Do you have some long and complicated WiFi network name and password? The steps to change your WiFi network name and password couldn’t be easier. This guide will walk you through the steps.

The first step in changing your WiFi network name and password is to track down the piece of equipment that is emitting your WiFi signal in the first place. In 95% of cases this will be your Internet Service Providers (ISP) gateway / router. In the other cases (especially in big homes) you might have WiFi access points installed in the ceiling or walls. This might be a little more complicated, as you might not have the credentials to log into those devices. We’re not going to tackle those in this guide — we’ll leave it for another article.

Once you have located your ISP router, you should see some login credentials on it. It may be labelled as admin settings, or admin address, or something of that sort.

I have Telus as my ISP and this is the router they supplied. On the device you can see the admin settings IP.

This is probably the easiest way of finder the admin address or technically “default gateway address”. If the router does not give you this address, that’s ok — there is another easy way of finding it.

Firstly, make sure you are actually connected to the network you are wanting to change. The easiest way to do this is take an ethernet cable and directly connect to the router. I know some laptops have done away with the ethernet port in the interest of saving space. In this case I recommend getting a USB to Ethernet Port Adapter.

Alternatively you can connect to the WiFi network wirelessly but in the interest of robustness I do recommend the hardwire method.

Windows

If you are on a Windows machine hit the windows + R key to get the run command window. Next type in cmd to get the command prompt. Then type in ipconfig into the command window and hit enter. Look for the label “Default Gateway”, next to it you’ll see an IP address. You may have two line entries next to default gateway. The top one is IPv6 address (contains numbers and letters and is long) and the bottom is the IPv4 address we want (contains only numbers and three periods).

After entering the ipconfig command look for the default gateway label and the IPv4 address.

Mac

If you are using a Mac the command will be slightly different. First launch the terminal app by pressing command + space bar on your mac keyboard. Next type in Terminal in the search and click the Terminal utility in the search results. Next enter the command: route get default | grep gateway

Using the route get default | grep gateway command, we get the gateway address.

You will now see the IPv4 gateway address we need to log into the router.

Mobile

Yes, it’s even possible to change your WiFi network name and password via your phone. Again, I much prefer being directly connected to the router via an ethernet cable — but I know that sometimes isn’t feasible for everyone.

On an android phone go to Settings > Connections > Wifi > Connect to your WiFi and click the gear icon next to it once connected > Click Manage Router. You’ll see the gateway address in the browser address bar that pops up.

On an iOS device go to Settings > Wi-Fi and tap the small (i) next to the network you’re connected to. Next to Router is the default gateway.

Now with the IPv4 address in hand (either from the router itself, or the ipconfig command), we can enter this into the browser address bar to log into our router.

Entering our default gateway IP address into a browser will allow us to log into the router and change our WiFi network name and password.

Next enter the username and password into the corresponding fields on the login page. These will either be written on the router itself, or you may have to Google the default values. Most default values are:

username: admin

password: password

or

password: admin

Pro Tip: If you enter the values located on the router and it says the credentials are incorrect, you may need to factory reset your router via the small pin hole located somewhere on the device.

Alright we’re in! Next navigate to the tab or section called WiFi, Wireless, or something synonymous with those. Here you should see your WiFi network name and password. Feel free to edit them as you please now. I would try to pick a password that is a combination of letters and numbers though. You never know when someone would attempt to brute force your WiFi password, so better safe than sorry.

Our Telus router has a tab called WiFi where we can change the default WiFi network name and password.

Furthermore, some older routers don’t combine the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz WiFi bands. I’m not going to get into what those are but basically you can think of them as two separate WiFi networks. Some devices can only connect using the 2.4 GHz band, but most newer devices use the 5 GHz band. You might see your WiFi network split. For example:

My-WiFi-2.4GHz

My WiFi-5.0GHz

You’ll need to change both of these network names and passwords, but do keep the 2.4 vs 5.0 differentiate on the network name. When connecting to the WiFi I would say always try the 5.0 network one first. If that doesn’t work well, switch over to the 2.4.

Pro Tip: If you logged into your router using your old WiFi network name and password, you’ll now need to connect to the new name. Once connected you can log back into the router if need be.

Some routers also have a QR code on the device itself you can scan to download an app. You can proceed to change the WiFi name and password in the app. Furthermore, some managed networks (such as business) will not allow you to change the name nor password. You will need to call your ISP to get them changed.

If you are in the Vancouver, BC area and wish for us to change your WiFi network name and password please see our service website here: dynamictech.ca/wifi-network