How to Discover mDNS, UPnP & WS-Discovery Smart Home Devices on Windows 11 & 10

Smart home devices rarely require manual IP configuration because they advertise their capabilities using zero-configuration multicast protocols. When developing Home Assistant integrations, diagnosing AirPlay speaker dropouts, or finding IP camera video streams, here is how to discover them on Windows.

The 3 Major Local Discovery Protocols

• mDNS / DNS-SD (Bonjour / ZeroConf): Used by Apple AirPlay, Google Cast / Chromecasts, ESPHome nodes, OctoPrint, and network printers (.local domains).
• UPnP / SSDP (Simple Service Discovery Protocol): Used by Philips Hue bridges, Sonos audio systems, DLNA media servers, and smart TVs (UDP port 1900).
• WS-Discovery (Web Services Discovery): Used by modern Windows network printers, NAS storage appliances, and ONVIF IP security cameras (UDP port 3702).

Multi-Protocol Discovery with fTool Home Network Probe Pro

Rather than installing separate command-line Python scripts or heavy network capture software, fTool Home Network Probe Pro incorporates native listeners for all three protocols.

1

Choose the Discovery Protocols

Open Settings from the gear icon in the title bar. Under Discovery Protocols, mDNS / DNS-SD, UPnP / SSDP and WS-Discovery are switched on by default. To see only what the multicast protocols report, switch the other protocols off. Your choice is kept for the next probe.

3

Read Each Device's Services

Select a device to open Device Details. You see the friendly name, manufacturer, model name and model number a UPnP device describes, and every service type it announces (e.g. _googlecast._tcp, _spotify-connect._tcp) with its port and TXT records. To reach a device's own web page, type its IP address and the HTTP port shown into your browser.