Attached Devices list is all Wrong - how do I clear them?
As stated - my attached device is useless as it is. Many devices are not what is shown - computers listed as iPhones, TVs listed as computers, etc - it's all wrong. Rebooting doesn't fix it, so this information seems oddly persistent - it's like a snapshot of Devices/IPs that it saw at one point, but with DHCP, the addresses have changed because - duh- that's the D (DYNAMIC) of DHCP, but the Orbi doesn't seem to know this and keeps the old incorrect devices and IPs - even some devices we don't have on the network any longer.
So, is there any way to clear this list? Or to get it to update with the correct information versus last year's setup?
So, is there any way to clear this list? Or to get it to update with the correct information versus last year's setup?
Netgear includes software in the router which uses the hardware MAC address of the connected device to guess what sort of device it is. This is based on the Organizational Unique Identifier (OUI) code that is part of every network adapter address.
There is a major problem with this technique: Hardware randomization. Apple, Android, and even laptops have embraced the fight against Big Brother by deliberately using a fake MAC address when connecting to WiFi networks. See, for example, https://support.apple.com/guide/security/wi-fi-privacy-secb9cb3140c/web
This is an option buried in the Network Settings. My experience has been that after a user deliberately selects, "Use the Hardware Address", the next time iOS is updated, Apple carefully puts the setting back to "randomize" - so there stupid human!
There appear to be two clear choices:
Just live with it. Accept that Attached Devices has no idea what each device is.
After every software update on any kind of WiFi device, check that the Network setting is, "use the hardware address" - every time!
In addition, both the web interface Attached Devices and the Orbi 'app' have a method for the user to identify devices so that they will display using (ghastly) symbols - and of course the symbols for the web interface and the Orbi 'app' are different. This only works when the hardware MAC address remains the same.
As stated - my attached device is useless as it is. Many devices are not what is shown - computers listed as iPhones, TVs listed as computers, etc - it's all wrong. Rebooting doesn't fix it, so this information seems oddly persistent - it's like a snapshot of Devices/IPs that it saw at one point, but with DHCP, the addresses have changed because - duh- that's the D (DYNAMIC) of DHCP, but the Orbi doesn't seem to know this and keeps the old incorrect devices and IPs - even some devices we don't have on the network any longer.
So, is there any way to clear this list? Or to get it to update with the correct information versus last year's setup?
