An Apple device update may have an effect on your in-home WiFi experience and the ability to automatically sign in to WiFi Hotspots on iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watches. It may also impact some of your settings in Xfinity xFi.
What's changing
In order to communicate with a WiFi network, a mobile device identifies itself using a unique network address called a media access control (MAC) address. A new Private Address setting that was released to your mobile device’s operating system could alter the way the MAC address behaves on your device.
If the setting is enabled on your device, the MAC address of that device will change for each WiFi network you connect to. For instance, when you connect to your 2.4G Hz network SSID, the device will have one MAC address, and the MAC address will change when you connect to your 5 GHz network SSID.
How it may affect you
Your device automatically connects to your private home Xfinity WiFi network because the network remembers its MAC address. Since your device’s MAC address may now change, your network may no longer recognize it. As a result, your device could connect to a public Xfinity WiFi Hotspot within your home (“xfinitywifi” or “XFINITY”) instead of your private home WiFi network. This may also have an impact on your ability to automatically connect to these hotspots. With this setting turned on, you will be asked to sign in with your Xfinity ID and password if you haven’t signed in to Xfinity WiFi hotspots in six weeks or more.
Additionally, because your private home WiFi network may no longer recognize your device, you could find that certain xFi features like profiles and parental controls are no longer working as expected.
What to do
Connect to your private home WiFi
While our public Xfinity WiFi Hotspots offer a fast, reliable connection to the internet, we want you to enjoy the faster speeds and full experience of your private home WiFi connection. All you need to do to connect to your home’s private WiFi network is:
- Go into the settings on your mobile device.
- Select WiFi.
- Choose your home network.
Connect to Xfinity WiFi Hotspots
Our public Xfinity WiFi Hotspots offer a fast, reliable connection to the internet, and if the Mac Randomization feature is not turned on, our Xfinity WiFi hotspots will remember the device and automatically sign you in when in range. If you have the Mac Randomization feature turned on, you will be asked to sign in with your Xfinity ID and password if you haven’t accessed the network in six weeks or more.
Xfinity xFi impacts
If you have Xfinity X1, all of your xFi features, including Parental Controls, operate off your home WiFi. This device setting update may impact some other features as well. As a result, you may need to:
- Sign in to the Xfinity app or online.
- Identify your device and reassign it to the correct profile, if needed.
- If your device is listed twice in xFi, you’ll need to remove the original device from xFi and keep the duplicate.
Xfinity Mobile impacts
Xfinity Mobile devices have the Private Address setting defaulted to off for Xfinity WiFi Hotspots and therefore, are not impacted by these changes unless the Private Address setting is changed.
If the setting is changed to on, the device may not automatically connect to public Xfinity WiFi Hotspots because they may no longer recognize the device’s MAC address. As a result, as an Xfinity Mobile customer you may experience higher cellular data usage and charges, depending on your data use and data option selection.
If the Private Address setting is turned on, you will not be able to connect to secure Xfinity WiFi Hotspots (“XFINITY”). If you wish to connect to the public Xfinity WiFi Hotspot “xfinitywifi” while the setting is on, go to the settings on your mobile device, select WiFi, choose “xfinitywifi” and sign in with your Xfinity ID.
Additional impacts
Very few customers may notice additional impacts, such as their DMZ and/or port forwarding rules being broken as a result of the updated device settings. To resolve these issues, disable and then re-enable DMZ and/or delete the port forwarding rule and then re-create it.
Need more help?
If you need more help or have additional questions, contact us.