Why is the MACs seen value higher than expected?
Nodes with presence analytics capabilities collect data captured through the air as WiFi-enabled devices perform “probes”. A probe is a request sent by a device containing RSSI (signal strength), device MAC address, Time Stamps, AP Mac address, Location Lat/Lon etc to any access point it can detect. Each node will report to the dashboard a MAC seen for each probe sent.
For security purposes, many modern devices will send out randomized MAC addresses in order to protect the device from outside attacks. ie: if an Apple iPhone’s true MAC address is YY:11:AA:22:BB:CC and that device has never connected to a hotspot, three nodes may receive a probe request from a random MAC generated by that device such as 11:22:33:44:55:66, and the next time it sends a probe request it may send out a MAC that is completely different to every node in range.
The Analytics4WiFi system is designed to collect all information that is sent by every node in a hotspot therefore, the MACs seen values may be skewed exponentially.