This may sound paranoid, but I think one of my neighbors might be on my Wi-Fi.
For the last week my internet has felt weirdly slow at night. Netflix buffers, my phone randomly takes forever to load stuff, and my router app sometimes shows more connected devices than I can explain. I live in an apartment building, so there are a ton of networks around me, and I’m starting to wonder if someone got my password somehow. Is there a simple way to see what devices are actually connected to my Wi-Fi?
If your router app isn’t stuck in 2005, actually open it and look at the connected devices. But please, don’t have a meltdown when you see weird names. Your gadgets aren’t exactly tech-savvy; they love hiding behind names like “unknown”, “android-xyz,” or some random Chinese microchip factory. Your smart plugs, forgotten printer, and even your toothbrush are already making that list a total mess.
If you’ve got an iPhone, you can check right from it. NetSpot for iOS has a Device Discovery feature that’s pretty handy for this. Just connect your iPhone to your Wi‑Fi, open Device Discovery, and run a scan. It’ll show devices that are currently on the same network, and for each one you can usually see things like IP address, MAC address, device name (if available), vendor/brand, and sometimes the device type. You can also ping devices from there to see if they respond. It won’t straight up tell you “this is your neighbor,” but it makes it much easier to notice something that clearly isn’t yours, like a random TV, phone, camera, or some unknown device you can’t match to anything in your place.
Change your Wi-Fi password to something that isn’t your pet’s name if you’re actually worried. But 9 times out of 10, it’s just your own smart lightbulbs or your phone using a randomized MAC address for privacy.
@man_from_Dallas Ouch, okay, fair enough. But what about the slow speeds at night? That’s not my toothbrush downloading updates.
You live in an apartment building. Everyone uses the internet at night. It’s likely your internet service provider is overloaded, or your router is struggling to handle the busy Wi-Fi channel. NetSpot for Android or desktop allows you to check which channels your neighbors are using. Switch your router to 5 GHz or 6 GHz and stop using 2.4 GHz if you haven’t already.