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Network Sentinel — Source library

Public documentation snapshot: 2026-10-17

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Home network monitoring: see which devices join your home or small-office network

Network Sentinel is home network monitoring software that keeps a device inventory and alerts you when an unfamiliar device appears. Review device history and choose which changes deserve your attention.

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Home network monitoring: see which devices join your home or small-office network

Know what just joined your network.

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Home network monitoring: see which devices join your home or small-office network

A running record of every device on your network, and an alert the moment something new joins.

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Home network monitoring: see which devices join your home or small-office network

Built for: A small-business owner who runs the office Wi-Fi and has no IT department · A homeowner with forty connected things and no idea what half of them are · An IT consultant or managed-service provider keeping an eye on several client sites · A clinic, law office or shop where client records sit on the same flat network as the thermostat

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Available in app stores

Public listings checked October 7, 2026. See the store for current price, requirements and regional availability.

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Available in app stores

Network Sentinel · Android — Paid app; connected service separate. Local scans can miss quiet or isolated devices. Connected inventory and alerts need a configured service and access key.

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Available in app stores

Browse all 22 public Windows and Android apps

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Identify an unfamiliar device on your network

Build a device inventory. Review the devices, names, first-seen times and network segments available to the watcher. One watcher covers one network segment; deployment is supervised.

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Identify an unfamiliar device on your network

Compare the device history. Check arrivals and departures against devices you recognize. A privacy-rotated address may not identify a manufacturer, so confirm the device before drawing conclusions.

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Identify an unfamiliar device on your network

Decide what to do on your own equipment. Sentinel observes and alerts. Its blocked label is an inventory label; it does not disconnect or quarantine a device. Change access on your router or network equipment when appropriate.

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Identify an unfamiliar device on your network

The current access route requires a deployment and an issued credential. Review the screenshots and setup limits below for a home, small office or separate client site.

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Identify an unfamiliar device on your network

Read the complete workflow · Explore all features · Read the questions and limitations

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Network Sentinel exists because of this.

You know the Wi-Fi password. You do not know what is using it. Somewhere between the phones, the TV, the doorbell camera, the printer nobody has touched since 2021, the thermostat, two tablets, a game console and whatever the last contractor connected, your network filled up with things you never wrote down.

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Network Sentinel exists because of this.

Open the router’s admin page and you get a list of numbers and half-names: android-8f2c, ESP_A41B, four blank rows, and an address you have never seen before. That is not an answer. That is homework, and it is homework you only ever do at the worst possible time.

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Network Sentinel exists because of this.

And the moment is always a bad one. Something unfamiliar shows up in the list and you cannot tell whether it is the new smart plug your partner set up or someone sitting in the parking lot. A tenant moves out and you have no idea which of the twelve unknowns was theirs, so you change the password, break the printer, and learn nothing.

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Network Sentinel exists because of this.

A client or an insurer asks what is connected to the network their records live on, and the honest answer is "I would have to go and look" — and looking gives you a snapshot from thirty seconds ago. It tells you nothing about the laptop that appears for ten minutes every Tuesday night and is gone before you check again.

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Network Sentinel exists because of this.

It tells you nothing about the camera that quietly stopped reporting three weeks ago. The tools that solve this properly were built for companies with a security team. They assume a budget, a rack, a person whose whole job this is, and a willingness to put something inside your network that can also cut devices off it — which means a false alarm stops being a confusing row on a screen and starts being the front desk phone going dead during business hours.

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Network Sentinel exists because of this.

For a six-person office, a rental property, a clinic, or a house with too many gadgets, that is the wrong size of answer. And "we will just be careful" is not an answer at all.

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Network Sentinel exists because of this.

It does not cut devices off your network, and the reasoning is written down rather than implied — a false alarm costs you a confusing row, never an outage

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Network Sentinel exists because of this.

The one control that sounds like enforcement is labelled, on the control itself, as a label only — the product refuses to imply a power it does not have

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Network Sentinel exists because of this.

Identity is graded by source, so a strong fact from your own network equipment is never overwritten by a weak guess from a scan

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Network Sentinel exists because of this.

It marks privacy-rotated addresses as private instead of printing a manufacturer name that sounds right and is wrong

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Network Sentinel exists because of this.

Alerts carry a delivery record — status, attempt count and last error per alert — not just a record that something was raised

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Network Sentinel exists because of this.

The device’s actual observed history is rendered above the control that changes its status, so you cannot label a device you have never really looked at

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Network Sentinel exists because of this.

Backups are proven by restoring one through the real software and re-reading known records, not by checking a file exists and parses

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Home network monitoring, from device inventory to alerts

Network Sentinel keeps a running, honest record of what is on your network — what each thing is, when it showed up, when it left, and whether that should concern you. You connect one small always-on computer to the network you want watched: a Raspberry Pi 5, or any small Linux machine you already have.

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Home network monitoring, from device inventory to alerts

It looks on a schedule, records what it sees, and reports in on every cycle, including the quiet ones, so silence itself becomes a signal rather than a blind spot. The first ten minutes on a new watcher are treated as a baseline, so setting it up fills in your inventory instead of firing an alert for every device you already own.

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Home network monitoring, from device inventory to alerts

The work that makes this useful is naming. A raw scan gives you addresses; Sentinel turns them into devices. It matches hardware addresses against the public manufacturer registry, held on your own watcher and refreshed every seven days, so a number becomes "Google" or "HP".

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Home network monitoring, from device inventory to alerts

It resolves the name a device publishes for its own address. It listens for the names printers, streaming boxes, phones and speakers already broadcast to the local network by design — which is how "a4:83:e7:..." becomes "Dana’s Printer". And it can read your own network equipment’s list of who joined, read-only, so a device gets the name it actually supplied at the door.

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Home network monitoring, from device inventory to alerts

Those four sources are ranked against each other, and a weaker guess is never allowed to overwrite a stronger fact. Where it genuinely cannot know — a modern phone rotating a private address to avoid being tracked — it says so and marks the device private, rather than inventing a manufacturer that sounds convincing and is wrong.

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Home network monitoring, from device inventory to alerts

Then you give each device a standing instruction, once, from a list of seven: unreviewed, trusted, important, watch, guest, ignored, or blocked. That instruction decides what is worth interrupting you for.

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Home network monitoring, from device inventory to alerts

Sentinel raises an alert when a device it has never seen joins; when a device you have not reviewed yet, or one you marked watch or guest, comes back after being away; when a device you marked important drops offline; and when the watcher itself goes dark — because a monitor that quietly dies is worse than no monitor at all. "Blocked" is the one instruction that does less than its name suggests, and the product says so on the control itself: it is a label on your own inventory, not an action on your network.

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Home network monitoring, from device inventory to alerts

Alerts reach you as push notifications on an Android phone, and can also be posted to a system of your own — a chat channel, a ticket queue, your own tooling — signed with a shared secret so the receiving end can confirm the message really came from your Sentinel.

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Home network monitoring, from device inventory to alerts

Delivery is not assumed. A failed delivery is retried with widening gaps, from thirty seconds up to a one-hour ceiling, given up on after eight attempts, and then kept visible as a failure rather than vanishing. You can look at any alert and see whether it actually arrived, how many attempts it took, and what the last error was.

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Home network monitoring, from device inventory to alerts

Because it is always watching, you get history rather than a moment. Every device carries when it was first seen, when it was last seen, every name and address it has used, and a session log of its comings and goings per network.

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Home network monitoring, from device inventory to alerts

That matters most right before you make a decision: when you open a device to change its standing instruction, the screen shows you what it actually did first — how many times it was observed and by which sources, every name it has gone by, and up to ten recent arrivals and departures with times — above the control that changes its status, not hidden behind a tab.

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Home network monitoring, from device inventory to alerts

When someone else needs the picture, any credential from read-only upward can produce the full inventory as a PDF. Access is deliberately narrow. There are four levels — read-only, operator, administrator, owner — so the bookkeeper who just needs to look is not handed the keys to everything.

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Home network monitoring, from device inventory to alerts

Signing in trades a credential once for a short-lived pass rather than parking a permanent key in a browser, a leaked credential can be switched off on its own without restarting anything, and every change is written to an append-only record of who did what, to what, and from where.

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Home network monitoring, from device inventory to alerts

Runtime data is archived automatically every six hours, encrypted because two of those files are credentials — and, this is the part most products skip, the archives are proven by actually restoring one back through the real software and re-reading known records, not by checking that a file exists and parses.

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Home network monitoring, from device inventory to alerts

One thing Sentinel will not do, and this is a decision rather than a gap: it does not disconnect, quarantine, or block anything. The connections it makes to your own network equipment are read-only by construction. The moment a monitoring product can remove a device from a network, a false positive stops being a misleading row and becomes an outage during business hours.

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Home network monitoring, from device inventory to alerts

Sentinel observes, records, and tells you. What to do about it stays yours.

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Everything in the current release.

Each of these is built and working today. Nothing on this list is a roadmap item.

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A small box that watches all the time

Connect one low-cost always-on computer — a Raspberry Pi 5, or a small Linux machine you already have — to the network you want watched. It looks on a schedule, records what it sees, and reports in on every cycle, including cycles where nothing changed, so silence itself is a signal rather than a blind spot. The first ten minutes are treated as a baseline, so setting it up populates your inventory instead of firing an alert for every device you already own.

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Names instead of numbers

Sentinel turns raw addresses into recognisable devices four different ways: the public manufacturer registry, held on your own watcher and refreshed every seven days; the name a device publishes for its own address; the names printers, streaming boxes, phones and speakers already broadcast to the local network by design; and your own network equipment’s record of who joined. Those sources are ranked against each other, and a weaker guess is never allowed to overwrite a stronger fact.

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Ask the router instead of guessing

Sentinel can read the list of joined clients from a UniFi controller, or from a gateway that keeps a standard address-lease list — which covers OpenWrt and most OPNsense and pfSense setups. That gives you the name each device supplied when it joined, which no amount of scanning can recover. The connection is read-only by construction: nothing in it can change a setting, alter a reservation, or drop a client, and it is meant to be pointed at a dedicated read-only account with nothing else attached.

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It says "private" instead of guessing wrong

Modern phones and laptops rotate a private hardware address specifically so they cannot be tracked across networks. Plenty of tools cheerfully print a manufacturer name for those anyway, and it is fiction. Sentinel marks them private and withholds the attribution. The one exception is your own network equipment: if the gear the device actually associated with reports a vendor, that is a fact from the door rather than a guess from the address, so it is allowed through.

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Every device gets a standing instruction

Set each device once, and that instruction decides what wakes you. Unreviewed is the starting point and alerts when the device returns. Trusted is normal monitoring. Important means tell me if it drops. Watch and Guest mean tell me every time it comes back. Ignored means keep the history and stop talking to me about it.

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Every device gets a standing instruction

Blocked is a label on your own inventory only, and the control says so in plain words rather than implying a power the product does not have. You can also record a name, an owner, a room and a device type, so six months later the inventory reads like your building rather than like a scan.

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Four alerts worth interrupting you for

A device nobody has ever seen joined the network. A device you have not reviewed yet, or one you flagged watch or guest, came back after being away. A device you marked important went offline. Or the watcher itself went dark. That is the whole list, on purpose. An alert stream that fires on everything is one nobody reads by week three.

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Alerts that arrive, and prove it

Alerts land as push notifications on an Android phone, and can also be posted to a system of your own — a chat channel, a ticket queue, your own tooling — signed with a shared secret so the receiving end can verify they genuinely came from your Sentinel.

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Alerts that arrive, and prove it

Raising an alert is the easy half; delivering it is where systems quietly fail. A failed delivery is retried with widening gaps, from thirty seconds up to a one-hour ceiling, given up on after eight attempts, and kept visible as a failure rather than disappearing.

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Alerts that arrive, and prove it

You can look at any alert and see whether it arrived, how many attempts it took, and what the last error was.

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History, not a snapshot

Every device carries when it was first seen, when it was last seen, every name and address it has used, and a session log of arrivals and departures per network. That is what turns "there is an unknown device" into "that unknown device has appeared for twenty minutes every weekday morning since March" — which is a completely different conversation, and usually a much calmer one.

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The evidence is on screen before the decision is

When you open a device to change how it is treated, Sentinel shows you what it actually did first — how many times it was observed and by which sources, every name it has gone by, and up to ten recent comings and goings with the network, the interface and the times — rendered above the control that changes its status, not behind a tab or a collapsed panel. Deciding a device’s fate from a name, one address and a vendor guess is how good devices get flagged and odd ones get waved through.

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An inventory you can hand to someone

Sentinel produces the current inventory — summary, devices and recent alerts — as a PDF, and read-only access is enough to generate it. In the Android app it is a button that hands the file straight to the normal Android save dialog. It is the document you send to a client who asked what is on the network holding their records, or the one you keep alongside the rest of your paperwork so the next time someone asks, the answer is already written down.

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The least access that does the job

Four access levels — read-only, operator, administrator, owner — so a person who just needs to look never holds the keys to everything. Read-only views the summary, devices, alerts and watcher coverage, and can produce the inventory PDF. Operator adds device edits and alert acknowledgement. Signing in trades a credential once for a short-lived pass instead of parking a permanent key in a browser, one leaked credential can be switched off on its own without restarting anything, and every change is written to an append-only record of who did what, to what, from where.

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Your Windows PC as a second set of eyes

The Windows client does its own scan of the private networks that PC is on and contributes what it finds, which is useful when a segment has no watcher of its own. Turn alerts on and it stays in the system tray, starts with Windows, and raises a desktop notification when something happens; selecting the notification reopens the console. Enabling alerts sets the current alert list as your starting point, so you do not get a flood of old news, and turning them off removes the stored credential and the start-with-Windows setting.

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Backups that have actually been restored

Runtime data is archived automatically every six hours, encrypted — encrypted rather than merely tarred, because two of the files are credentials — and the schedule catches up on its own if the machine was down at the scheduled time. More to the point, a real archive has been decrypted and loaded back through the live software, with known device, alert and watcher records read back intact. A timer proves a script ran. Only a restore proves the bytes are usable.

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It watches. It does not touch.

Sentinel does not disconnect, quarantine, or block a device, and the links to your own network equipment are read-only by construction. This is a decision with the reasoning written down, and with the conditions recorded that would have to be met before it ever changed. The moment a monitoring tool can remove a device from a network, a false positive stops being a misleading row on a screen and becomes your front desk phone going dead at 11am. Sentinel tells you. You decide.

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Numbers we can stand behind.

Every figure below comes from the product's own release record or test suite, not from a marketing estimate.

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Numbers we can stand behind.

No advertising and no analytics anywhere in the phone app, and no third-party device-lookup service ever sees your device list — manufacturer matching runs from a registry held on your own watcher

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Numbers we can stand behind.

The optional authorized-assessment side cannot start at all without a signed, time-limited, network-scoped written authorization, and its credential-behaviour evidence path is built so there is nothing typed to collect — the input fields carry no names and the receiver rejects anything it did not expect

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Worth more together.

Products on this platform share one sign-in, one support queue, and one engineering standard. These pair naturally with Network Sentinel.

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LurkerLock

Sentinel watches the network your machines sit on; LurkerLock watches each Windows PC and Linux server on it for sign-in attacks, new accounts, services and scheduled jobs, and connections to known-bad addresses. Same instinct — detect, record, stay bounded — applied one layer down.

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ASL Scan

Once you know which devices are on the network, Scan is where you check the apps running on them. The natural next question after "what is connected?" is "what is it running?"

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BandSight

Sentinel sees devices that joined your network. BandSight sees radio activity around it — receive-only field visibility for signals that never touch your Wi-Fi at all. It used to ship inside Sentinel and now has its own home.

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SignalLab

For teams who need controlled, authorized radio testing alongside network visibility. Same discipline as Sentinel’s assessment side: nothing runs without written, scoped authorization.

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ASL Vault

Sentinel issues access credentials for its own console; Vault is where those and the rest of your keys live under a single locked store that automation can write to but cannot read.

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Recent progress.

This product ships often. The most recent verified changes, newest first.

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Recent progress.

2026-09-07 Network Sentinel 1.2.4 is on Google Play in English and Spanish for the 172 countries the paid app supports, at the same United States price of 9.99 dollars.

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Recent progress.

2026-09-07 Before submission the signed app passed English and Spanish label and type edits, alert acknowledgement, all six connected tabs, two-page report exports, foreground and background notifications in both languages, and a cold restart. The last month has been about proving the safety net and about the phone.

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Recent progress.

2026-08-05 automatic encrypted archiving of live monitoring data every six hours, then proven by decrypting a real archive and reloading it through the live software — 19 devices, 21 alerts and one watcher read back intact.

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Recent progress.

2026-08-06 access credentials and the session-signing secret were moved into locked-down provisioned files the running software can only read, and the way to rotate the master credential remotely was removed outright — in a security product that is an attack surface, so rotation now takes hands-on access to the machine itself.

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Recent progress.

2026-08-11 BandSight and SignalLab moved out into their own products at their own addresses, and the old paths now redirect there, so Sentinel’s releases are purely about network visibility.

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Recent progress.

2026-08-14 the 0.4.7 Windows installer and the Raspberry Pi 5 and 64-bit Linux watcher bundles were built and released with published checksums; the Windows installer is still unsigned, and that was confirmed by checking the signature on the built file rather than trusting the build log.

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Recent progress.

2026-08-23 the Android client was rebuilt as a genuinely native app (version 1.1.0) covering every screen, role boundaries, alert registration, inventory export, offline behaviour and session survival across a force-stop, with no advertising or analytics.

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Recent progress.

2026-08-24 a standalone on-device scan was added, so the app is useful with no account and no watcher.

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Recent progress.

The Android app is a paid Google Play purchase. It includes a local Wi-Fi scan that needs no account or watcher. Continuous monitoring through an existing deployment needs its own setup and access key; contact us about that service separately.

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My router already shows connected devices. Why do I need this?

A router shows you who is connected right now, under whatever name they supplied, with no memory. Sentinel keeps history: when each device was first and last seen, every name and address it has used, and its arrivals and departures over months. It also tells you when something new joins or something important disappears, instead of waiting for you to open a page and read a list. And it can pull that same list from your router read-only, so you get the router’s own naming plus everything a router will never do.

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What do I have to buy, and how long does setup take?

One small always-on computer per network segment you want watched — typically a Raspberry Pi 5, or any small Linux machine you already have — plus the console credential we issue. Setting up a watcher is a guided run: it checks its own environment first, you confirm which interface and which network it is allowed to watch, and you observe the first scan arriving before continuous monitoring is left running. Plan the first one as a guided session with us rather than an unattended install.

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Where does my network data go? Can you see it?

Your inventory lives in your deployment and is reachable only with a credential we issue to you. Nothing is sent to a third-party device-lookup service — manufacturer matching runs against a public registry held on your own watcher and refreshed every seven days. The phone app contains no advertising and no analytics, and it never reads your Wi-Fi network name, which is why it does not ask for location permission. If you want a fully self-run installation on your own hardware, that is a conversation we are happy to have.

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What happens to my data if we stop?

The inventory, the history and the alert record are yours. You can produce the full inventory as a PDF at any time while you have access, and if you are shutting a deployment down you get the underlying data files. Nothing is held hostage, and nothing about Sentinel requires an ongoing connection to us to keep watching your own network.

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Can it kick an unknown device off my network?

No, and that is deliberate. Sentinel is built so that it cannot disconnect, quarantine or block anything, and its links to your network equipment are read-only. There is a "blocked" setting, and the control itself tells you it is a label on your inventory rather than an action — we would rather write that on the screen than let the word imply something untrue.

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Can it kick an unknown device off my network?

The reasoning is written down: the moment a monitoring tool can remove a device, one wrong identification stops being a confusing row on a screen and becomes your card reader or front desk phone going dead mid-morning. Sentinel tells you what it sees and gives you the history to judge it.

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Can it kick an unknown device off my network?

Blocking stays a decision you make on your own equipment.

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Is it actually ready, or are we the ones finding the problems?

The service has been running publicly since mid-2026, with role-based access, sessions, alert delivery history and phone push all in service. Every release passes more than a hundred automated checks, and a real encrypted archive has been restored through the live software.

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Is it actually ready, or are we the ones finding the problems?

The limits are on this page: no blocking, no organisation separation yet, a few administrator screens still to build, and the separately configured connected service. The first install on your network is done with us.

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We already have a security product. Does this overlap?

Usually not. Most security tools watch traffic leaving your network or protect individual machines. Sentinel answers a different question — what is physically present on this network, since when, and what changed — which is the question you cannot answer from a firewall log or an antivirus dashboard. It also sits happily alongside them, since it only observes and never intervenes.

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Has anyone outside your team tested it?

No. There has been no external audit and no third-party penetration test, and we will not describe our own reviews as either. What we can show you is specific and checkable: what each release was tested against, and a real archive decrypted and restored through the live software.

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Can I just try it from my phone without setting anything up?

Yes. The public Android app includes a local scan on the private Wi-Fi network your phone has joined, without an account or watcher. It lists responding devices and can miss quiet or isolated ones. Connected inventory history and alerts still need a configured Sentinel deployment and access key.

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What should I know before I rely on it?

We would rather you hear this from us than discover it later. As of 2026-09-08:

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What should I know before I rely on it?

Sentinel observes only. It cannot disconnect, quarantine or block a device, and the "blocked" setting is a label on your own inventory until you act on your network yourself — the console says exactly that on the control. This is a deliberate, documented decision, and it is the main thing to weigh before buying.

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What should I know before I rely on it?

One watcher sees one network segment. A separate guest network, a second network segment or a floor on its own switch each needs its own watcher, or a read-only link to network equipment that can see them all.

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What should I know before I rely on it?

The watcher bundles are checksum-verified and the setup is documented; the first install on your network is done with us.

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What should I know before I rely on it?

The read-only link to your network equipment is confirmed against your specific gear as part of setting you up.

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What should I know before I rely on it?

A device using a privacy-rotated address cannot be tied to a manufacturer from the address alone. Sentinel marks it private rather than guessing — unless your own network equipment supplies the answer.

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What should I know before I rely on it?

Everyone holding a credential currently sees the same single inventory. There is no separation into households or client organisations yet, so one deployment per site is the right shape for a consultant managing several clients.

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What should I know before I rely on it?

Signing in is by issued access credential, not per-person company accounts or single sign-on.

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What should I know before I rely on it?

Alerts go to an Android phone and to a system of your choosing. Phone alerts travel through Google’s push service, as all Android notifications do. Posting to your own system is on only when you supply a destination, and signed only when you also set a shared secret. There is no built-in email or SMS channel today.

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What should I know before I rely on it?

A few administrator functions — reading the change record, listing and switching off credentials, reviewing delivery history — work but do not have a screen in the console yet.

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Know what just joined your network.

Prefer email? contact@autosecurelogin.com

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Practical reading

How to Identify an Unfamiliar Network Device

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Practical reading

Compare a device inventory with your router and household devices, document uncertain matches, and understand Network Sentinel’s monitoring limits.

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Practical reading

Check where an Android app sends your data

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Home network monitoring that keeps a history, not just a snapshot

Network Sentinel is home network monitoring for households with dozens of connected things, small offices without IT staff, and consultants watching several client sites. A small always-on computer, such as a Raspberry Pi 5, watches one network segment on a schedule and builds an inventory. Instead of a bare IP address, you see a device name drawn from the manufacturer registry, the names devices broadcast and, optionally, a read-only client list from your router.

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Home network monitoring that keeps a history, not just a snapshot

Your router shows a real-time list with no memory. Sentinel keeps historical data for every device: first and last seen, past names, and each arrival and departure. It alerts you when a never-seen device joins, when one you marked important drops offline, or when the watcher itself goes quiet.

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Home network monitoring that keeps a history, not just a snapshot

It only observes: unlike network monitoring tools that can cut devices off, it cannot block or disconnect anything.

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Home network monitoring that keeps a history, not just a snapshot

Each watcher sees one segment, so a separate guest network needs a second watcher or a read-only feed from equipment that sees it. Your first setup is done with us.

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Home network monitoring that keeps a history, not just a snapshot

How this differs from catching an attack: What Is an Intrusion Detection System?

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Before you choose home network monitoring

Network monitoring solutions do different jobs. Some watch servers and track things like disk space and traffic. Others answer a simpler question: which devices are on my network, and which one is new? Network Sentinel is the second kind.

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Before you choose home network monitoring

Choices range from free and open source projects to well-known products such as PRTG Network Monitor. If you are monitoring your home, ask these questions first:

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Before you choose home network monitoring

What has to stay switched on? Watching all the time needs a device that runs all day.

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Before you choose home network monitoring

Which operating systems does it run on? Check against the computers and phones you own.

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Before you choose home network monitoring

Can it change your network, or only watch? A tool that can cut a device off can also cut off the wrong one.

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Before you choose home network monitoring

How do alerts reach you? By phone app, email, text or something else.

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What Network Sentinel does and does not do

The watcher runs on a Raspberry Pi 5 or a small 64-bit Linux computer. There is also an Android app. A Windows client is available on request. Its installer is not code-signed, so Windows shows an unknown-publisher warning.

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What Network Sentinel does and does not do

Once you have started monitoring, the first ten minutes build your starting list. You are not flooded with alerts for devices you already own.

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What Network Sentinel does and does not do

Alerts go to an Android phone as push notifications, or to a system of your own. There is no email or text alert.

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What Network Sentinel does and does not do

Your device list is not sent to an outside lookup service. Maker names come from a public registry kept on your own watcher.

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What Network Sentinel does and does not do

It only watches. To block a device, you change settings on your own router. The FTC explains how to secure your home Wi-Fi .

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What Network Sentinel does and does not do

The Android app is a paid Google Play purchase, with a local Wi-Fi scan that needs no account. Continuous monitoring with a watcher needs its own setup and access key; contact us about that service. Your first setup is done with us.

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Home network monitoring vs business monitoring tools

Business monitoring tools watch servers, bandwidth, disk space and uptime. Many price their plans by sensors, where each sensor is one check. PRTG Network Monitor’s free edition , for example, allows up to 100 sensors.

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Home network monitoring vs business monitoring tools

Monitoring your home network asks a simpler question. What is connected, and did anything new join? Network Sentinel answers that. It keeps a device inventory with first-seen times and alerts you when an unfamiliar device appears.

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Home network monitoring vs business monitoring tools

It does not graph bandwidth or count sensors. It also does not cut a device off. You change access on your router. The Android app is $9.99 once on Google Play, and connected alerts need a configured service.

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