Easiest way to check/keep track of who's using your Wifi connection?

ash777 wrote: »

I'm not a computer expert, so I'd really appreciate it it someone could let me know the easiest and most straight forward way to check/keep track of who's using your Wifi connection?

For the non-technical person, the easiest way would be to change your wi-fi password, and see who complains that the WiFi isn't working for them any more!


Beyond that, the administration pages on your WiFi router may give you some information about what devices are currently connected. But some routers will only show you the MAC address of these devices, some will show you some more information, like the manufacturer, or even the device name. If you want to, you can usually block access to any device that you don't pre-approve, but that's not practical if you regularly have guests that you allow to connect.

On most consumer setups, that's about the limit of the information that you'll have available. You would need to step up a level, heardware wise, to get more control in most cases.

you can set it up so that only certain devices can connect

you'd need the mac addresses for all them devices though

Bayberry wrote: »

On most consumer setups, that's about the limit of the information that you'll have available. You would need to step up a level, heardware wise, to get more control in most cases.

I should point out that is often possible to replace the stock firmware on consumer routers with firmware from some open-source projects like DD-WRT or Tomato. One of the reasons that people do this is so that they can download and install tools that do all sorts of things, including tools that do exactly what you're talking about here - monitor and keep track of the bandwidth used by individual devices on the network.

If your wifi router is supplied by your ISP, that might not be an option, but if you have your own router in front of a cable modem, for instance, that might be upgradable (or you could spend €35 and set up a separate monitored network).

Getting DD-WRT itself up and running is usually pretty straightforward, if you have a basic familiarity with home networking. Setting up scripts like Yamon can range from easy-peasy to rocket science, (and the people who find it easy often don't write great how-tos for the rest of us), so don't take this as a recommendation to do this, just a pointer that it is possible, for a small outlay of cash, and an undetermined amount of time/effort/sweat/tears.

What are you trying to check? What problem are you trying to solve?

If it is *who* is using it, then as advised in the first post check out your router configuration page and it will give you the MAC addresses of the devices which are connecting. Depending on the way it's configured it will likely also give you the host name which will give you a reasonable pointer. For example, you could have something like this - "ed12 ac23 ....... Bobs iPhone, bcde 43db . . . . Motorola Moto G, etc . . . ."

If you know that you are Bob and you have an iPhone, then you have just identified the first one. If your housemate has a Moto G then you have identified the second.

If you already know your housemate is using it and you don't want them to then just change the password as mentioned in the first post.

If you want to know how much they are using then . . . it's not straight forward, but it's possible. Or save yourself a whole load of effort and just tell them you are going to start charging them.

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