Internet connection can be shared among different devices using different technologies or tools. While you are on the go, your internet connection on smartphone can also be shared via hotspot using your device’s cellular data connection provided your carrier not literally disable them. In simpler terms, a personal hotspot turns your smartphone or other mobile device into a portable Wi-Fi router. It enables you to share your mobile data connection with other devices.
Today we’ll show you the steps to setup personal hotspot or Wi-Fi hotspot on iPhone so you can share your internet connection or cellular data with your friends or other devices around you, such as your laptop, tablet, another phone, smart watch or other Wi-fi enabled devices.
Important Tips:
- Your carrier may not support portable hotspot or charge you additional fee to enable this feature;
- You’ll be using data from your mobile service or data plan, thus charges may apply.
How to setup Personal Hotspot on iPhone?
In order to share your iPhone’s internet or data connection via Personal Hotspot, you can follow below steps to have this option enabled.
Launch Settings from your iPhone home screen. Tap Mobile Data, then tap the slider to turn it on.
Go back to the home menu of Settings. Choose Personal Hotspot, touch the On/Off toggle to activate the option Allow Others to Join.
You may be prompted to enable Wi-Fi and Bluetooth if they are currently disabled. Follow the on-screen instructions to enable them.
If this is the first time you turn on the Personal Hotspot feature, tap on on Wi-Fi Password and entering a password for your hotspot.
You have the choice to tether other devices via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or USB. To share your iPhone’s data connection with other mobile phones, tablets, PC, Mac, you can enable the Wi-Fi tethering. It is wireless and easier to use.
Share iPhone’s internet or data connection via Wi-Fi tethering
Unlike USB tethering, Wi-Fi tethering does not require any extra software or USB cable. Wi-Fi tethering is more convenient than USB tethering, much faster than Bluetooth tethering. Just like how you connect your phone, tablet or PC to a normal Wi-Fi network, the same way applies to the iPhone’s internet or data connection via Wi-Fi tethering.
On the device you want to share your cellular data with, go to its Wi-Fi settings, choose Wi-fi, then select your iPhone hotspot name, manually enter its password to connect. The device should connect to your iPhone’s hotspot, and it will be able to access the internet through your cellular data connection.
You will be able to connect up to 8 different devices to your iPhone via Personal hotspot.
Can’t connect to my personal hotspot, iPhone hotspot not working?
Since iOS 14, the Maximize Compatibility option has been introduced to improve compatibility with older devices. When you’re experiencing connectivity issues with certain devices, you can try to turn this feature on.
Go to the Settings > Personal Hotspot. Tap on Maximize Compatibility to toggle the switch to the On position.
Note that enabling Maximize Compatibility may slightly reduce the overall performance of your personal hotspot, as it uses older Wi-Fi standards that may not be as fast as the latest ones.
Use hotspot connection for file sharing?
We have introduced several wireless file sharing apps that make use of local Wi-Fi network connection for file sharing without the need for internet connection. In fact, many of these file sharing apps can also work over hotspot network connection. You can use a hotspot connection for file sharing locally between devices. When you create a personal hotspot on your iPhone or any other mobile device, it essentially creates a local wireless network that devices can connect to. This network allows devices to communicate and share files with each other as if they were connected to a regular Wi-Fi network. Note that you have to confirm with the developer of a file sharing app to ensure the file sharing won’t consume data from your cellular plan when you have limited data available from your mobile service provider.
Android, PC Share internet or WiFi connection
By configuring the Personal hotspot on iPhone, you can share iPhone internet with other devices or computer. You can also share your Android phone’s internet connection or data connection with iPhone via the built-in feature, personal hotspot, portable hotspot. The same feature with iOS, but different devices or brands may name it differently.
Want to share computer internet with iPhone? You need to firstly create the Ad hoc wireless network on your Windows PC, then connect iPhone to this wireless network on PC to get internet connection.
Mobile hotspot is connected to any of your Wi-Fi enables devices any data usage either on your primary devise (your smart phone) to the ones you have connected to it using the Wi-Fi will be applied to your data package so be sure not to accidentally use all of your data package at once. This can happen by accident easily so keep an eye out for such a problem.