[tdenson]

Does anyone else see the problems I get with iPhones and using them as a hotspot. 9 times out of 10 I can't see the SSID when I switch on the wifi hotspot (as opposed to BT or cable connection). Yet my Android phone is rock solid, it always appears and I can always connect. I have had this problem for at least 2 years through 3 generations of iPhones. Incidentally, I fond a bluetooth connection probably works 50% of the time and a cable connection 100% - however I don't always have a cable to hand.
[edit - isn't that just Murphy's Law, I was half way through that post and my Android connection dropped out]

[Thine Wonk]

Have you tied using wifi analyser and changing the wireless channel to one with less interference? You can change this in the settings of the phone.

Do you have wireless headphones, TV senders or any other sources of interference nearby? Many things use the unlicensed spectrum that wifi uses. Does it happen in various different locations?

[tdenson]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thine Wonk

Have you tied using wifi analyser and changing the wireless channel to one with less interference? You can change this in the settings of the phone.

Do you have wireless headphones, TV senders or any other sources of interference nearby? Many things use the unlicensed spectrum that wifi uses. Does it happen in various different locations?

This is not a location dependent problem, I get it everywhere. I get it when I'm the only wifi hotspot for miles around - I am in Africa at the mo, and very commonly away from regular wifi but have cellular coverage. In the same location my Android hotspot always works perfectly. I can have the phone sitting 3 inches from my laptop and it can see something 50 metres away but not my phone.

[Lidtop2013]

I don't know about your specific problem but as a comparison me and my misses use our iphone hotspots almost everyday and it very very rarely loses connection to our laptop, and if it does it's normally sorted by toggling off and back on the wifi and hotspot buttons. We have used hotspot since the iPhone 4s and now have 5S.

In my experience though if your signal is anything less than 3G then it won't work properly/keep disconnecting, if you've got a strong signal then there's no reason your devices won't stay connected to it

[tdenson]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lidtop2013

I don't know about your specific problem but as a comparison me and my misses use our iphone hotspots almost everyday and it very very rarely loses connection to our laptop, and if it does it's normally sorted by toggling off and back on the wifi and hotspot buttons.

In my experience though if your signal is anything less than 3G then it won't work properly/keep disconnecting, if you've got a strong signal then there's no reason your devices won't stay connected to it

It's not so much a problem of the signal dropping, but it just not broadcasting the SSID in the first place. On the odd occasion I see it, the connection then holds fine.

[Daveoc64]

Quote:

Originally Posted by tdenson

Does anyone else see the problems I get with iPhones and using them as a hotspot. 9 times out of 10 I can't see the SSID when I switch on the wifi hotspot (as opposed to BT or cable connection). Yet my Android phone is rock solid, it always appears and I can always connect. I have had this problem for at least 2 years through 3 generations of iPhones. Incidentally, I fond a bluetooth connection probably works 50% of the time and a cable connection 100% - however I don't always have a cable to hand.
[edit - isn't that just Murphy's Law, I was half way through that post and my Android connection dropped out]

Back when I had an iPhone, I saw that problem.

It happened on both my iPhone 4 and 5 - with iOS 4.3 (when hotspot was added) through to iOS 7.

Like you said, you'd turn the feature on, but nothing would be able to see that the hotspot was broadcasting.

I'd have to toggle it off then on again (possibly several times) to fix it.