Systems, devices, and methods for automatically forming a wireless personal area network (PAN) comprising a network auto-formation (NAF) process. At least one network coordinating device initializes a PAN and transmits at least one beacon comprising PAN information. A network joining device performs a number of scan/listen cycles by actively scanning a plurality of wireless channels for PANs by masking out channels in a scan channel mask, and listening for beacons on channels in a listen channel list. The scan channel mask and the listen channel list are updated during each scan/listen cycle. The scan channel mask may comprise channels containing desired PANs, non-desired PANs, and channels on which beacons were heard. The listen channel list may comprise channels containing desired PANs and channels on which beacons were heard. The NAF process further comprises receiving PAN information included in heard beacons and attempting to join the best network based on the PAN information.