There are discussions on this forum going back several years [I'll paste a few links at the bottom], but the resolution still seems unclear and dissatisfactory.

I went into access controls, and blocked a specific device. In the "Attached Devices" page, the device shows as connected to the router's wireless, but with a red "Blocked" tag. It's clearly connected to the network, and other devices on the network are able to connect to it. That's the opposite of what I expect when I put this in a blocked list.

Can I just configure the wireless so that this mac address is completely unable to connect to the wireless network at all?

I could change the SSID or password and leave this one device in the dark, but that doesn't fix the fact that the access control doesn't appear to be controlling access - is Netgear's proposed solution that owners of these routers need to change wireless passwords on all "allowed" devices every time that a security-conscious owner decides it's time to block one specific IoT device?

I have the current firmware at time of writing, V1.0.3.46_1.1.32

Other threads:

From 2014: https://community.netgear.com/t5/Wireless-N-Routers/Access-Control-Block-not-working/td-p/447416

From 2015: https://community.netgear.com/t5/Nighthawk-WiFi-Routers/WARNING-R8000-Access-Control-Does-not-funciton-as-documented/td-p/505637

From 2016: https://community.netgear.com/t5/Nighthawk-WiFi-Routers/Access-Control-Not-Working/m-p/1065321#M29494

Thanks,

Gary

Forum Discussion

Access Control doesn't Control Access