Do you know who is connected to your router’s Wi-Fi network? Take a look at the list of devices connected to your Wi-Fi network from your router or computer to find out.
Keep in mind that many devices connect to your Wi-Fi network these days. The list will include laptops, smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, set-top boxes, game consoles, Wi-Fi printers, and more.
Use GlassWire Pro to see who’s online (and get alerts when a new device connects to your Wi-Fi)
We’re big fans of the GlassWire firewall and security system, and one of the great features they have in the Pro version is a quick and easy network view that shows you all the devices connected to your Wi-Fi network.
GlassWire is not just a firewall, it also has beautiful graphs to show your bandwidth usage, see which apps are connecting to what, and exactly how much bandwidth each app is using. You can get alerts when an app changes something or when an installer tries to install a new system driver. There are tons of features, too many to list here.
But what makes GlassWire even better for today’s topic is that if you go into the Settings panel, you can enable alerts whenever a new device tries to connect. . to your Wi-Fi. That’s a great feature!
<img src="https://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/glasswire-things.png" alt="Select theThis means that if a device is configured with a static IP configuration, it will not appear in the list. Keep that in mind!
When you open the list, you will generally see similar information for each router. The interface will probably show you a table listing connected devices, their “host names” on the network, and their MAC addresses.
RELATED: Changing Your Computer Name in Windows 7, 8, or 10
If the list doesn’t offer meaningful enough names, you might want to change the host names (also known as “computer names” or “computer names”). devices”). ”) in the operating systems of your computer or device. The hostname will be visible here. Unfortunately, there is no way to change the hostname on some devices; for example, we don’t know of a way to change the hostname of an Android device to a more meaningful one without rooting it.
When in doubt, you can always compare the MAC address you see on this page (or the IP address shown) with the MAC address of a device you are using to verify which device is which.
This list is not foolproof
Of course, this list is not completely perfect. Anyone can set any hostname they want, and it is also possible to change your MAC address to spoof other devices. However, this would mean that a device of yours would not be able to connect to the network while another device with a spoofed MAC address was taking its place, since routers usually block two devices with the same MAC address from connecting at the same time. . And someone who gained access to your router could set up a static IP setting to stay stealthy.
RELATED: Don’t Get a False Sense of Security: 5 Insecure Ways to protecting your Wi-Fi
Ultimately, this isn’t the most powerful security feature or a foolproof way to detect people connected to your network. It’s not something you should check regularly. If there are devices you don’t recognize, you can change their Wi-Fi passphrase (hopefully you’re using WPA3 encryption) and that will disable all devices until they can provide the new passphrase.
However, even the devices you don’t recognize may be something you own that you didn’t remember. For example, an unknown device could be a Wi-Fi enabled printer, a Wi-Fi connected speaker system, or your smart TV’s built-in Wi-Fi that you never use.
Scan your Wi-Fi network with the software on your computer
The ideal way to check connected devices will usually be to use your router’s web interface. However, some routers may not offer this feature, so you may want to try a scan tool instead. This is software running on your computer that will scan the Wi-Fi network you’re connected to for active devices and list them. Unlike router web interface tools, such scan tools have no way of listing devices that have been connected, but are currently offline. It will only see online devices.
There are many tools to do this, but we like NirSoft’s Wireless Network Watcher. Like other programs from NirSoft, it’s a convenient little tool with no adware or annoying screens. It doesn’t even need to be installed on your computer. Download the tool, run it, and it will watch your Wi-Fi network for active devices, displaying their device names, MAC addresses, and the manufacturer of your Wi-FI network hardware. The manufacturer name is very useful for identifying specific devices without a device name, especially Android devices.
This tool may not work properly until you specify your Wi-Fi network adapter. On our Windows PC, we had to click Options
RELATED: What’s the Best Wi-Fi Encryption to Use in 2022?
Change Passphrase Wi-FI password can also be a good idea if you’ve given your Wi-FI password (to visiting neighbors, for example) and want to make sure they don’t keep using it for years.
.