Certain smartphones and laptops, one of which my Windows 10 Phone and Laptop (Windows 10, redstone 1 update) have a function called "Random Hardware Access" under the WiFi settings.
The settings has the following explanation for this function:
Use Random Hardware Addresses to make it harder for people to track your location when you connect to different WiFi networks. This setting applies to new connections.
From the explanation, we could assume the phone (or laptop) utilizes it's WiFi antenna or MAC address to spoof info.
But the question is still there, How exactly does Random Hardware Access work? Does it use random MAC addresses? does it lie when asked for location or fake the WiFi Antenna's broadcast range?
And how effective would it be? would it indeed, for example, protect my privacy by making it harder for free-wifi spot's tracking functions?