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How to Use the LG G4 WiFi Hotspot Feature

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The new LG G4 is a gorgeous leather-clad smartphone with a great camera and tons of features, and can even act as a personal or mobile hotspot. A portable internet connection that can be shared to a laptop or tablet. Letting owners connect to the internet anywhere there is a cell phone signal. Here we explain how to use the LG G4 as a personal WiFi hotspot.

Some call it a tethering, personal hotspot, portable hotspot or mobile hotspot — we’re talking about using the G4 to connect other devices to the internet. Our smartphones internet connection for data can be shared and essentially deliver faster speeds than many home networks to your laptop or tablet, no matter where you are.

Read: LG G4 Setup Guide: 5 Steps to Get Started

It’s a concept and feature many users still don’t understand, but below we’ll explain just how easy it is to use the LG G4, or any Android phone, as a personal hotspot and internet connection. This is a useful feature that if your carrier plan allows, owners will want to take advantage of.

G4 camera

The most common and preferred method is to use WiFi tethering for a hotspot. Essentially sharing your phones data connection over WiFi to any of your devices. Whether this be your laptop, or sharing it with a Galaxy Tab S or LG G Pad 8.3 in the car for your kids. It’s similar to how you connect to the Starbucks or hotel WiFi on an iPad or laptop, only it’s using your phones connection. Alternatively there’s also wired USB tethering, so your G4 can charge while it shares that connection to your Macbook or other devices.

Read: How to Make a WiFi Hotspot Widget on Android

Many of the mobile family share plans have hotspot enabled, otherwise users will need an account through their carrier with support for the hotspot function, which sadly typically costs an extra $15-$20 a month unless you’re on some of the recent high limit data plans. Also, make sure you don’t use all your monthly data and go over your limit.

Below we’ll explain where to go in settings to enable the personal hotspot feature, how to change the name and add a password so others can’t use it if you’re in public, then how to actually connect your laptop or tablet to your LG G4 internet.

Instructions

To enable a wireless personal hotspot you’ll only need to select a few things in settings and that’s all. Then sign into it with your device that needs internet. The LG G4 runs the latest Android 5.1 Lollipop, and LG’s changes to the interface makes finding options like tethering in the settings menu very easy. Start by heading into settings by tapping the gear-shaped settings icon in your app tray, or swiping down and hitting settings in the notification pulldown bar.

Once in here users will see all the WiFi and Bluetooth options, and in the first section near the end is “tethering”, select this as shown below.

G4 hotspot

The LG G4 instantly gives users multiple ways to share an internet connection, but the easiest and simplest choice is WiFi Hotspot. Select this and you’ll be able to turn it on, but first you’ll want to tap “Set up WiFi hotspot” and change the name to something recognizable, then choose a password to keep the connection secure.

G4 hotspot-setup

Once a name has been selected and a more secure password set go ahead and hit save, and then tap the switch and the top of the screen and turn on WiFi hotspot. This will instantly start sharing the connection just like a Starbucks WiFi, and you’re almost done.

G4 hotspot-on

Your tablet or laptop can now simply search for a WiFi connection just like you always do, find the LG G4 hotspot with the name we just created, enter the password and that’s all there is to it. You’re now using its internet connection on another device. Again, if you don’t have an unlimited data plan be careful, as tethering can quickly eat through an entire one month data plan in less than one day.

Bluetooth tethering is another option but one that I’ve found to typically be slower than the WiFi option, and sharing the internet connection with a laptop is extremely easy using the USB tether option. This will charge the G4 while using the hotspot feature, so the battery isn’t dead at the end of a web browsing session.

If your carrier plan wants to charge $10 or $20 for the hotspot function, or it doesn’t come free, there are a few other options available. In the Google Play Store search for and find “Tether without root” apps that once setup, will enable USB tethering to share the internet connection without a mobile carrier’s approval. Our favorite is Klink, since it’s a simple wired connection, but Easy Tether Pro and other options are also available for those interested.

Some third party options require root access (Android’s version of Jailbreak) and some don’t. Unless you’re an advanced user the tether without root options are the easiest method. Klink lets you use the included micro-USB cable to tether over USB from a phone to a laptop, but this won’t work on a tablet.

Last but not least, it’s a good idea to add a data usage reminder or alert so you don’t spend all of that 2GB or 5GB monthly data plan. Head into Settings > Data usage and set the slider at an appropriate limit to keep things under control.

3 Comments

3 Comments

  1. oumarba18

    10/29/2016 at 4:24 am

    Hello, have got the lg g stylo, but i cannot use the mobile tethering

  2. Alex

    01/17/2017 at 7:51 am

    Thanks. That was helpfull

  3. xawar bukhari

    08/13/2017 at 1:17 am

    Hello…i have lg g4 h-810 but when i start tethering it shows authentication failed….suggestions please..

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