AP Isolate is a common feature that come in different names based on the router version or brand that you use. In this guide, we will go over what happens when you enable AP Isolate, and the cases when AP Isolate can actually help you.
The AP Isolate feature is sometimes called the following ways, but all mean more or less the same thing.
AP isolation
Client Isolation
Guest Mode (Not the same as Guest Network)
WLAN Partition
Enabling AP Isolate prevents all of your wireless from “talking” to one another. Enabling the feature can have some negative effects in our modern day home wireless networks. These happen because your devices simply cannot communicate with one another.
However, every one of your devices by itself can still connect to the internet and function on their own. Generally speaking, you should disable AP Isolate from your home network use where you need to share resources. You should enable AP Isolate when you are providing wifi access to devices that you have little or no control over.
Negative Effects of AP Isolate
1. Your computer cannot access your wireless gears via the wifi network including, printer, music player, and TV streaming.
2. Your computer cannot connect to your hand held consoles such as PS Vita via wireless network.
3. The computers on your network cannot share files wirelessly.
4. You cannot use AirPlay to mirror your mobile devices for Apple products.
5. You cannot use Chromecast to mirror your mobile devices or your computer.
You get the idea, any devices on your network cannot communicate or function via the wireless.
Positive Effects of AP Isolate
1. Computer devices are protected against one another
Because your devices cannot talk to one another through wireless hardware. They are protected from each other if they do get infected from malware or virus.
2. Secure Files and Resources over Wifi Network
You can protect your computer from being accessed by another on the network.
When To Use AP Isolate Function
1. When you do not need any of features that require your devices talking to one another.
If you do not have any devices to communicate with each other. Turn on AP isolate since it is really an added layer of protection against malware infections in your network.
2. When you own a retail store and share your Wifi publicly.
When you do decide to make internet available to your customers, always have AP isolation on. First you do not want your customers to have access to any of the computer files or data on your store’s computer. You do not want random visitors to be able to connect to your wireless devices such as printers. Second you want to protect your customers from one another if they want to steal information off each other.
3. When you want to setup a guest network for your house guests.
The idea is the same here as when you own a retail location. You want to both protect your own network as well as your guests.
