iNet: Local Network scanning for the Mac Made Easy

There’s a lot that I like about my Eero router and it’s accompanying mobile software, but one thing I feel is missing is a suitable macOS network scanning client. More often than not, I want to check my network from the comfort of my Mac mini instead of going on my iPhone. Sure, I can resort to command line witchcraft, but it doesn’t give me a clean and descriptive picture. Some research into network scanning tools yielded several options. Based on favorable reviews, I purchased iNet.

iNet Network Scanner, by Banana Glue, allows users to quickly scan all the devices on their local area network (LAN). In addition to reporting your networked devices, iNet also lets users wake certain devices up from sleep and (if properly configured) VNC into other machines on their LAN. This is super useful for me as I have a Linux machine in a different room that requires occasional access.

What I like best about iNet is how easy it is to parse the information. At a glance, I can see each of the devices, their IP address and their MAC address. Each device on iNet can be customized with an image, to make glancing through the scan very intuitive. iNet comes with several images you can use by default, or you can always drag and drop custom images that you prefer. Now if I need to VNC or SSH to a machine or ssh into my LinuxBox, I can quickly use iNet and take care of business. You can even put remote Macs to sleep or reboot them from within iNet.

The only feature within iNet that I don’t use is Airport Watch, because I no longer have an AirPort Extreme router. I wish there was an option for managing other routers, like Eero. More pressing for me, though, is the option to have iNet as a menu bar item, so that I can quickly see what’s on my network without having to launch the app.

iNet retails for $24US on the Mac App Store and, in my opinion, is well worth it if you want to keep track of multiple devices on your home network. The price includes life-time updates. For network scanning via your iPad or iPhone, Banana Glue also sells an iOS version of its app for about $9US. Users can download and test iNet for iOS for free.

Krishna