Who’s online: see every device on your network, and get told when one comes or goes

Your network isn’t just your Mac. Phones, TVs, speakers, printers and smart plugs all share it, and some talk a lot. Who’s online shows you who’s there and lets you keep an eye on the ones that matter to you.

See who’s there

1. Click Who’s online at the top of the World map. The button shows how many devices are online now.
2. Each device shows a type icon (Mac, laptop, phone, tablet, TV, speaker, printer, router, smart home), its maker, and its address on your network.
3. Click Name… to give it a name you’ll recognise, such as “Living-room TV” or “David’s MacBook”. You can also change its type if FireAI guessed wrong.

Get told when a device comes or goes

Turn on Watch next to a device and FireAI sends a Mac notification when it joins your network (“David’s MacBook is back online”) or leaves it. Handy to know a family member got home, a teenager’s phone is on the Wi-Fi at 2 a.m., or an unfamiliar device just appeared.

How FireAI knows

• It reads the list of neighbours your Mac already keeps (the ARP table), once a minute. No scanning, no probing, no packets sent to your devices.
• The maker comes from the official IEEE registry of network-hardware makers, built into FireAI. No lookup goes out to the internet.
• The type is a best guess from the device’s maker and, if you turn on “Look up device names” (off by default, because it asks your DNS server — usually your router — for each device’s name), the name the device gives itself. You can always correct it.

On a network you don’t trust, Coffee Shop Armor and AirDrop Shield keep your Mac from being an easy target for the devices around you.