Why is Bluetooth have to be on for my Hotspot to work?

You're are mistaken. There is no such thing as battery bleeding Bluetooth. Bluetooth uses practically no energy, and there never any reason to turn Bluetooth off. When not connected Bluetooth uses ZERO energy, and when connected it use 10 milliwatts or less. The cellular connection that you are using as the connection for your hotspot uses 500 milliwatts to 1,000 milliwatts, depending on signal strength. The Wi-Fi you are using consumes 30 milliwatts, so the reason the battery drains faster when using the hotspot is the cellular network connection, not Bluetooth, not Wi-Fi.

If you don’t leave Bluetooth on all the time your chance of finding a lost iPhone is pretty close to zero.

I suspect that Bluetooth is the control channel for the hotspot, which is why it must be on. But, as I said, you should leave it on all the time.

Connect to the Personal Hotspot of an iPhone or iPad - Apple Support

The Personal Hotspot uses your cellular data connection as the uplink to the Internet. And, as stated, that cellular connection is the thing that really drains your battery.

According to Apple's Support article, you can use Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or USB to connect local devices to an iPhone which is acting as a Personal Hotspot. But even if you use Wi-Fi, Bluetooth must be turned on. It is reasonable to suppose that in this case, Bluetooth is used only as a control channel.

The method for connecting to a Personal Hotspot with Bluetooth is different from the method for connecting using Bluetooth, so it is very unlikely that you are "accidentally" connecting using Bluetooth when you could be doing so using Wi-Fi. However, even in the scenario where you connect using Bluetooth, it is likely that the cellular radio will be consuming much more battery power than the Bluetooth one. Bluetooth is a "Personal Area Network" - and the signal doesn't have to be strong enough to go very far. For the cellular connection that you must have to create a hotspot, the signal needs to be strong enough to travel all of the way to one of your carrier's cell phone towers.

There is no way to turn off Bluetooth when using the hotspot. PERIOD. END OF DISCUSSION. And Bluetooth uses no energy. You can believe whatever you want, but that doesn’t change facts. And this isn’t arguing; you can’t argue with facts.

When you are using just Wi-Fi your phone lasts longer, because the cellular radio in the iPhone is not active. When you connect using the hotspot the cellular radio is on continuously, that is why your phone battery drains faster when using the hotspot. It is the cellular connection that is using the energy, not Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.

YOU CANNOT TURN OFF BLUETOOTH AND STILL USE TETHERING USING YOUR CELLULAR CONNECTION. IT ISN’T USING BLUETOOTH TO TETHER, IT IS USING BLUETOOTH TO CONTROL THE CONNECTION. YOUR CONNECTION ITSELF IS OVER WI-FI.

If that isn’t clear enough I give up.

Scooby9261 wrote:

Well so far the one thing ive been told is i need to turn off Bluetooth tethering.

You told us that you connected to your hotspot through Wi-Fi.

If that is true, you were not using Bluetooth tethering, and it is pointless to ask how to turn it off. Yes, the Wi-Fi tethering option does require Bluetooth to be enabled, but the bulk of the traffic is going

• Between your M1 MacBook Air and your iPhone – over Wi-Fi
• Between your iPhone and the Internet over your cellular connection - this being the connection which is both absolutely necessary, and the greatest consumer of battery power

If you were doing Bluetooth tethering, you would have connected your MacBook Air to your iPhone via Bluetooth, and your iPhone would not be selected in your MacBook Air's Wi-Fi Settings.

There (going by info i finally found) is an issue with Bluetooth tethering and there use to be a way to shut this off.

What info? You can probably find sources on the Internet to tell you that the Earth is flat and balanced on the back of giant turtles. That doesn't mean that it is.

Hi, a simple test is, turn Bluetooth off on both devices. Does your Mac still see the Hotspot? If it does, try connecting to it. If it doesn’t see the Hotspot, Bluetooth is required for discovering the Hotspot and almost assuredly for a continuity and hand off situation. If it’s required, as outlined above, it cannot be turned off. Apple is requiring it to be on in order to provide a more stable and consistent user experience.

Do you have auto join enabled, if available?

I'm seeing the same behavior on my end (iPhone w/ iOS 26.5.2, Mac w/ macOS Sequoia 15.7.7). If the iPhone Bluetooth is turned off, the Mac cannot connect to the hotspot. If the iPhone Bluetooth is on, the Mac can connect to the hotspot but drops the connection if the iPhone Bluetooth is turned off.

I believe Bluetooth is the way the 2 devices communicate in the background to know what each device is doing, especially when you want to drop the hotspot from either the Mac or the iPhone.

Connection sharing using iPhone Instant Hotspot uses Wi-Fi, or uses both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

• Share your internet connection from your iPhone - Apple Support

I’m not aware of a way to shut off Wi-Fi when using Hotspot.

Alternatives and power-related options include adding an auxiliary battery to the iPhone, or using a dedicated Hotspot device from your preferred carrier.

Colmustardxbl wrote:

I'm having the same issue. MBP M3 trying to use iPhone 16pro as hotspot with mobile 5G, full signal. If the MBP BT is turned off, it fails to connect. The hotspot shows up in the wifi list, but it just fails to connect. If I turn BT back on, then it connects on the first try.

But nowhere does Apple say BT is required to connect to a wifi hotspot. And when the connect fails, it provides no information about needing to turn on BT for it to work.

This is 100% a bug.

1. "Make sure that the devices are near each other and have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth turned on.



Above taken from: Connect to the Personal Hotspot of an iPhone or iPad - Apple Support

Apple’s UX is to simplify things. Micromanaging a connection is not the UX Apple wants. BT is on by default, stays on to keep things simple and avoid micromanaging. It’s been explained how BT uses a fairly insignificant amount of battery capacity, so keep it simple and leave it on and forget about it.

Colmustardxbl wrote:

This is 100% a bug.

This is 0% a bug, seeing as how it is a documented requirement in Apple's Support articles.

Scooby9261 wrote:

Just stinks, when im on battery the combo of Wifi and Bluetooth while my phone is in hot spot mode burns the battery quick.

Nah......neither the Bluetooth nor Wifi radios are big consumers of power. But your Hotspot is a big consumer of power.

Re: “… there has got to be a way of turning off bluetooth when using your phone to connect to a computer … “

WiFi Hotspot is a service provided by your wireless carrier.

Perhaps you might take this discussion up w/ them.