Apple Watch Wifi keeps reverting to private address

I tried to get an update on the ticket via the support chat yesterday. Unfortunately, the support agent was unable to get my inquiry to the department where the ticket was escalated to. Instead I learned, that the only way to get an update was to have another phone call that I am lacking to time for. In addition, given the previous communication with the support, I am afraid to have to go through the whole bug description again.

The problem for us here is that we are in two niches here:

-People with multiple access points and the same ssid

-People that actually care about the correct/standard compliant use of mac addresses

Both these niches will prevent the bug from getting enough attention.

Patrick

Thanks for escalating the issue with Apple. I have the exact same problem with multiple Apple watches in the family connecting to our home router.

I do not have the situation of multiple access points sharing the same SSID. Instead I have that one router (D-Link) create multiple wifi networks, each with its own SSID.

My Apple Watch series 6 has this problem too. It continually reverts to private address in the settings for my home wifi on the watch. NO OTHER APPLE DEVICE does this, they all have private address turned off in the settings for the exact same wifi network. In the end, I think I will just not bother turning it off, sometimes I have to do this twice a day as otherwise it shows up in my unifi ap logs as being denied access.

Same reasons as everyone else here and in other threads -- we NEED to know who and what is connecting to our wifi networks for security reasons.

Had to laugh at the Apple rep's reply tho, how they came to that conclusion of what we're needing is beyond comprehension.

I'm afraid, the only remaining chance to get Apple's (and I'm not talking about the "community specialists" here) attention is to create more support tickets or to find any standard that Apple violates with their ingenious idea of inventing mac addresses.

This is another case of it is Apple's way or the highway. As a network admin I would be seething at this feature continually being re-enabled because you need the device to be from a real address and not be changing either as the device roams across various access points in the workplace or home -- I wonder if Apple have ever heard of access lists, MAC address filters and the likes. Perhaps not. Or if they have, then they arrogantly think that everybody needs to adjust to their thinking/mentality without considering some of the reasons things are the way they are to begin with. I support them having the feature but for the love of humanity, please ensure that if a user NEEDS it to be turned off, it turns off and stays off!

I’m sad to say I have the same problem with my Series 7 and Series 3. The 3 I’ve had for years and it didn’t have this problem an update in 2022. Like others, my iPhones and iPad, and MacBooks don’t have this issue, and I have 3 APs transmitting 3 SSIDs. Sure enough, every three days or so my watch is back on a private MAC address instead of its native address. Very aggravating!

I am also having this issue. I have multiple APs all broadcasting the same SSIDs, as others have stated.

Oddly enough, in addition to private address turning itself on, my Watch also doesn't automatically connect to Wi-Fi. The other day, I was cooking in the kitchen. My iPhone in the other room ran out of battery. Watch never switched to Wi-Fi. I happened to glance at it and saw the red crossed-out iPhone icon indicating my iPhone and Watch weren't connected.

I opened settings and re-connected the Watch to my Wi-Fi network. All I had to do was tap on the network name and it connected, so clearly it is remembering the network; however, I also noticed it had ONCE AGAIN turned on private address.

Later, after charging my iPhone up, I turned it off to mimic try and replicate the issue. Sure enough-- Watch didn't switch over to Wi-Fi automatically (gave it 5 minutes). I was able to connect manually via the Watch settings, and private address was turned on again.

This is a house full of Macs, iPads, iPhones, Watches, Apple TVs, HomePods, etc. No other device is having this issue of failing to connect to Wi-Fi automatically, and none of them where Private Address is an option are having that setting reset itself.

[Edited by Moderator] 

I have exactly both of these issues.

1) Watch reverts to private address every few days.

2) Watch does not auto join known WiFi SSID in exactly the same manner as BlakeAU says above.

Watch series 7 with watchos 8.7 and multiple APs all broadcasting the same ssid.

I have the same issue:

2 access points (Meraki MR33 and Ubiquiti AP), same SSIDs broadcast, different channels.

Apple Watch routinely drops WiFi connectivity without automatically rejoining. After manually joining the wireless network, I have to turn off Private Address.

it’s very frustrating for the same points made previously by others.

I've upgrade my iPhone and Apple Watch to the latest developer betas and this issue still occurs.

Same problem Series 7 \ 8.7

1) Apple Watch does re-enable "Private Network / MAC" feature automatically after disabling it manually

2) Apple Watch is changing the "Private Network / MAC" when connected to Home-WiFi networks

3) Apple Watch does not reestablish a network connection automatically. When forced by manually connect, then a new MAC will be generated

No, this did not work.

I resetted my Watch S7 already to factory defaults and configured it as new watch (did not use a backup) without success.

In my case the watch generates a fresh Mac every 1-2 weeks or stops connecting to WiFi (UniFi network with multiple APs).

I can confirm I’m experiencing the same issue. I have multiple VLANs with different SSIDs.

What makes this even more frustrating, is that I’m ok if the watch only connects to one of the SSID, but if I click on “forget this network”, after some time the watch looks at the stored networks on iCloud and gets the credentials and starts doing this again.

Then I get dozens of logs on my network of different addresses trying to connect, connecting for a few minutes and then dropping the connection. But the watch doesn’t get a successful internet connection so it tries to connect to different networks.

It’s very frustrating and I’m at the point of deleting all the networks from all my Apple devices

Nope. I'm on 9.0 20R361 and both my Watch Series 7 and my old Series 6 have the same two issues discussed above:

a) not automatically reconnecting to know WiFi networks and

b) reenabling private WiFi address every few days.

I too have multiple APs (same SSID) in my home.

It's really annoying. :(

Darn.

For the record. This problem has persisted for me even before private wifi was a thing. I’ve had since series 5 from new. Since then I’ve changed watch, iPhone and home router systems and the problem persists.

Currently using series 8, iPhone 13 and ASUS zenwifi. Still have issues.

I currently have an open ticket with apple engineering for this issue. I have shared this thread with them and they should be looking at it today. Hopefully they can flag the bug for a future update.

if anyone has any further feedback on the issue post it now.