicating with the router AP.
So, if the system consists of one router and three satellites, there will be a total of 6+4+4+4 = 18 access points plus three 5G MAC addresses for backhaul.
On the original Orbi models, there is a web page "hidden_info", i.e. http://<ip of orbi>/hidden_info.htm that reveals this information. (It is not clear to me whether the AX models have this web page or not. I don't have one to test.)
My favorite tools for this sort of thing include:
- WiFiInfoView (Windows - free)
- WiFi Analyzer by Kevin Yuan (Android)
- Wireshark (Linux and Windows) This is what discovered the 5G MAC used for satellite backhaul. Filtering the Wireshark display by the MAC address I knew about showed these other MAC addresses sending packets to the backhaul Access Point MAC.
Is this the sort of information you were seeking?
Thanks, it is - looking more at Wi-Fi quality/availability/utilization rather than client info
My series 7 Orbi does not respond to "/hidden_info.htm" it just redirects to the main page
Best info I've seen so far is from WiF-Scanner 21.05 and Acrylic - both sadly trials. They show that the 2.4Ghz main and gust Wi-Fi are all over the place. These beign the 2 with the significant drops below - graphs are from 2 different apps to double-check their findings. Will test on a call later on and see what that looks like
WiFi Analyzer shows similar patterns, except some of the access points do not change significantly. If you come across an explanation for what causes the radio signals to vary in strength, please post a link.
