I do not need Private Wi-Fi Address on my home network, but iOS turns it on automatically (fixed) and I don't change it.
Yesterday I noticed that my 14 Pro was sending the physical Wi-Fi MAC address to my router instead of the Private MAC address. It does this on each SSID (I have separate SSIDs for 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz on my router) even though my phone assigns a unique private MAC address to each SSID.
I installed a brand new Wi-Fi extender and set it up as an access point with a new and unique SSID. When I joined my phone to it the first time, the phone sent the physical MAC address to the access point instead of the private one. So it doesn't seem to be working correctly because it is not using the private MAC address despite being turned on by default.
If I turn Private Wi-Fi off and then back on to Fixed, the phone (correctly) sends the private MAC address until the phone leaves the SSID. The next time it rejoins any SSID, it goes back to sending the physical MAC address to my router. My wife has the identical phone and same version of iOS and her phone always sends the private MAC address.
I am wondering if this is a bug or a feature. My phone is "tethered" to an Apple TV, a HomePod mini and a Mac and I was thinking that maybe iOS uses the physical MAC address across my home network to keep everything connected as I change from one SSID to another. But I can't seem to find any info on this and don't have any other theories.
Thoughts? I've restarted the phone and everything is up to date. I do not really want to start resetting things but I am a little concerned that Private Wi-Fi will not work when I am using public Wi-Fi and I would have no way to know which MAC address (physical or private) the phone is broadcasting to the network.
Yesterday I noticed that my 14 Pro was sending the physical Wi-Fi MAC address to my router instead of the Private MAC address. It does this on each SSID (I have separate SSIDs for 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz on my router) even though my phone assigns a unique private MAC address to each SSID.
I installed a brand new Wi-Fi extender and set it up as an access point with a new and unique SSID. When I joined my phone to it the first time, the phone sent the physical MAC address to the access point instead of the private one. So it doesn't seem to be working correctly because it is not using the private MAC address despite being turned on by default.
If I turn Private Wi-Fi off and then back on to Fixed, the phone (correctly) sends the private MAC address until the phone leaves the SSID. The next time it rejoins any SSID, it goes back to sending the physical MAC address to my router. My wife has the identical phone and same version of iOS and her phone always sends the private MAC address.
I am wondering if this is a bug or a feature. My phone is "tethered" to an Apple TV, a HomePod mini and a Mac and I was thinking that maybe iOS uses the physical MAC address across my home network to keep everything connected as I change from one SSID to another. But I can't seem to find any info on this and don't have any other theories.
Thoughts? I've restarted the phone and everything is up to date. I do not really want to start resetting things but I am a little concerned that Private Wi-Fi will not work when I am using public Wi-Fi and I would have no way to know which MAC address (physical or private) the phone is broadcasting to the network.