Your phone's personal hotspot feature can come in handy in so many ways. For instance, if your home internet is experiencing an outage or if you brought your laptop to a cafe that doesn't offer Wi-Fi access, you can instead use your cellular data plan to get your other devices online.
All recent iPhone and Android phones offer this feature, and if your cellular plan supports it, you can connect your laptop or other devices through your phone's 4G or 5G connection. While your phone's cellular connection might not be as fast as regular internet, it can gets the job done in a pinch.
That is, unless your phone's hotspot stops working as well. Whether it's due to incorrect settings or a simple software glitch, your hotspot can go down when you need it most. We've compiled a few key steps for both iOS and Android devices that should help with troubleshooting these issues so you can get your devices online.
If you have an iPhone
Check if your phone's personal hotspot is enabled. Go to Settings , then tap on Personal Hotspot . If you don't find this option anywhere, try calling your wireless carrier to see if you have this feature enabled in your wireless plan.
, then tap on . If you don't find this option anywhere, try calling your wireless carrier to see if you have this feature enabled in your wireless plan. Try restarting both your iPhone and the device that you're trying to connect.
Update to the latest version of iOS.
Try resetting your phone's network settings. Go to Settings , tap General , then select Transfer or Reset iPhone. Next, tap Reset and then select Reset Network Settings . Be warned that this resets all of your Wi-Fi networks and passwords, cellular settings and VPN and APN settings that you've used before.
, tap , then select Next, tap and then select . Be warned that this resets all of your Wi-Fi networks and passwords, cellular settings and VPN and APN settings that you've used before. If you're trying to connect to your phone's personal hotspot over Wi-Fi, make sure that Allow Others to Join is enabled on the Personal Hotspot page. Be sure to remember the Wi-Fi network name (which is also your device's name) and the Wi-Fi password that are on this screen.
is enabled on the page. Be sure to remember the Wi-Fi network name (which is also your device's name) and the Wi-Fi password that are on this screen. If you're using an iPhone 12 Maximize Compatibility toggle at the bottom of the screen. This will broaden the devices that can connect to your hotspot by using a slower 2.4GHz connection rather than the 5GHz connection used by default.
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