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Pausing devices not working

MaureenE
Community Member

Our set up at home is modem connected with ethernet to google router connected to splitter by ethernet cable and then my sons laptop is connected to the splitter by an ethernet cable. The Wi-Fi scheduling pause only works if I turn off his ethernet access setting in his computer which then causes lag in his games.  Since everything is going through the Google router first I don’t understand why the pause isn’t working.

3 REPLIES 3

olavrb
Platinum Product Expert
Platinum Product Expert

Wi-Fi and ethernet are two different interfaces, each with unique identifiers known as MAC addresses. Nest Wifi sees the wireless card and ethernet plug as two different devices. So pausing Wi-Fi does not affect ethernet.

What makes matters even worse, is that modern OS-es (Windows, MacOS, Android, iOS) randomizes the MAC address for greater privacy protection (harder to track) by default. This breaks parental controls, such as pausing, because the MAC address you specify will change next time the device connects to the network.

Due to this MAC randomization thing, controlling devices from a network point of view is not practical anymore. I replied to a previous thread about what alternatives you could look into, see:


I don't work for Google.

MaureenE
Community Member

Thanks! That was the solution, greatly appreciate your help.

Jeff
Community Specialist
Community Specialist

Hi, MaureenE.

Thanks for coming back and letting us know what resolved this for you. As we have our answer, I'll go ahead and close up the thread. If you need anything else going forward, please feel free to open a new thread.

Thanks!