How to Block Devices from Your Home Network

Not every device connected to your network is one you want using up your bandwidth. If you find yourself in a situation where you want to deny online access to your leeching neighbor (I don’t care how good her pumpkin pie is!), ungrateful roommates (now they will have time to actually clean the place) or just a random unknown device, you can block them using the MAC Address Filter.

The Media Access Control (MAC) Filter can be used to create a list of allowed devices or a list of blocked devices. First things first, you will need to know the MAC address of the devices you want to allow or block.  Now that you have the MAC address of the device you want to allow or block, let’s get started.

While connected to your wireless network, open up your router’s settings by typing 192.168.0.1 in the address bar of any web browser. Log in with your admin username and password (you should have created these when you initially set up your router. If you have forgotten this information, you will need to reset your device and log in with default account info).

1.  Click on the ‘ADVANCED’ tab

2. From the left-hand menu, select ‘NETWORK FILTER’ or ‘MAC ADDRESS FILTER’ (label depends on router model)

3. From the main drop-down menu you can choose to allow access only to the devices on the list or to block the devices – for the remainder of these steps let’s assume you are trying to block a device

4.  Enter the MAC Address of the device you want to block. If you do not know the MAC address but the device in question is currently connected to your network, select the name of the device from the DHCP Client List and click the << button to copy the MAC Address.

     5. Select ‘Save Settings’ from the top menu and once complete all devices entered will be blocked from accessing your network.