How To Turn Your Android Phone Into A Wi-Fi Hotspot

Even though the most popular services like Facebook or Gmail are encrypted, using public Wi-Fi networks isn’t very secure and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.

It’s best to have your own Wi-Fi hotspot and be totally independent in this respect.

If you have some mobile data plan (at least a few GB per month), you can easily turn your Android phone into a Wi-Fi hotspot. In this short tutorial I will show you how to do it step by step and tell you why it’s a good idea.

Let’s begin!

Why You Should Turn Your Android Phone Into A Mobile Hotspot

If you need to be online (whether while you are travelling or when you are at work), you should only use “your own” Internet.

These are just a few reasons why you should turn your Android phone into a Wi-Fi hotspot instead of connecting to a public network (or the network at your work):

NO MONITORING. No one will monitor what data your computer is sending or receiving (if your mobile Wi-Fi network is secured).
ONLINE EVERYWHERE. You will have the Internet access anywhere you are together with your Android phone (as long as it has mobile network coverage).
PRIVACY AT WORK. Your boss won’t be able to see what websites you are browsing (if you do it on your own laptop computer, of course).

These are the tree reasons why it’s a good idea, but now let’s explore a few disadvantages of this solution.

What You Have To Remember Once You Make Your Android Phone A Hotspot

Turning your Android phone into a Wi-Fi hotspot is the best you can do if you want to have access to the mobile Internet.

However, there are a few cons you should also know about. Here is what you need to know:

INCREASED BATTERY USE. The battery of your Android device will drain much more quickly once it’s working in the mobile hotspot mode. It’s best to connect your Android phone to your laptop computer with the USB cable while you are using it as a hotspot.
INCREASED DATA CONSUMPTION. Once you use your Android phone as a Wi-Fi hotspot, it will consume much more data. If you have a limited data plan, you may very quickly run out of it once you start watching movies on YouTube or Windows decides to download a huge update for you.

How To Turn Your Android Phone Into A Wi-Fi Hotspot

Here is how you make your Android phone a hotspot:

Make sure you have mobile data enabled in your Android device.
You can enable mobile data by accessing quick settings and notifications (just swipe down from the top of home screen). If Mobile data icon is white (or of a different color depending on the phone model), it means it’s enabled.

If your mobile data is working correctly, you will see either LTE, H or E near the signal strength bar.

You can also enable mobile data if you go to Settings > Data usage. Make sure that Mobile data traffic is turned on.

The next step is to turn on the mobile hotspot functionality. Go to Settings > More and then choose Tethering & portable hotspot.

Make sure Portable Wi-Fi hotspot is turned on. Next click on Portable Wi-Fi hotspot settings to configure it.

When in Portable hotspot settings, choose Configure Wi-Fi hotspot. Make sure security is not set to None but to WPA2 PSK. Create a unique and strong password (of at least 10 characters, upper and lower case letter, numbers and special characters like #$%@).