Why is GainSpan on my Wi-Fi Network?

Every now and then I login to my router at home to do some minor network management tasks and check out what is connected out of curiosity. The last few times I have noticed something called “GainSpand14d95” in the list.

Obviously, this begs the question, what is it?

I could rule out all of the major devices such as PCs, laptops, smartphones and tablets as they all identify themselves with familiar hostnames. The Wi-Fi printer has a weird name starting with HP so that wasn’t it either.

What it ended up being was the Fitbit Aria Wi-Fi scales that I bought a while ago. The Wi-Fi module inside the scale is provided by GainSpan but the device itself provides no way to change the hostname of the device (nor can you change it using the installer that you can run on a suitable computer). Not a huge security concern as I now know what the device is on the network but understandably could freak some people out if they happen to glance at the list of devices connected to the network.

Fitbit might consider changing the default name to something mentioning “Fitbit” or “Aria” to save people from unnecessary concern.

Update: 09/07/2015:

It seems that GainSpan provide Wi-Fi modules that go inside a myriad of other devices (not just the Fitbit Aria) so you might want to take that into consideration when you are tracking down devices on your Wi-Fi network. Thanks to Sean for that tidbit 🙂

53 comments

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    • Carsten on November 10, 2012 at 11:09
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    Thanks for this post – help me avoid tracking stuff down for hours and hours! ;]

    I totally agree, would be good if they could change that. I was going to block the durn thing.

    1. Very glad that this saved you some time solving a mystery! 🙂

  1. Ditto from me. Had no idea what this was and was not looking forward to tracking it down!

    1. My pleasure!

    • CoinCrunch on April 13, 2013 at 03:57
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    Same here. I was doing a spot check of my dhcp leases and came across this. Thanks so much for posting this info.

    • Matt on June 16, 2013 at 21:11
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    I just filed a firmware update suggestion to Fitbit. I suggest others do the same so that the GainSpan reference is changed for a FitBit one!

      • Catalin on February 21, 2018 at 02:13
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      Very nice ideea!

    • Anne on July 20, 2013 at 06:32
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    Same here. I was searching the device since weeks.

    Thank for the « unsolved mysteries special Fitbit episode »!

    1. No worries at all 😉

    • Dale on November 13, 2013 at 22:21
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    Seriously was about to start a massive device hunt.

    • Dustin Sherrill on December 12, 2013 at 12:45
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    Thanks for your research. I found myself just today wondering what machine that was. Saved me time.

    • Christopher Brown on April 9, 2014 at 08:49
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    Ah, thank you internet. I had run into the same situation, glad we’re all here to share information 🙂

    1. Glad you managed to find your answer!

    • Aaron Blair on April 30, 2014 at 14:53
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    Thanks a lot mate! I saw this show up in my client list… but had no idea what it was. It pushed a whopping 4kb of data in the past week, so it wasn’t a huge concern, but was still curious to know what it was and how it got my key!

    Aaron

    • someone on June 18, 2014 at 05:54
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    After a 45 minute device/mac address hunt on my network, it dawned on me “s**t, is this my fitbit scale?”. Thanks for confirming this 🙂

    • JImS on October 12, 2014 at 13:58
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    Thanks for the help. Stopped a panic attack.

    • Andy on October 22, 2014 at 01:36
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    Thank you from me also – I thinking about filtering it via MAC address but you post meant I knew what it was 🙂

    1. No worries!

      FYI – while MAC filtering will stop casual “hackers” from joining your network (if they manage to guess the password) it won’t do anything to stop the more cluey ones as they will just scan your network traffic for a valid MAC address (which is unencrypted over any Wi-Fi) and then use that one to join the network.

    • Thendore on November 3, 2014 at 06:14
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    Same here. This was super helpful, you saved me a lot of time.

    • John K on January 10, 2015 at 11:33
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    For me it was a wireless thermostat from Lennox.

    • Paul S on June 7, 2015 at 00:59
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    I was racking my brain trying to figure out what that could be!! I was even beginning to get suspicious of neighbors’ kid turning hacker-wi-fi-crackers. Then I read your post here and remembered, “WE HAVE A FITBIT ARIA!!!”

    Funny how I take for granted that thing uses wi-fi for my convenience.

    Thanks for your help, Boyd! Have a great day. 🙂

    • Sean M on June 30, 2015 at 05:45
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    GainSpan produces small wifi chips aimed at IoE devices. Fitbit Aria is just one “user” of these GainSpan chips. Another company that uses them is Lennox in their iComfort thermostats.

    1. That’s actually a good point, Sean – thanks for sharing!

      I’ll update the post to reflect what you’ve mentioned.

      • Chita Mulholland on January 5, 2018 at 03:40
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      Thanks! It’s my thermostat. Now I can rename it.

    • Beri S on July 3, 2015 at 09:07
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    Keeping this post alive and relevant. I too was about to do some massive detective work. Ran a quick google search and found this post. Such a time saver! Thank you for posting!

    • A Shah on August 22, 2015 at 04:34
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    I just saw a GainSpanxxxxxx (last six characters of MAC address) client on my router, lookup yielded a Delta Electronics registration and some info on GainSpan producing low-power wireless chips for IoT devices. Wondered if it was my Aria and stumbled across this; thanks! Fitbit should really label this.

    • J Martin on November 6, 2015 at 07:18
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    This was driving me nuts after I had upgraded to a new router that shows a map of everything on my network and this popped up. I’d been searching for what this was for a couple of months. Thanks for this posting since I now know it’s my FitBit Aria wifi scale. Yep FitBit should definitely change it’s listed name for routers so it won’t drive people nuts trying to figure it out

    • Rick L on December 17, 2015 at 14:11
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    Thanks for keeping the thread going. I too just found GainSpanxxxxxx on my network and was about to start tracking it down.

    • Hayden on January 19, 2016 at 12:18
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    Thankfully this post is a first page result on a search for Gainspan. You have saved me a lot of time, so well done and thank you.

    • Rodney on February 15, 2016 at 07:04
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    is there a list of default usernames and passwords for the Gainspan product line?

    1. Not aware of default credentials for Gainspan products, sorry.

    • Edward on April 7, 2016 at 14:49
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    I also found this on my network. It turned out to be my Lennox Smart Thermostat.

    • Eric on July 18, 2016 at 04:59
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    Searched GainSpan, thankfully ended up here to find my answer. Saw GainSpan using a couple of different software, Who Is On My WiFi and Wireless Network Watcher , the latter actually showed extra text regarding the GainSpan. Found out it was in my repeater.

    • Christopher on December 15, 2016 at 16:22
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    Same here. Thanks for saving me the time to disable the device only to then have to re-enable it once I figured out my fitbit scale wasn’t working!

    • Derrick on January 21, 2017 at 02:25
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    When Gain Span popped up on my network I was about to go high to the right and then found your post–definitely saved me some sleuthing and aggravation.

  2. Thanks for this! Aria guilty here, too!

    • Pat on April 7, 2017 at 23:14
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    Many thanks for the info. I was about to visit my neighbors with a baseball bat .

    • David on July 16, 2017 at 16:22
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    It was my ring doorbell

    • Robert J Lafayette on July 26, 2017 at 06:55
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    I have two THINK ECO smart adapters from ConEd. I suspect they use GAINSPAN. Is anyone else seeing this(Gainspan) on your router?

      • Myke on March 25, 2018 at 01:55
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      It was a ThinkEco WiFi modlet for me.

    • Sue on September 20, 2017 at 04:08
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    It was a Lennox iComfort WiFI thermostat for me.

    • Pokerface4725 on November 30, 2017 at 07:39
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    Thank you so much! I was very close a panik attack, but you saved my evening. Thank you young lad.

    • hung chi on December 28, 2017 at 12:16
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    Yes I have a coned Think ECO adapter as well.

    • Mari on March 16, 2018 at 09:41
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    Robert J Lafayette, Think ECO does use gainspan. I was breaking my head trying to figure out what the heck is connected to my router since everyone seems to point to a fitbit yet I do not own a fitbit. I tested by unplugging my think eco and it was removed from my wifi. I plugged it in and then it re-appeared. The thinkeco was the cause for me.

  3. Thanks for the post!

    • Mark on August 5, 2018 at 03:29
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    Found out the gainspan usage on my account is from my Ring Doorbell…

    • Drew on October 15, 2018 at 10:58
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    Ugh.. This seems so typical of companies in this day and age. Lets put proper names and security on connected devices so that people can effectively manage their networks. Nah, lets be lazy and cheap and make this as difficult as seemingly possible.

    Anyway rant over thank you for the information as like others before me it saved me significant concern and time.

    • ghynson on February 13, 2019 at 08:50
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    I noticed this “Gain Span” MAC address when I hooked up my wifes new Profrom 400i treadmill.
    Gain Span is a provider of Ethernet IoT’s modules.
    They are cheap for system integrators, so you’ll start seeing them pop up in Wi-Fi IoT mundane devices , and home appliances.

    • Alex on April 16, 2019 at 22:47
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    Thank you!!
    That mac address has been a “?” on my list for a while now. It’s the Aria like you said.

    • Mark Williams on June 6, 2019 at 15:28
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    They also make modules for HUE Wi-Fi lighting products for example the HUE GO shows up as gainspan in my CUJO firewall…

    • Rachel on August 9, 2019 at 20:01
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    Can anyone here help me identify MegaWell 7F6C? I purchased a Brother laser printer and a Epson inkjet printer a few weeks ago. I installed the infinity xFi app a few days ago and now I see this MegaWell on my WiFi. It says it has just connected to my WiFi for the first time tonight. Don’t confuse this with MageWell which comes up on Google search. That is a different word. MegaWell is what I am searching for. Here is a screen shot. It has no IP address, no model or operating system. Hostname
    10:5b:ad:1d:7f:6c , and the MAC address is 105BAD1D7F6C. Can anyone help me identify this to find out if someone is trying to Hack into my WiFi?

      • Rachel on August 9, 2019 at 21:15
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      Found out the Mac # was my new Brother printer by printing out the network report on the printer itself. (Picked that suggestion up on this forum post replies. So thank you for that.) Don’t know why internet Mac number searches did not have a match. I hope this help someone else.

    • Albert on August 18, 2019 at 10:43
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    Got one today. I’m guessing it’s the iRobot- we call it Bob

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