Is There a Background Mode (Always On) for iPhone Hotspots?

[smirking]

I use my iPhone 5s as a hotspot whenever I'm away from my house. It works great, but I often have to connect multiple devices for short periods of time. Inevitably, all the devices will be in a disconnected mode at some point and the hotspot will shut off so the next time I pop open my laptop, I have to restart the hotspot on my iPhone.

Does anyone know if there's some kind of background mode that can be enabled for the hotspot so that it's always on or at least on for much longer before it decides nothing is connected?

 

[Gav2k]

I use my iPhone 5s as a hotspot whenever I'm away from my house. It works great, but I often have to connect multiple devices for short periods of time. Inevitably, all the devices will be in a disconnected mode at some point and the hotspot will shut off so the next time I pop open my laptop, I have to restart the hotspot on my iPhone.

Does anyone know if there's some kind of background mode that can be enabled for the hotspot so that it's always on or at least on for much longer before it decides nothing is connected?

No there is not. It would eat your battery if it did too

 

[smirking]

Yeah, I imagine it would kill your battery. I suppose if I'm able to leave it plugged in I can just set auto-lock to never and leave it plugged in so it stays on constantly.

 

[Eric8199]

Yeah, I imagine it would kill your battery. I suppose if I'm able to leave it plugged in I can just set auto-lock to never and leave it plugged in so it stays on constantly.

That's what I do. It's annoying. But that seems to be the only way.

 

[BR3W]

when I plug my iPhone 5s into my rMBP via usb cable and turn on tethering that way it always stays on even with my screen off. It seems like it was doing that too when I was connecting via wi-fi.

Is the problem that you sometimes disconnect from wi-fi and you're wondering how to keep the tethering going when you're disconnected?

 

[Zcott]

The answer is yes and it's called Bluetooth. Join the hotspot over Bluetooth.

You won't get push notifications but it works fine.

 

[smirking]

Is the problem that you sometimes disconnect from wi-fi and you're wondering how to keep the tethering going when you're disconnected?

Yeah, I close my MBP and eventually it lets go of the Wi-Fi hot spot and the personal hotspot on my iPhone goes away.

I've tried connecting over Bluetooth before and it didn't seem to work. Maybe I did it wrong. We're sure that the Bluetooth personal hotspot is always on even when there are no clients trying to use the hotspot for extended periods of time?

I haven't tried keeping connected over USB. I'll give that a shot. Ideally I'd want to do this over WiFi since I have multiple devices that I'd like to have access to a connection on demand without having to require me to pull out my iPhone and fiddle with it.

 

[Zcott]

I've tried connecting over Bluetooth before and it didn't seem to work. Maybe I did it wrong. We're sure that the Bluetooth personal hotspot is always on even when there are no clients trying to use the hotspot for extended periods of time?

I know it stays on permanently and that it works fine connecting other iOS devices. I haven't tried connecting from my Mac but I assume it'd be ok. You have to pair the two devices first and then connect through the Bluetooth settings.