How To Turn On And Connect To A Hotspot On An iPhone
Having your own wireless hotspot is so convenient because you can connect laptops, tablets, and other devices to your phone’s internet connection. Turning on your iPhone’s hotspot might seem hard if you don’t know where to look, but you’ll learn here how to turn on the hotspot on your iPhone. You’ll also learn how to troubleshoot issues that might come up.
Table of Contents
- How do you activate a personal hotspot on an iPhone?
- Connecting to Hotspot
- Stopping the Hotspot
- Troubleshooting Help
How do you activate a personal hotspot on an iPhone?
Activating the personal hotspot on your iPhone is simple and should only take a few seconds. Go to Settings, Cellular and then Personal Hotspot. Make this selection active, and your hotspot will be turned on. You can also set a password as well to keep the connection secure.
Learning how to turn on the hotspot on iPhone is only part of the process. If you want to learn more about removing devices or fixing common problems, then read on to understand everything about making iPhone hotspots.
Activating the Hotspot
Turning on your iPhone’s hotspot should only take a few seconds. Keep in mind, though, that there are some settings you should check, and you can allow your family members and friends to automatically join if you’d like. This section is dedicated to starting the hotspot and discovering some of the useful options.
Activate the Hotspot
Want to know how to turn on the hotspot on your iPhone? This only takes a few seconds if you know where to look. Turn on your iPhone and then go to Settings. Select the Cellular menu.
Depending on your iPhone and iOS version, you will either see Personal Hotspot or Settings. If you see Settings, then select that, and you’ll see Personal Hotspot there.
Tap the hotspot slider. This will allow others to join your hotspot. Others will be able to join as long as you keep the hotspot active.
Make and Change the Hotspot Password
While you can make your iPhone hotspot public, that’s honestly a bad idea. That allows everyone in the area to freely enjoy your WiFi data. Aside from eating through your data package, you have no idea what random people are doing online. Setting a password ensures that only people you know are accessing the hotspot.
In the Personal Hotspot setting, you will see an option labeled WiFi Password. You can then enter a password. Anyone who wants to access your network will have to enter this password.
You can also go here to change the password. That can be useful if you think that someone you don’t know is accessing the network, or if you don’t want certain people to use your hotspot.
Automatic Family Sharing
You can give your family members and close friends automatic access to your hotspot. This allows them to join without a password. Go to the Personal Hotspot menu and tap on Family Sharing. Activate this setting.
This will bring you to a list of all your family members. You can select whether they are able to join the network automatically, or if they must ask for permission first. These settings can be changed freely, so change them as needed.
Connecting to Hotspot
You now need to connect other devices to the hotspot. This is relatively simple whether you’re connecting your own devices or allowing others to use the network. There are several ways to access the wireless network.
Connect Over WiFi
This is the most common way to connect to the network. It’s reliable and should only take a few seconds. Make sure that the WiFi setting is active on the device you wish to connect. This can be another iPhone, iPad, Android device or any other type of device.
The device will search for an available WiFi signal. Click the one associated to the hotspot. If you are unsure what it’s called, then check the Personal Hotspot on the iPhone. This will show you the name of the network.
Select the network and join it. If it has been password protected, then enter the correct password and you will be able to join.
Connect Over Bluetooth
This isn’t as common, but it can be quite effective. Some people consider it a little easier than connecting over WiFi, but that’s a personal preference. You first must ensure that the Bluetooth setting is active on the iPhone that created the hotspot. If not, then it won’t be discoverable by other devices.
Activate Bluetooth on the other device and wait for it to find the iPhone. This should take less than a minute. Select the iPhone and begin pairing the devices. Once finished, you can then access the personal hotspot.
Connect Via USB
This is best done with an Apple computer, but it can be done with other operating systems as well. You will likely need iTunes or another program on the computer that will recognize the iPhone and its wireless signal.
Use a USB cable and connect the iPhone to your computer or laptop. Wait until the computer recognizes the iPhone. You will receive a notification on your iPhone about whether the computer should be trusted. Accept the connection and the computer should be able to use the wireless hotspot.
Stopping the Hotspot
Maybe you want to stop sharing the network, or maybe people are joining the network that you don’t want to share your WiFi with. In either case, you’ll want to know how to stop the hotspot.
This is actually very simple. If you want to turn off the Bluetooth connection, then go to the Bluetooth setting on your iPhone and deactivate it. If you want to stop the WiFi connection, then go to your Personal Hotspot setting and deactivate it. For those who are connected over USB, just remove the USB cable to stop the connection.
Troubleshooting Help
Sometimes you’ll have a hard time sharing your WiFi or connecting to the hotspot. This section will help you fix common issues that come up.
Others Can’t Find the Network
It might be possible that you activated the hotspot, but missed one important setting. Make sure that you also activated the Allow Others to Join setting. If this isn’t turned on, then people won’t be able to find your hotspot via WiFi or Bluetooth.
Newer iPhones
Newer iPhones having a setting that can help with making this connection possible. If you have an iPhone 12 or later, then you’ll see a setting called Maximize Compatibility in the Personal Hotspot menu. Make sure to turn this on.
If it’s off, then other devices might have a hard time seeing the hotspot.
Update the Device
This is useful on both the iPhone itself and other devices attempting to connect to the hotspot. If you’re having a hard time turning on the hotspot or finding it, then check for software updates. Having obsolete software might prevent the connection from being established.
Allow the device to update and then try again.