Orbi RBR 750 and VPN on MacOS

A computer can have more than one IP address and will use internal logic when determining which network adapter to use when connecting to a specific internet IP address.

Suppose, for example, a computer has an Ethernet adapter connected to a router which has assigned the IP 192.168.1.25

If a process attempts to connect to an IP that also begins with 192.168.1, then the computer will look into its internal ARP table to find the hardware MAC address of the device.

If the IP does not begin with 192.168.1, then normally the computer would send Ethernet frames to the IP address of the internet gateway, which will locate the device.

HOWEVER, if the computer also has a VPN connection that has been assigned an IP address such as 192.168.2.xx and the desired IP address also begins with 192.168.2, then the VPN network adapter would be used.

The quickest way to determine "what's going on" is to look at the Attached Devices display on the Orbi router.  Typically, devices connected using VPN appear at the bottom of the list.

What Apple computer model do you have? Desktop or laptop? 

Be aware that with newer OSX versions, Apple has implemented the same MAC Address randomizer in the OS and is enabled by default. I happened to stumble across this when I saw an unknown MAC device/address on my network. Had to use wireshark to track it down, After it said it was an Apple device, I only have a few, I found that my Mac Book Pro with OSX 15 loaded had this feature. Once disabled, Mac Book appeared on network correctly. So something to check for with in OSX.