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As you have probably noticed, everything is wireless these days and even things like our refrigerators can be connected to the internet. If you are using Wi-Fi at home or at the office, there is a good chance you have more devices connected to your wireless connection than you are aware of.
Most ISPs (Internet Service Providers) will have a way for you to view all the devices connected to your network. You may have to log into your router to do so or maybe just their website. Once you find the list of your connected devices, they may or may not have a description or name associated with them, but this doesn’t mean you cannot find out what they are. Even your Windows based computer may not show up with an accurate description in your list of connected devices. In this article, we will be showing you how to find what types of devices are on your Wireless (Wi-Fi) network.
The image below shows some sample devices on a home network. As you can see, some of them have names or descriptions of the devices while others just show what is known as a MAC (Media Access Control) address. A MAC address is a unique identifier assigned to the network interface of a device, such as a computer, smartphone, or router etc. It is used to distinguish devices on a local network, allowing them to communicate with one another. A MAC address is typically a 48-bit address, represented as 12 hexadecimal digits (e.g., 00:1A:2B:3C:4D:5E), and is hardcoded into the device’s network hardware. These MAC addresses are unique to the device they are assigned to, and part of the MAC address is used to identify the manufacturer of that device.
To get more information about these unknown devices, we will be going to a website called macaddress.io which will allow you to lookup MAC addresses to find who they belong to.
We will be looking up three devices from our list to see what type of information we can find.
c0:97:27:3c:14:80
2c:aa:8e:a1:68:1f
40:5b:d8:5c:ba:95
When you first get to the macaddress.io website, you will be able to type or paste in the MAC address from your devices to get the manufacturer’s details about that particular network hardware.
Our first example shows that the MAC address belongs to a device made by Samsung so this tells you that it could be a TV, smartphone, tablet, refrigerator and so on. And if you do not have any devices made by Samsung, you can then disconnect the device from your network or maybe even block it if you have an option to do so.
Our second example shows a device from Wyze Labs who make home security cameras.
Our final example shows a device made by Arcadyan Corp which might not make too much sense to you so it will most likely involve taking some extra steps on your part to research the company. Or you can even try a different MAC address lookup site to see if you can get additional information.
If you click on the Arcadyan Corp link on the site, you will be able to see some additional information about that company which may or may not help you find what you are looking for.
You can also do a web search for the company name to see what types of devices they manufacture. For this example, going to the Arcadyan website shows that they make wireless and networking equipment which might help you figure out which device on your network that MAC address belongs to.
As you can see, it’s not too difficult to find what types of devices are on your wireless network by using a MAC address lookup website. This may not be a perfect solution but it’s better than being completely left in the dark regarding what is connected to your home or office network!
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