These days Wi-Fi hotspots are available all around us – in universities, office buildings, cafés or shops – so you can always stay connected to the Internet. But even so, in some situations – like taking a trip to your parents’ cabin – you can still find yourself out of range.
The good news is that your modern Android phone allows you to easily share your mobile data connection with other devices. This way you’ll be able to share phone’s data with your laptop or tablet or help your friend, who tagged along with you, get online too.
So how do you share your Android’s internet connection as a Wi-Fi hotspot? Follow these simple steps:
Note: For this tutorial a Samsung Galaxy A3 (2016) running Android 7.0 Nougat was used
- Open the Settings Menu
- Access Connection (the first option in Settings)
- Scroll down until you find the Mobile hotspot and tethering option and tap on it
- Tap on the Mobile hotspot toggle to turn it on
- Once on you’ll be able to set the name and password of your hotspot
After you’ve completed these steps, you’ll be able to connect the second device. To do so you will have to:
- Turn the Wi-Fi on the device that will share the main data connection
- Select the hotspot from the list of available Wi-Fi networks
- Connect to the hotspot by entering the password
A few other things to know:
- You can connect up to 10 devices to the hotspot via Wi-Fi
- You can create an allowed device profile and set the connection mode for it by tapping More
- You can change the Mobile hotspot configurations by tapping More
- Mobile hotspot increases battery consumption/data usage
Keep in mind that the instructions might vary based on the Android phone you are using. On some Android models, for example, you’ll find the “Tethering and portable hotspot” option once you tap on More under Wireless Networks.
