You may have seen detectives in movies using IP addresses to track down bad guys, but in real life, it’s not that straightforward. While an IP (Internet Protocol) address is given to your connected devices, you may very well have a different IP address than you did just a couple of hours ago. Also, if you’ve ever tried to connect to your home network from another connection using your IP address, you might find that it’s not even your current one anymore.

Most residential ISPs use dynamic IPs

Your ISP assigns IPs as needed

The modem that connects your network to the internet needs to both send and receive data to work properly. But how does data get sent to the right location? When your modem connects to the internet, it will be given an IP address by your ISP so it can both send and receive data.

Most home internet connections will assign you a dynamic IP address when you get connected. That means that you could have a totally different IP address if your ISP sends a refresh signal, or if your modem just restarts. For large ISPs, it doesn’t make sense to give every customer a dedicated IP address and instead will assign them as needed. Some people may end up with the same IP for weeks or longer depending on how the ISP assigns IPs, but eventually, it will change.

Your local IP has little to do with your public IP

Local devices only need to talk to your router

If you’ve looked at the connection information on your computer, you may have noticed a fairly short IP address that starts with 192 or 10. These are local IP addresses your Wi-Fi router uses to direct traffic to all the devices on your local network. In the example 192.168.1.5, the numbers will get you closer and closer to your device, but on most home networks, IP addresses are simple enough that the only number that’s unique is the last one, as long as you don't have too many devices, that is. These will be much longer if you’re using IPv6, which is designed to handle more devices.

If you're just sticking with local networking, you can set dedicated IPs for the devices on your network, like a desktop PC or printer, but your internet connection may still have a dynamic IP. That can make connecting to your home network from another connection, such as using a VPN, a bit more complicated since your saved connection information may have an IP that's out of date. Luckily, a lot of ISPs will let you request or reserve a static IP so that it won't change out from under you.

Static IPs may be available

But it will cost you

A static IP can be used to keep the same IP address indefinitely. If you’re trying to connect to your home network while you’re away, for example, you could use a VPN. Unlike a VPN service, like NordVPN, this type of VPN is just for connecting to your local network. VPNs are also used by businesses that want their employees to use the company’s network while working from home or while on a business trip.

Business internet often uses a static IP address, or multiple static IPs, for this reason. Even some home internet customers can often get a static IP from their ISP, though they may charge you for it. If you don’t want to deal with your ISP for this, some VPN providers, like NordVPN and Surfshark offer dedicated IPs for a monthly fee.

You probably don’t need a static IP

Most home users don’t need to worry about a static IP address if they’re not hosting a server. If you want to connect to your home network using a VPN, some services can run on your router, presuming you have the right model, that can get you connected without needing to type in an IP. UniFi and AmpliFi routers, for example, can use a feature called Teleport to allow connections to your local network using an app. Asus routers, like the Asus RT-AX57, have a similar feature called Asus Instant Guard. If you want to connect to your home network but have a dynamic IP, you can set up DDNS on many Asus routers to set up a fixed domain.

Overall, you don't need to worry too much about your IP address, and if you've got one of the best Wi-Fi routers, you should also be protected from attacks like DDOS or similar. The fact of the matter is that IP addresses aren't private and were never supposed to be. While static IPs are necessary for some applications, the internet was designed to use and recycle IPs as new devices come online and others get retired. Dynamic IPs take a lot of labor out of the process and, generally speaking, the system works well enough that most people shouldn't need to worry about what type of IP they have.