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This phone is broken (broken screen) and was given to me, so I figured I'd use it as a WiFi extender, but I guess I can't.
How would a hot spot work without a sim? Isnt it using the sim 5g to rebroadcast locally?
Some phones essentially function as wifi repeaters if wifi is connected and mobile hotspot is enabled.
Not all phones can do this.
It's a bit overkill to use phone as a repeater, isn't it?
Comes in clutch sometimes. Like when a device doesn't support captive portals (i.e. in a hotel), or your work laptop has trouble with them (as some work VPNs and security software causes problems).
Then you can just log in from your cell phone, and then share that. The phone uses WPA2-Personal, which nearly everything supports.
Ok, I see how it could be useful in some edge cases. Hadn't thought of those. Well done.
But if the phone gets wifi... then why doesn't the other gadget?
Edit: someone described a few plausible edge cases lower in the thread. I guess it's not common, but it could come in handy sometimes.
You can set a phone down and walk away
Preposterous. When's the last time you saw anyone do that?
Have you literally not heard of WiFi repeaters? It is a whole device category.
I'm not sure that a phone can repeat wifi beyond a few metres. There's a reason that there's some dedicated hardware for this.
OP, how old is the phone / what version of android is it running?
Just tested this on my s24u, connected to wifi with no physical SIM and my eSIM turned off I can still turn on mobile Hotspot. Seems weird that you can't especially since iirc Samsung let's you share your wifi connection through Hotspot as well.
Edit: goto settings>connections>mobile Hotspot and tehtering>mobile hotspot> click on the network name field. You'll be taken to a screen to change the name but at the bottom there's an advanced button. Click that and near or at the bottom will be "wifi sharing" turn that on and you can share your wifi connection through hotspot.
What kind of tethering?
"Hotspot" is always going to be referring to having the phone act as a WiFi wireless access point, rather than USB or Bluetooth tethering.
That would be cellular to wifi tethering. How can someone expect to have cellular internet without a sim.
Is OP trying to use his phone as an routerless wifi access point? That would be a crazy edge case. And it still wouldn’t be tethering.
That would be cellular to wifi tethering.
No, like...what he's trying to do is to put the phone on an existing WiFi access point, then have the phone itself act as a second WiFi access point:
This phone is broken (broken screen) and was given to me, so I figured I’d use it as a WiFi extender, but I guess I can’t.
He's trying to use it as an ad-hoc range extender. Like, he presumably has one device that can't see the existing wireless access point, is out of range, so he wants to put the phone somewhere that's still in range of the first access point, then chain access from the phone to his device by having the phone act as a second wireless access point.
Android can do that
I've done it
but this check that shouldn't be done and disrupts his use case is causing him annoyance.
That sounds like a hardware limitation more than anything. Is it normal for standard consumer wifi chips to be able to receive and broadcast simultaneously on two different networks? I know that's definitely not something you can usually do with PC hardware.
That sounds like a hardware limitation more than anything.
According to one of OP's follow-up comments, he says that it works if he puts a random SIM in without service on it, so it's not a limitation on his phone, at any rate.
EDIT: Actually...hmm. Now that I think about it...was I using Bluetooth tethering on my phone at the time rather than a WiFi hotspot? I was just remembering being startled that the phone would link the laptop to a WiFi network, and I'd used multiple approaches (WiFi, Bluetooth, USB) to link the phone at the time.
OP likely has an esim
Do you normally have SIMless service? 🤨
The hotspot function basically just lets you connect other devices to the Internet through the phone's cell service. No service == no hotspot.
Apps may allow you to use it as a range extender tho.
My phone will hotspot when it's connected to WiFi. I can even tether it to a desktop PC and use it as a WiFi adapter.
Well, technically that's not a "hotspot". ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ it's a Wi-Fi extender.
I'll have to disagree on that one, WiFi extenders extend an existing network, keeping the same network and DHCP is done by the original access point.
A hotspot creates a new network, and DHCP is handled by the hotspot, not the network on the WAN side.
And a poor Wi-Fi extender as well, since you halve your network bandwidth by using an extender with a single radio chip.
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Hotspots share your phones mobile data as a local wifi access point. If you don't have a sim, you don't have mobile data, and so, no hotspot.
There's Bluetooth and USB (with Ghirehtet over ADB or external wireless/Ethernet card) that you can use to make a Wi-Fi internet hotspot without mobile data. Also, you could NOT connect to the internet and use LAN-based apps (KDE Connect, network printers) without extra hardware in a pinch, or just broadcast an SSID in a public space for fun.
Absolutely yes. So many phones have USB 2.0, so the Wi-Fi speed is often going to be faster than cable.
you can do "wifi sharing" which shares the phones wifi connection.
Not all phones can act as a repetitor. I've had several where wifi gets disconnected when hotspot is activated.
As far as I know they can all act as a bootleg external wifi adapter though (via USB sharing)
Agreed, it's the wifi sensor that can't both act as a signal emitter and receiver. (If you know what I mean, I know that it can do both of those things to communicate, but only for a single use case)
Thats not the same thing, though.
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I find it hard to believe all your other phones could do this as it required dual antennas.
If you just want a local network with DHCP and WPA to do whatever, no uplink is necessary.
Totally useless for 99.999% of users (not even exaggerating). Would be nice to have the option though but would mostly just confuse users with was would appear to most to be a totally useless option.
So is ADB, and Bluetooth tethering, and wired Ethernet, and OTG,...
This can be solved with a warning like "You are not connected to the internet, hotspot will only allow access within local network."
And then you get a billion tickets about why you get that message when you tey to tether to your phone for Internet access
It is useful for LAN games so not 99.999% but more like 90%
Maybe 90% back in the good ol' days 🥲
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Does it have to be a SIM card with service on it? If not, maybe grabbing a random old SIM card would work.
Random sim card work thankfully
Custom ROM also
I checked XDA but no custom rom for exynos unfortunately
Samsung used to have their WiFi sharing under the Hotspot setting. Then they changed the layout, and now WiFi sharing is buried deep in menus to make sure (for some terrible reason, I'm sure) it's not found without a web search. They change the exact location of it with every OneUI update also, to further piss me off. They are surely the company that is actively trying hardest to lose customers.
Many carriers sell hotspot as a data capped premium feature. They probably want a SIM so you can be monitored and charged for using your own device on your own network and services that you've already paid for. Because greed.
I really hate how mobile hotspot is considered separate from regular data. It's the same especially if your mobile speeds are are capped anyway. It's like dental not being included in your health insurance as if your teeth aren't part of your body.
But didn't you know that teeth are just luxury bones?
Both of those are such a scam. Greed has ruined this country.
Whoops. You misspelled 'world'.
Greed has ruined with world
Edit: apparently, so did I lol
On that note, I finally tried Comcast's xfinitywifi service this month, and was pleasantly surprised. They run a WiFi hotspot service accessable to Comcast users, but non-Comcast subscribers can also get a la carte access for $10/month. It's not a full drop-in replacement for cellular data
no system of WiFi access points is going to have that degree of coverage
but if you live in an urban area, an awful lot of the place is within range of an access point, and my experience thus far has been that it's considerably faster than running off cellular data.
Yeah, I'm definitely blocked from turning on my hotspot with AT&T until it can verify that I'm allowed specifically from the cellular network.
This could very well be a carrier lock-in.
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this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2025
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Mildly Infuriating
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