Who is on my Wi-Fi? How to see every device on your network from Android
A phone can list what answered on your network. It cannot list who.
Install Pingo on an Android phone, join the Wi-Fi you want to look at, and run a scan from the Devices tab. Pingo sweeps the range your phone is on and lists every address that answers, headlined by the best name that device reports about itself. That is a list of things, not people: a name is what a device broadcasts, and Pingo never attaches a person to it.
The list is also not a guarantee of completeness. A device that was asleep, or that ignores the sweep entirely, does not answer and is not in the count. The app says so rather than implying the network is fully mapped.
Steps in Pingo
- Open the Devices tab from the bottom navigation bar.
- The tab holds two views, Networks and Devices. Stay on Devices.
- Tap Scan again to sweep the network. If Pingo has not looked at all, because checking on its own is switched off in Settings, that button reads Scan now instead.
- Rows arrive as each address answers. A row still resolving reads Identifying and stays hatched, because Pingo will not print a name while the lookup is running.
- Use the search field above the list, hinted Search name, IP or vendor, to narrow it.
- Tap a row to open that device record: its address, its hardware address where Android reports one, how it is connected, its signal, and when Pingo first logged it.
- Scroll below the list and tap Scan history to open SCAN HISTORY, the saved scans for this network.
Reading the result honestly
Once a network has been scanned before, the list carries a SINCE YOUR LAST SCAN strip that reads NO CHANGES, or tags counting what is new and what is gone. Newness can only be answered where a hardware address is visible, and Android hides another device's hardware address on most modern phones. Where Pingo's record for a network is filed under the names devices reported instead, it says so and calls nothing new, because a renamed device cannot be told from a new one.
On a single device record the hardware address is shown hatched and stated as hidden by Android, rather than left blank. First seen is described as when Pingo first logged the device, which is not when the device joined the network.
What Pingo can and cannot tell you here
What it can tell you
- Every address that answered the sweep, with the name, vendor or model each device reports.
- The full record for one device: address, connection, signal, when Pingo first logged it, and open ports once you run that scan.
- What is new or gone since the last saved scan of the same network, where a hardware address makes that answerable.
- A saved history of past scans of this network, kept on the phone.
What it cannot
- Who a device belongs to. Pingo names devices by what they report, never people.
- A guarantee the list is complete. A sleeping device, or one that ignores the sweep, is not in it, and that is not proof either way.
- Another device's hardware address on most modern Android versions. It is shown hatched, never filled in.
- Anything about blocking. Pingo offers no way to block or remove a device, because a phone cannot block another device.
Related tools
The full tool list has the Network map, Find a device by name, Scan another subnet and the per-device checks that sit behind this screen.