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We are away with Mrs zip”s mum in a hotel. My plan was to bring 2 echos and set one up in each room so that if mil took a fall and needed us she could just say Alexa call zip.
Not being able to connect echos to hotel Wi-Fi is a common problem and a thing called Connectify is needed to beam the Wi-Fi from your Mac.
Is there a way of doing something similar from an iPad? We don’t always travel with the Mac book.
We have the Mac with us and can’t do a phone hotspot as no signal.
There are 3 types of Connectify , which one should do the job?
Connect your phone to the hotel WiFi. Set your phone to be a mobile hotspot, set the echo to connect to you hotspot network. I've been doing this fir years with my google TV stick to connect to hotel WiFi.
And you can do what fatboyfat says with your iPad too.
Step by step iPad instructions please.
I'm not tech savvy in the slightest!
1) Connect iPad to network.
2) Hey siri, how do I use my iPad as a hotspot
3) Profit
Siri says Personal Hotspot is not available on this iPad.
Give your mother in law an iPad or iPhone and teach her to say "hey Siri, call mrs_zippy"?
I've also seen Travel Routers. I assume this is a box you connect your stuff to at home then connect the box to hotel wifi and you are good to go?
I dunno, maybe?
I wouldn't try to run before you can walk.
WiFi hotspot with the network Id/password set to the same as your home is the simplest way. Means the echos do not need reconfiguration.
iPad won't do hotspot and phone has no signal , so hotspots are not going to work.
phone has no signal
WiFi calling enabled?
In the future ask for interconnecting rooms.
For now, phone reception and ask if they have a baby listening service?
Does you MIL have a phone? Does that have a hot spot.
The phone shouldn't need a mobile signal. You can connect the phone to WiFi then enable hotspot. It should allow devices connected to the hotspot to use the WiFi.
How close are the rooms? It maybe that only one phone hotspot is needed. When we are away with the dog I use this method to give his nest mini a connection (for white noise). The phone is often several rooms away from the nest mini.
phone has no signal , so hotspots are not going to work.
It's already been said, a modern phone will connect to hotel WiFi and enable hotspot at same time to bridge the two. Configure your hotspot same as home WiFi to simplify device connection, I do this to connect a Chromecast when away.
I have always understood it differently. It is possible my information is out of date but Google appears to agree with me.
Most (all?) iPhones have only a single WiFi radio so can have one WiFi connection at a time. So they can either connect to the hospital WiFi OR another device. So tethering is only for the data connection, not the WiFi. I don’t know if Alexa works via tethering but be aware it’ll use your data quota.
I gather some android phones have dual WiFi connections and can be forced to bridge a WiFi connection.
If that's still the case for modern iPhones then it's pretty poor.
Any android phone I’ve had will not connect to wifi AND act as a mobile hotspot at the same time. In order to enable mobile hotspot, you have to disconnect wifi.
Neither of my androids or my works iPhone will do that.
The android will take incoming WiFi and share it Bluetooth with other devices.....which is largely useless
Can't say I've missed it either. It's a fairly niche outlier case much easier solved with less tech for the 1-2 nights a year it's required ?
I've got a pixel and it will act as a WiFi bridge. Most recently used at centre parcs to get the kids tablets on the internet with minimal fuss.
I'm a huge fan of the gl.inet travel routers. I have them dotted around the house acting as signal boosters to drive cheap crap supermarket smart bulbs. Can be had from the Jeff Bezos' Yacht Fund website for about 30 quid.
Exactly £30 in fact.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/GL-iNet-GL-AR300M16-Ext-external-Pre-installed-Performance/dp/B07794JRC5
Bought a travel router and away for the first time. ……took a few goes but my echo is all set up.
All the iPads and phones connected instantly so no longing in. £30 well spent.
Just trying to understand the GL i net travel router.
Does this allow a connection to a public network (hotel, train, cafe etc) by acting as a bridge or 'isolator' to your device?
How do you connet to it?
When its powered up can you see it from your device so you can log on?
But how do you log it onto the public network?
The one linked to has external antenna. The one next to it does not have ext antenna. Better or worse?
Glad you got it sorted. I was going to suggest getting the cheapest Amazon Fire tablets rather than Echos as they support Alexa functionality.and can easily be logged in to hotel wifi.
If you buy at the right time they are very cheap.
But how do you log it onto the public network?
There is a web gui on the GL.inet to let you connect to the upstream network.
Then on the device you go to a site guaranteed to never be SSL on you laptop/ipad/phone (site neverssl.com works well) then the hotel (or whatever) login site will show up and you log in like you would normally.
BIG Caveat with this is you need to dig in settings to turn off certain protections against DNS rebinding attacks for it to work reliably at all locations!