I purchased the Deco /MESH system in the hope I could see better what my 4 teenagers and their multiple devices were up to. The Virgin Connect App from our ISP had been useless and it itself was being kicked of the Wi-Fi as too many devices online for it to handle bandwidth sharing etc.

Initially impressed with the Deco MESH and signed up for the extra Parental Controls subscription to try and gain any advantage in the management of our children's screentime and device use.

But, the whole system seems to fall apart because of two issues 1) Apple Family Sharing in iOS seems to render screentime and app limits completely irrelevant despite all being set up correctly (not an issue for here) and 2) the safety feature now in iOS of 'Private Wi-Fi Address' which is by default always on allocates a new MAC address every time the device re-logs on to the network.

So, despite identifying the device, naming it and allocating it to a child's profile on the Deco App- next time it logs on it shows up as 'phone' with no controls in place. The phone itself seems to re-toggle to activate this by default each time it joins. The teenagers certainly know this trick now too.

If I block the known device I have identified, I get asked to 'block this phone also with similar features' when it re-joins with a new MAC address, but this required lots of input from me and only works if I'm trying to block the whole device - not just manage screentime and set bed times etc.....

Am I missing something here? Is there a setting I can change to auto-allocate these new 'phones' back to the known device/MAC Address and allocated limits?

Thanks