iPhone Device Name on Router

How can you see your iPhone device on your wireless home router in the Attached Devices screen?

DHCP automatically assigns IP addresses that are wirelessly connected to the router. It is sometimes desirable to be able to read a person's iPhone Device name on a home router "Attached Devices" screen, but sometimes the name doesn't show up (just a blank or a hyphen).

SOLUTION: The router was setup to acquire device names, including NETBIOS names.

The individual iPhone Device Name is setup in Settings > General > About > Name.

Two things to keep in mind:

1) BEST PRACTICE: Keep the name as simple and as generic as possible (for your router). Do not use a period, underscore, or a hyphen in a NetBIOS name. Apostrophe's are illegal in DNS hostnames - avoid them.

For compatibility with the router, I recommend you *ONLY* use letters A-Z and numbers 0-9, 3 to 15 characters max; and it can't be all numbers to be a legal NETBIOS name. Simple, simple, simple.

2) Navigate to Settings > Wi-Fi > ["Wi-Fi name"] and look for "Private Address" to see if it is turned on.

When Private Address is turned on, it will deliberately NOT broadcast the iPhone's name back to the router - this is the whole point of having the Private Address turned on - so no one can easily see it is you. This has the unfortunate but intentional side-effect of not listing the iPhone in your home router. If you want to see the device's name in the home router, turn off the Private Address switch, turn off and then on your Wi-Fi connection. Now the name will appear on the Attached Devices screen.

(Most of the use of my phone is on the home Wi-Fi anyway). If you want privacy on a large network away from home, turn it back on.