Copied here per suggestion from the Netgear Community Forum:

I have an Orbi RBR850 and two RBS850's. In combination, they provide excellent WiFi coverage to my house. The RBS's are connected back to the RBR via Ethernet. I have "a bunch" of IOT devices connected, and some of these aren't as smart as others. Many only support 2.4ghz. Occasionally, one (or more) of them will decide to connect to a RBR/RBS that is distant and will attempt to go though walls and ceilings to get to the "distant" RBR/RBS. If I go to the location of the device that's connected to the distance RBR/RBS with a laptop, and connect to the WiFi, the laptop will always choose the RBR/RBS with the strongest signal. I have software on the laptop that will show all the available SSIDs and their signal strength. The closest RBR/RBS always has excellent signal strength, and the more remote RBR/RBSs show lower and sometimes weak signal strength. From the laptop, I I can tell which RBR/RBS has the best signal strength because the software on the laptop also shows the MAC address associated with the WiFi SSID and signal strength.

All of this makes me believe the RBR and RBSs are working as designed, and the IOT devices are doing something goofy when presented with multiple WiFi signals with the same SSID. Honestly not surprising given what I read about many IOT devices being notorious for software issues and security vulnerabilities. A reboot or power cycle of the IOT devices gets it back connected to the RBR/RBS with the strongest signal.

I want to be able to monitor this with regular checking to see if devices are connected to the wrong RBR/RBS. I know what "normal" looks like (MAC address xyz should always connect to RBSxxx.)

I need the ability to extract the attached devices list from the RBR. I know there have been other discussions about recent Orbi firmware disabling the telnet. I honestly agree - telnet is insecure and really the wrong way to get this information. What I'd like is something like:

json_list=$(curl -s http:192.168.1.1/attached_devices/?op=json)

device_list=$(jq .Device.list <<<"$json_list")

The list would need to include the IP address, MAC address, connected RBR/RBS and frequency (2.4 / 5).

I could then parse device_list, check vs. "normal", log to a syslog server, sent alerts or email, etc.

Netgear friends, consider this an "enhancement request".

Thank you

Randy

access the list of attached devices via URL with json output