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It would be immensely helpful to be able to add/edit names of client devices. It would be heck of a lot easy to figure out what each device is... Should be whatever system gets by default and then al...
Can we move this to a support discussion, so adding hints is possible, out from this radio request concert please?
The help could start like this:
The Windows desktop you list is clearly coming from the device name provided by the desktop system ... your controls there.
To communicate with a Wi-Fi network, a device must identify itself to the network using a unique network address called a Media Access Control (MAC) address. If the device always uses the same Wi-Fi MAC address across all networks, network operators and other network observers can more easily relate that address to the device's network activity and location over time. This allows a kind of user tracking or profiling, and it applies to all devices on all Wi-Fi networks.
The iOS wonders are following some strange privacy Crapple privacy nonsense (notably privacy for your own network, under your full control), suppressing configured host names. To make it worse, you are hiding the vendor MAC identification and/or some local administered addresses. Addresses can either be universally administered addresses (UAA) or locally administered addresses (LAA). A universally administered address is uniquely assigned to a device by its manufacturer. The first three octets (in transmission order) identify the organization that issued the identifier and are known as the organizationally unique identifier (OUI).
Yes, Cupertino (to void the Crapple term again) does submit Addresses 02:0F:B5:xx:xx:xx, generating wonderful meaningless hostnames like 02-0F-B5-xx-xx-xx at the cost of the manageability of your and my networks under the label of "privacy" let's designate it as a condone. under the label of what Cupertino says it's a private Wi-Fi address..
Yes, it's amazing the AP is pretty reliable detecting iOS devices. You see how smart (not to say stupid) this is. No: It's worse: It does make the life of the network admin much more difficult.
Starting with iOS 14, iPadOS 14, and watchOS 7, your device improves privacy by using a different MAC address for each Wi-Fi network. This unique MAC address is your device's private Wi-Fi address, which it uses for that network only.
In some cases, your device will change its private Wi-Fi address:
If you erase all content and settings or reset network settings on the device, your device uses a different private address the next time it connects to that network.
Starting with iOS 15, iPadOS 15, and watchOS 8, if your device hasn’t joined the network in 6 weeks, it uses a different private address the next time it connects to that network. And if you make your device forget the network, it will also forget the private address it used with that network, unless it has been less than 2 weeks since the last time it was made to forget that network.
Yes, this setting can be disabled - either on each client alone, or you can configure Wi-Fi settings for iPhone, iPad, Apple TV devices and Mac computers enrolled in a mobile device management (MDM) solution.
And you seriously ask Netgear to introduce an ability to rename these devices?!?
Said that: Don't blame me nor Netgear's AP implementation and my impatience trying to explain this world of random wonders to innocent network admins like you!?!
Use private Wi-Fi addresses on iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and Apple Watch
About private Wi-Fi addresses and enterprise networks