NirSoft offers Wireless Network Watcher, a free tool. Once launched, it scans your local network and lists any wireless internet-connected devices. The program is compact, portable, and requires no installation.
Wireless Network Watcher is available for free download, as is all of the author’s software.
If you wish to transmit a file via AirDrop but the device you require isn’t shown, make sure it’s detected on the network. Perhaps you suspect that someone has connected to your router and is using your internet connection. When you launch the scanner, all devices and their names appear immediately.
Details:
- After launch, the software displays a table containing all discovered devices.
- Each device shows its IP address, MAC address, and device name. This last portion is especially important when everyone in the family has the same phone, and you need to figure out which of the five iPhones belongs to whom.
- There is a separate properties box where you may pick and copy the appropriate settings to the clipboard; you do not need to enter the MAC address manually.
- IT professionals can export data to HTML reports, which are useful for auditing a company network and documenting which devices were found.
The interface is archaic, and the software appears to be from the Windows XP period, but for a utility of this nature, this is unimportant. NirSoft is well-known for developing modest, useful programs that are unobtrusive in appearance yet do their functions well. Incidentally, all NirSoft utilities are portable and inexpensive.
A related application, Advanced IP Scanner, is more capable and can not only scan but also connect to devices via RDP, administer them remotely, and turn them off. Angry IP Scanner is likewise free and cross-platform, supporting Windows and other operating systems. It has capabilities comparable to this application, but it requires Java.
