WiFi showing as Hotspot to iPhone

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WiFi showing as Hotspot to iPhone

My home WiFi is showing up as a hotspot connected to my iPhone and the hotspot connection is causing problems with peripherals, like my printer.

When I search for a network, I can see my home WiFi listed as a normal WiFi, but when I select it and my MacBook connects, it shows it as a hotspot to my iPhone. Hotspot is currently turned off on my iPhone and the hotspot name on my iPhone is different than the name of my home WiFi. If I turn off my iPhone or put it in airplane mode, then my Macbook connects to my WiFi like a normal WiFi signal. It appears that, regardless of how I have my iPhone set up, my Macbook is connecting to my iPhone and using its WiFi connection (or cellular data) regardless of the presence of a normal WiFi network in the house.

iPhone XR running iOS 16; hotspot turned off and family sharing disabled.

MacBook running BigSur 11.7.

Does anyone know how to fix this so my computer connects to just the WiFi and doesn't connect to my iPhone hotspot?

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 11.7

Posted on Sep 14, 2022 11:08 AM

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Answer 1

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brooks251 Author

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Sep 14, 2022 11:48 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

I figured out the problem; something you wrote triggered me to look at a couple different things. The name of my iPhone, not the hotspot, was the same as my WiFi signal. I vaguely remember doing that a few months ago to help connect to something that had a stored password, something like that.

I changed the name of my iPhone and now I can see my WiFi under preferred networks and my newly renamed iPhone under hotspot in the WiFi menu. I can now select which one I want to connect to. I'm guessing that since my iPhone and MacBook are under the same apple ID that it was automatically connecting to the phone as a hotspot since the iPhone name matched the WiFi name, regardless of whether hotspot was on or not.

Thanks for running through some trouble shooting with me.

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Answer 2

Sep 14, 2022 11:41 AM in response to brooks251

and you already used on your iPhone:

Settings > personal Hotspot ...

to turn OFF "allow others to join"?

(which appear to turn that feature OFF entirely)?

when I look at those settings, it shows I can:

• Offer my iPhone via Wi-Fi

• Offer my iPhone via Bluetooth

• Offer my iPhone via USB cable

if your Mac and iPhone are bluetooth paired, it may be making this much more complex.

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Answer 3

Sep 14, 2022 11:21 AM in response to brooks251

If you have saved a bad or outdated password for your home Wi-Fi, it can make direct connection impossible.

¿Could that be the underlying problem?

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Answer 4

Sep 14, 2022 11:27 AM in response to brooks251

try deleting the iPhone host spot. but first, use this pane to

Then on the list of networks, delete the iPhone hotspot:

.

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Answer 5

brooks251 Author

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Sep 14, 2022 11:32 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

I've done that several times. It's not a hotspot that is being deleted, it's the home WiFi. It shows as a normal WiFi signal on my computer until it connects. If my phone is near my computer, when it connects to the WiFi, it will instead say it's connected to my iPhone's hotspot using the same name as the home WiFi. However, the hotspot is turned off on my phone and also has a completely different name from the WiFi network that I'm connecting to.

It's as if my macbook sees that my phone is on the same WiFi network then decides to route everything through my iPhone's hotspot.

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Answer 6

Sep 14, 2022 6:01 PM in response to brooks251

Glad I could be of help. Very often just talking about the issues and organizing them enough to share with others gets you half way to a solution. Other times, suggestions from a wide range of perspectives triggers something that leads to a solution.

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Answer 7

brooks251 Author

Level 1

5 points

Sep 14, 2022 11:23 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

No, that’s not the issue. My MacBook will connect to the WiFi normally if my phone is off or in airplane mode.

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WiFi showing as Hotspot to iPhone

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