Is it possible for a device to have two different mac addresses?

[soccerdad]

I wanted to ask if its possible for a smartphone to have two mac addresses? I'm trying to determine a device on my home internet,  but cannot match the MAC address. I have my current smartphone connected,  but its indicating that this device has not been connected in 2 days, and I've matched the MAC address on the system.  What next?

[soccerdad]

Under the internet connection settings, MAC address is listed as randomized. should I leave as is, or switch to phone MAC?

[CHMultimedia · Accepted solution]

If it's randomized, your router will not recognize it as the same device. As, one day your MAC address will be 123456, but since you enabled randomization, the next time you connect it to your router its address will be 789010 or something else like that. By design, randomized address cannot be linked to the same device. So your AP (access point) will think that these are two separate devices.

Some networks have a whitelisting principle in that your MAC must be manually added in said list to allow connection. Those are usually corporate networks or guest networks.

If you need to identify your device on your network, disable randomization

[soccerdad]

Do you recommend to leave as is, or change to the Phone MAC? is there any benefit to having a randomized MAC being generated by the phone?

[CHMultimedia · Accepted solution]

For your home network, yes. Otherwise, no because you can be tracked by your MAC. Don't worry, the default setting on Android is Randomized, even for searching networks. So it's perfectly safe to disable randomization for your home network only.

[soccerdad]

Thank you, I was concerned. Love the prompt responses I get from this forum!

[CHMultimedia]

No problem. You'll get fast responses as long as the notifications are promptly sent by the forum.😉

[Tallman]

I am not sure what you are talking about randomise. MAC address is a unique address that will not change. It is fixed. The MAC address is layer 1 network. In computer laptop, you will have 2 MAC addresses because 1 for LAN and another for Wireless. In Galaxy phone, there are couple MAC addresses, but only one for wireless and the other one is for bluetooth.

So, my understanding is you can have more than 1 MAC address if your device have more than 1 physical device require MAC address, like bluetooth. So when you connect to Router, Router will recognize your device by MAC address.

Example, your Router connect to your ISP MODEM, when you replace a new Router one day, you need to reboot your ISP MODEM because ISP need to regconize your new Router MAC address. So, MAC address will not change and no randomise.

[CHMultimedia]

I suggest you check in Settings/WiFi and check your current WiFi's settings. You'll find a toggle called MAC Address Type. Yours is probably set as Randomized too

[Tallman]

Yes, that is for security purpose. But MAC address is like your house number. 1 Mac address is for 1 physical connection device. Unless technology changed. I know router can blind or clone MAC addresd too. But the basic concept, MAC address is unique address for network in networking. It cannot be change. Randomise feature is from Samsung phone only.