Reply To: Wi-Fi Assist & Private Wi-Fi Address causing frequent VPN drops on iOS

Rotating Private Wi‑Fi Address changes the MAC per join event, so every mesh roam appears as a new client to the split‑tunnel daemon, tearing down the encrypted session; Wi‑Fi Assist compounds this by silently failing over to cellular on momentary RSSI dips, resetting tunnel state. This MAC churn also breaks Apple Watch Wi‑Fi handoff continuity (which binds to a stable peer identity), stalls iPadOS Stage Manager external‑display sessions that rely on persistent local sockets, and forces extra radio power cycles that accelerate battery capacity loss.

– Per trusted SSID: Settings → Wi‑Fi → ⓘ → Private Wi‑Fi Address → Fixed (not Rotating) to keep a constant MAC across all mesh nodes.
– System‑wide: Settings → Cellular → Wi‑Fi Assist → Off to eliminate involuntary cellular fallback during roam latency spikes.
– Validate: Run networkQuality -v (iPadOS/macOS) or filter Console.app for subsystem:com.apple.network NWPath changes; confirm Battery → “Cellular Network Search” time drops after the change.