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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?
this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2025
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Mildly Infuriating
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Some phones essentially function as wifi repeaters if wifi is connected and mobile hotspot is enabled.
Not all phones can do this.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Well to be fair, on my pixel at least, those are literally the same setting. Which it actually is just depends on if you're currently on WiFi or not. Kinda Google's fault for labelling it like that.
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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.
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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.
And a poor Wi-Fi extender as well, since you halve your network bandwidth by using an extender with a single radio chip.
I've only seen that option on phones with two radios, it uses the 2.4GHz radio for one connection and the 5GHz radio for the other
I am not entirely sure what kind of radio fuckery happens, but my phone (Oneplus 6 with LineageOS) can be connected to a 5 Ghz wifi network and have a 5 GHz hotspot open at the same time.
I am assuming the wifi chip has two (or more) somewhat independent frontends, since my home wifi and the phone hotspot are on two different 5 GHz frequencies.
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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.
Might be someone wanting to share the WiFi on something like a tablet. Or someone using an Android phone as an “iPod Touch”, basically everything the phone has minus cellular capabilities but still wanting to share the WiFi with other devices.
I could see this being very popular on flights and cruises where they charge you per device to pay for this one device and then share with other devices.
The device can just connect to whatever wifi network the tablet is connected to. There's no reason to "share the wifi connection".
I could see this being very popular on flights and cruises where they charge you per device to pay for this one device and then share with other devices.
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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.
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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.
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.
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.
Does it have to be a SIM card with service on it? If not, maybe grabbing a random old SIM card would work.
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