A personal hotspot is technically known as an ad hoc wireless access point, which enables devices such as pocket routers and smartphones to share existing cellular data connection. These portable hotspots create Wi-Fi networks wherein multiple nearby devices can share such as laptop, tablets, iPod and other mobile phones.
Latest smartphones like the Apple iPhone XR do integrate personal hotspot as built-in feature, which creates internet connection via Wi-Fi. This connection can be shared by up to 10 devices within 10-meter radios. Aside from Wi-Fi, a portable hotspot Internet connection can also be shared with the use of USB cable and Bluetooth connection. This process is called mobile tethering. In this case, the iPhone XR serves as a modem which converts 3G and 4G signals to Wi-Fi and vice versa by accessing cellular signals. The data accumulated by the other devices will be counted against your phone’s data plan.
But before anything else, if you have another issue with your phone, drop by our troubleshooting page as we have already addressed hundreds of issues reported by the owners. Odds are that there are already existing solutions on our website or at least, there are similar problems we already fixed. So, try to find ones that are similar or related to your problem. If you need further assistance, however, feel free to contact us by filling up our iPhone issues questionnaire.
What to consider before enabling Personal Hotspot on your iPhone XR?
If Wi-Fi sources aren’t available and you badly needed to go online, you can use your iPhone as portable modem/router. All you have to do is enable its personal hotspot feature. But before doing so, there are a few things that you need to note. And they are as follow:
- Enabling personal hotspot feature on your phone means incurring data charges used by all connected devices. To avoid incurring unwanted extra charges, talk to your carrier or service provider prior to using mobile data on your iPhone XR.
- Be sure to enable Personal Hotspot’s Wi-Fi password to avoid unauthorized data access.
- Make sure that mobile data or cellular data is enabled on your iPhone XR. It’s a requisite to using personal hotspot on your device.
- It is advisable to plug in your iPhone XR when using it as a personal hotspot due to massive power consumption. Expect your iPhone XR battery to drain faster than usual when personal hotspot is enabled. You can use a portable charger to keep your iPhone powered up while being used as portable modem/router.
- When sharing data via Bluetooth connection or USB cable, note that you can only connect to one device at a time.
Turning Mobile Hotspot On or Off your iPhone XR
Like other binary features, enabling Mobile Hotspot on the iPhone XR can be accomplished by a few toggles. And here’s how it’s actually done:
- From the Home screen, tap the Settings app.
- Then, tap either Cellular.
- Select Personal Hotspot.
- Tap the slider next to Personal Hotspot to turn the feature ON.
- If prompted with a pop up message, choose your preferred option. Among the given options include Turn on Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and USB only.
- Tap Wi-Fi Password, and then follow the onscreen prompts.
- Type in your desired hotspot password. Required password must be composed of at least eight alphanumeric characters.
- Then, tap Done.
The Personal Hotspot has been activated and your iPhone is all set to share mobile data to your other compatible devices.
Connecting your other device to your iPhone XR Personal Hotspot
After you have successfully enabled the personal hotspot on your iPhone XR, establish a connection from a different device.
- Enable Wi-Fi on the other device.
- Then, check the list of available Wi-Fi networks.
- Find and select your Apple iPhone XR mobile/personal hotspot.
- Enter the correct password for your Wi-Fi hotspot, and wait for the connection to be established.
Once connected, you can now access internet on the other device using your iPhone XR’s cellular data. Browse the internet on the other device to see if it is working properly.
What to do if your new Apple iPhone XR won’t turn on? [Troubleshooting Guide]
Turning OFF Personal Hotspot on iPhone XR
If you’re done using Personal Hotspot on your iPhone XR, be sure to turn it off to avoid incurring extra data charges.
- To do this, simply head back to Settings-> Cellular-> Personal Hotspot menu on your iPhone XR, then toggle the switch to turn the feature OFF.
When the switch is grey, it means that Personal Hotspot is turned OFF.
You can use your iPhone’s Wi-Fi feature to get back online through your wireless network when available.
What to do if Personal Hotspot option is missing on your iPhone XR menu?
If for some reasons, Personal Hotspot option is gone on your iPhone XR settings menu, performing a network settings reset can help.
To do this, go to Settings-> General-> Reset menu, then select the option to Reset all settings. Follow the rest of the onscreen commands to complete the network settings reset.
Your iPhone should reboot automatically when the reset is complete. At this point, you can proceed to enabling cellular data to enable Personal Hotspot on your iPhone XR.
If the Personal Hotspot option is still missing or greyed out, contact your Internet service provider or carrier to check and ensure that the service is available or activated for your account. You may have to request additional data plan for the feature to work.
Turning your iPhone XR into a portable Wi-Fi hotspot is indeed useful in so many ways. Nonetheless, the Internet connection obtained by the other device might be as fast and stable as that of the standard Wi-Fi. Barring app updates and limiting download of large files when using mobile tethering connection can help. That said, mobile tethering should only be deemed as backup Internet option.
And that would be all for this guide. Stay tuned for more comprehensive iPhone XR tutorials to populate soon on this site’s tutorials section. Or, you can also reach our support team for further assistance, in case you’re having trouble activating personal hotspot on your iPhone XR. Just be sure to give us all necessary details about the problem including error prompts and warnings so we can use them as clues in determining what went wrong and find ultimate solutions.
I hope that we’ve been able to help you fix the problem with your device. We would appreciate it if you helped us spread the word so please share this post if you found it helpful. Thank you so much for reading!
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