How is "Offline" defined?

[Harley]

I was just looking at my network map, and I can see that some devices are "Offline" when in fact they are online. I am wondering if "online" means they have been assigned an address via DHCP? The reason is that the devices have DHCP disabled and have their own permanent addresses and I thought perhaps that was the reason. Is there any other setting within the devices that may make them detectable? Oh wait, I have one device, a NAS, that has a fixed IP and that is correctly shown as "Online". So why is it that some devices are not shown as online when they are?

[Netduma Liam]

5 hours ago, Harley said:

I was just looking at my network map, and I can see that some devices are "Offline" when in fact they are online. I am wondering if "online" means they have been assigned an address via DHCP? The reason is that the devices have DHCP disabled and have their own permanent addresses and I thought perhaps that was the reason. Is there any other setting within the devices that may make them detectable? Oh wait, I have one device, a NAS, that has a fixed IP and that is correctly shown as "Online". So why is it that some devices are not shown as online when they are?

What devices are showing as offline? Often IoT devices or occasionally devices connected through an AP are shown as offline as they're not actively generating traffic.

[Harley]

Ah that makes sense. These are items like cameras, switches, printers and so on. I am guessing the reason the switch shows as offline is it's actually referring to the switch web page is offline rather than the switch itself ( it is a managed switch ).

It's not very important, I just wondered why they showed as offline.