Why Do You Need to Know All Devices on My Network

Wi-Fi router sitting on a table — Aquarius Studio/Shutterstock

Practise you know who'southward connected to your router's Wi-Fi network? Accept a expect at the listing of devices connected to your Wi-Fi network from your router or estimator to find out.

Bear in listen that many devices connect to your Wi-Fi these days. The list will contain laptops, smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, set-summit boxes, game consoles, Wi-Fi printers, and more than.

Use GlassWire Pro to See Who is Connected (And Get Alerts when a New Device Connects to Your Wi-Fi)

We're big fans of the GlassWire firewall and security arrangement, 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 continued to your Wi-Fi network.

GlassWire isn't simply a firewall, it also has beautiful graphs to show your bandwidth usage, see what applications are connecting to what, and exactly how much bandwidth each application is using. You can get alerts when an application changes something, or when an installer tries to install a new system driver. There are tons of features, too many to listing here.

But what makes GlassWire even meliorate for today's topic is that if you go into the Settings panel, you lot can actually enable alerts whenever a new device tries to connect to your Wi-Fi. Now that's a great feature!

GlassWire is free for basic employ, merely the network device monitoring is just included in the paid version ($49 for ane PC).

Use Your Router's Web Interface

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The best way to observe this information will exist to check your router's web interface. Your router hosts your Wi-Fi network, and so it has the well-nigh accurate data about which devices are connected to it. Most of the all-time routers offering a mode to view a list of continued devices, although some may not.

The standard tips for accessing your router's web interface apply. If you're not sure of its IP accost, you can generally look for your computer's gateway IP address via the Command Panel. You could as well run the ipconfig /all command in a Command Prompt window.

RELATED: 10 Useful Options You Can Configure In Your Router's Web Interface

Adjacent, plug this IP address into your web browser's address bar and press Enter. This should usually bring up your router's interface. If information technology doesn't, check your router's documentation — or perform a web search for its model number and "web interface" to detect out how to access it. If you haven't set a custom countersign and passphrase, you may need to perform a search or check the documentation to find the default ones for your model of router.

Finding the List of Connected Devices

You'll now need to look for the pick in your router's spider web interface somewhere. Expect for a link or button named something like "fastened devices," "connected devices," or "DHCP clients." You may notice this on the Wi-Fi configuration page, or you may discover information technology on some sort of status page. On some routers, the list of connected devices may be printed on a main condition page to salve you some clicks.

On many D-Link routers, a list of continued devices is bachelor under Condition > Wireless.

On many Netgear routers, you'll detect the list under "Fastened Devices" in the sidebar.

On many Linksys routers, you'll discover this choice under Status > Local Network > DHCP Clients Tabular array.

On Comcast Xfinity routers, you'll discover the listing under Continued Devices in the sidebar.

Understanding the List

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Many routers simply provide a listing of devices connected via DHCP. This means that, if a device is configured with a static IP configuration, it won't appear in the list. Keep that in mind!

When yous get the list open, you'll generally see similar information on every router. The interface probably shows you a tabular array with a list of continued devices, their "host names" on the network, and their MAC addresses.

RELATED: Change Your Computer Proper noun in Windows 7, 8, or 10

If the list doesn't offering meaningful enough names, you may want to alter the hostnames (as well known as "computer names" or "device names") on your computer or device'due south operating systems. The host name will be visible here. Unfortunately, in that location's no fashion to change the hostname on some devices — for example, nosotros're non aware of a way to change an Android device's hostname to a more meaningful ane without rooting it.

When in uncertainty, you could always compare the MAC accost seen on this page (or the IP accost displayed) to the MAC address of a device you're using to cheque which device is which.

This List Isn't Foolproof

Of course, this listing isn't completely perfect. Anyone tin prepare any hostname they want, and it's also possible to change your MAC address to spoof other devices. Notwithstanding, this would hateful that a device of yours wouldn't be able to connect to the network while another device with a spoofed MAC address was taking its place, as routers mostly block two devices with the same MAC address from connecting at the same fourth dimension. And someone who gained admission to your router could set up a static IP configuration to be stealthy.

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Ultimately, this isn't the most powerful security feature, or a foolproof way to notice people connected to your network. It's not something you need to cheque regularly. If at that place are devices y'all don't recognize, you tin can alter your Wi-Fi passphrase — you're hopefully using WPA2-PSK encryption — and that will boot all the devices off until they can provide the new passphrase.

All the same, fifty-fifty devices you don't recognize may be something you own that you didn't recall. For case, an unknown device could exist a Wi-Fi-enabled printer, a Wi-Fi continued speaker arrangement, or your smart Television receiver's born Wi-Fi that you never use.

Browse Your Wi-Fi Network With Software On Your Reckoner

The platonic manner to check for connected devices will by and large be to use your router's spider web interface. However, some routers may non offer this characteristic, so yous may want to try a scanning tool instead. This is a slice of software running on your computer that will scan the Wi-Fi network y'all're continued to for active devices and list them. Unlike router spider web interface tools, such scanning tools take no manner of listing devices that have been connected, but which are currently offline. Y'all'll only see online devices.

At that place are a lot of tools for doing this, but nosotros like NirSoft's Wireless Network Watcher. Similar other NirSoft software, it's a user-friendly little tool without any adware or nag screens. It as well doesn't even need to exist installed on your computer. Download the tool, launch it, and it will watch your Wi-Fi network for agile devices, displaying their device names, MAC addresses, and the manufacturer of their Wi-FI network hardware. The manufacturer name is very helpful for identifying specific devices without device name — peculiarly Android devices.

This tool may not work properly until you lot specify your Wi-Fi network adapter. On our Windows PC, we had to click Options > Advanced Options in Wireless Network Watcher, check "Employ the following network adapter," and choose our physical Wi-Fi adapter before performing a browse.

Over again, this isn't something you lot really need to worry about constantly. If you're using WPA2-PSK encryption and have a good passphrase, you can feel fairly secure. Information technology'southward unlikely anyone is connected to your Wi-Fi without your permission. If you're concerned this is happening for some reason, you lot can always only change your Wi-Fi's passphrase—you'll have to re-enter information technology on all your approved devices, of course. Be sure WPS is disabled before yous do this, as WPS is vulnerable and attackers could potentially use information technology to re-connect to your network without the passphrase.

Changing your Wi-FI passphrase tin can also be a good idea if y'all've given out your Wi-FI countersign—to neighbors visiting yous, for example—and want to be sure they don't continue using it for years.