Allow to rename Clients

[storm7]

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 allowing user to edit, so I can name something like "Printer by Coffee machine"

[MsMandi71]

I agree! It can be done in the Orbi app for my home network, so why not for the Pro version?!

[hnagaraju]

We are looking to bring this feature in Insight managed APs (WAX600)

Please Upvote if want this on Orbi Pro also. We will investigate and line it up for next MR release.

[obilan]

Any Idea when this functionality will be added to WAX600 series ? I have 2 WAX 625's and managing all these devices is a huge undertaking. This

is a rather basic functionality already implemented in the Nighthawk range since I used a R7500. (2015 timeframe) 

[schumaku]

Still can't follow this idea, even not on Insight networks with some > 1000 clients connected or in the history list.

Huge would be the effort to re-introduce yet another index and database with minimal results. Especially as we're facing many privacy enhanced clients coming in more or less anonymously, some with all information hidden, random MAC addresses, ...

You can't compare with a legacy router like a crappy R7500 router with it's local DHCP. 

Please share some lists of clients you don't understand ....

[obilan]

The max amount of clients I would be connecting into the environment would be around 150. It is a mixture of home and small business.

So with the output of connected clients, there must be a predefined index of  OS's that each device is being mapped to. On line 1 for example,

there is no 'xbox 360' on the network. This is also true with 'playstation 2'  and 'Nokia S40' in the 2nd image of disconnected clients. 

I do see an additional icon at the start of the disconnected clients which denotes a phone / desktop / pc ect which also seems to be referenced

to the OS.

So just in the 30 or so devices I have added, all the mobiles have only MAC client names and there are multiple devices reporting incorrect OS/Device Types - which can't be changed. Windows PC's seem to work  - haven't tried linux yet !!

For businesses having 100's of guest users daily I can understand that there is no real use for this but for a network whereby client count is usually stable 

it it would show benefit for example to identify devices with high bandwidth utilization. Also you would be able to identify new clients added to the network quite easily.

Regards

[schumaku]

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