How do I find out who is connected to my personal hotspot on iPhone

Obviously you're not a Hotspot Power User and is clueless like the rest who doesn't know the answer but just wanted to add your two cents.

iPhone Hotspot will only alow maximum of 5 connections. If you're a super user and wanted to add another device than you have to turn off the hotspot and turn it back on. Hoping the 6th device would be connected to the hotspot before other devices crowd it out. I use both IOS and Android for business.

On my Android I can select which devices can have access without having to fight for access with my own devices in the home. If you don't know an answer than don't answer. Otherwise your wasting people's time filtering through incoherent ramblings!

Dyrelog you are spot on. I've been searching the Internet but with no avail. I keep finding this old threads. I cannot believe more iPhone Users are not voicing their dissatisfaction and disappointment that you cannot control which devices are connected to your hotspot. I thought iPhone Users are more cerebral than what I have encountered on this thread.

Tthe only solution is to, sadly, buy an Android phone. Before I bought my iPhone 7 Plus, I had the Note 4. It tells you who is on your hotspot by their IP address which you can edit. You can also set your hotspot to allow only those devices you have entered via their MAC address. Try as they might, if they are not added as an allowed device they cannot connect to your hotspot. Apple, sadly, is WAY behind on this feature and only gives you a bare bones version of a hotspot, which is rather lazy since they boast being an innovative company. Nothing nnovative about a bare bones hotspot with no settings except changing the default password and SSID, which you have to go to another area in Settings to do, which is rather tedious. I hope Apple takes a lesson from other cell phone companies and begins give the people what they ask for and need. Apple says that our security is essential. If that were true they would offer this very basic feature of allowing only allowed devices on our hotspot.

There is, in fact, an app: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/inet-pro-network-scanner/id305242949?mt=8. I use it often when working with network issues. Hit the "Network Scanner" button in this app when your hotspot is up and running and it should give you a list of all devices connected to it, together with their IP addresses, device names (if applicable) and much more information about each connection. There is a free version of this app (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/inet-network-scanner/id340793353?mt=8, but I'm not quite sure whether this gives you the scan ability. Would be worth to try it. Please note that a device that was connected to your hotspot but was then disconnected might still show up in the list for a while. But, at least, this app should give you the comforting knowledge that only your own devices are actually eating up your data plan...

how about we forget about all the ridiculous obvious answers and jus stick to how to do it. I don't believe I'm hacked. I don't need to change my password. I don't care about all the obvious reasons how you can deduce who is within range.

I just want to see a list and i shouldn't have to pay for an app to do it.

Hi Hank

Hope you found your answer, but if not, when you turn the hotspot off you will see that "other devices signed in to your iCloud account will be able to use Personal Hotspot without having to turn it on manually". The only way to stop other devices connecting automatically is to sign them out of your iCloud account.

Apple believes that since these other devices are authorized on your account, you want them to be able to use your hotspot (which may not be true). It's a 'feature' :-)

Richard

The iCloud account and the connection to the hotspot are separate and distinct. The iCloud account does indeed pass information to other connected iCloud devices (if enabled), however, the thread is about connections to the hotspot, not connections to your iCloud account.

This reply isn't directed to anyone in particular but here might be a scenario where your connections are trusted (i.e. other devices you yourself own) but do not want them connected automatically to your iPhone's personal hotspot: you may not wish to download iOS updates on say, your iPad. Or, let's say -- you do want to use your iPad but your Mac laptop decides to do OS updates... let's say you are on the road and no wi-fi is available but you do have cellular coverage. And because these are all your own devices, you share an Apple ID amongst them.

So of course you can shut the laptop off or forget the hotspot password but you might forget to do so, and not remember until the damage is done.

Note: I don't have an iPad or Mac and i realize many of you do; so it's probably a common situation I've described above. And there is probably a simple solution that I don't see because I don't have other Apple devices.

Can I just point out something that may help?

Your personal hotspot can operate in two different ways as far as I know:

1 it turns your phone into a wifi hotspot that other devices can connect to and then uses the cellular connection to the mobile network to provide internet connectivity to those devices

2 it allows direct connections (via cable) from a computer and uses the cellular connection to the mobile network to provide internet connectivity to the connected device

the "password" you enter into your hotspot settings is actually a wifi key. This should be entered into other devices that connect to your phone via wifi. If you change the password setting on your phone, you will have to change it on all the devices that connect via wifi.

When you connect a computer via a cable it is not connecting to your phone via wifi so the password setting is irrelevant. you don't need a password for a direct cable connection because you can see that there's a cable connected between your computer and your phone!

I would guess that, if your computer is connected to your phone by cable, it might also be connected to it by wifi - therefore you might see 2 connections through your personal hotspot.

You believe you have absolute control over your Wifi key, the key you publish every time you turn on your wifi, albeit with a barely relevant level of encryption?

Interesting you feel that way with your condescending responses. If you truly do have such a blase view of your security, then I wish you good luck, but zero sympathy, on the day you find you have been hacked and personal life messed up.

It's not exactly difficult to discover wifi keys, script kiddy tools are readily available to enable even tech amateurs to decrypt your key.

A simple and very valid question was asked, one which would easily be resolved with an extremely basic feature from Apple.

BeatsMe2017 wrote:

The iCloud account and the connection to the hotspot are separate and distinct. The iCloud account does indeed pass information to other connected iCloud devices (if enabled), however, the thread is about connections to the hotspot, not connections to your iCloud account.

You're still not understanding. There are only two ways to connect to the Hotspot: the device is on the same Apple ID as the device with the personal hotspot or you have been given the password by the person who owns the device. Therefore, if you are the owner of the personal hotspot it seems unlikely that anyone connected to the hotspot would be unknown to you. That is why the Apple ID is getting mentioned.

Bazzzzzinga wrote:

Imagine a world where Apple build basic functionality into their OS and you don't have to download an app to do even the simplest of things.....

I can imagine it would be an incredibly dull world, where you could only do things the way Apple decided you should. The whole point of an app store is to allow dozens to hundreds of different ways to do the same thing.

But what does your post have to do with who is using your personal hotspot?

TL/DR: The phone shows an additional hotspot connection if it is connected to my laptop via cable. Changing the HotSpot password on the phone will cut access to connected devices but it may take several minutes for the device (my laptop) to register the disconnection.

----

Here's what I experienced, from the top.

I was working on my laptop, using my iPhone 6's hotspot for Internet access, when I glanced at my iPhone and noticed that the blue bar that appears at the top of the screen when a device is connected said 'Personal Hotspot: 2 connections'.

I thought this was odd because my iPhone and iPad were the only two devices in the vicinity that have ever accessed my Hotspot and my iPad had been on airplane mode for days. I checked my iPad and confirmed that is was still on airplane mode, that all wireless connectivity was off, and that it was not connected to my hotspot. (For clarity - I'm far from home at the moment and have never given Hotspot access to anyone else.)

I was a little worried because I've got a finite amount of data from my mobile provider (and big overage charges) so I wanted to terminate any unknown connections as quickly as possible. That's when I changed the HotSpot password on my phone and cycled the HotSpot connection on and off. The '2 connections' reappeared when the HotSpot was turned on, even though the new password had not been entered on my computer. I cycled the wi-fi on my computer as well and the '2 connections' would switch to '1 connection' when the laptops wifi was off but the iPhone was still plugged into the laptop (via the USB/lightning cable).

Initially this looked to me like 1 known but uncontrolled connection (the laptop wifi connection that wasn't updating the password credentials immediately) and one unknown connection (the one that remained when I turned off the laptop's wifi).

After a few more minutes of playing around (as mentioned in my previous post) I discovered that this second connection only appeared when the phone was connected to the laptop via cable. Just checked again (6 hours later) and it's still showing this second connection when connected by cable.

I just reset the password on the phone again (while the '2 connections' were active). The '2 connections' flashed '1 connection' briefly and then returned to '2 connections'. My computer is no longer connected. After 1 minute my iPhone shows '1 connection'.

What confused me last night was the '2 connections' and the fact that my computer's wifi didn't get cut off immediately when I changed the Hotspot password. (I just tested this again and found that although the Hotspot connection icon on the laptop continues to be shown (the two interconnected links) there is actually no connection.)

Anyway, I'm no longer worried about unauthorized connections now that I know the second connection is from the cable. I'll continue to look forward to some kind of app that shows which devices are connected and I'm curious if anyone else can confirm this.

Thanks.

15" Macbook pro, OSX 10.9.5

iPhone 6, 8.1

I believe the sime answer would be No there is not unless you use a scanner. Everyone else here is the problem, when a person asks if there is a way. That's all they want to know can you or can you not see who is connected. Its observed he knows how to change his password which was not his question. and the person that says Define Shows Connection, well apparently you have never used Hotspot why even comment if you don't know the answer to the original question. So my suggestion is if you cannot answer the question asked don't comment, It's apparent they don't want anything else because only the simplest question was asked. Can you find out who is connected to your Hotspot.

I hear your frustration Engilaird. Hope you can find out so that others can use what you do find out.

Thanks

Dave

CriticalCritic wrote:

I cannot believe more iPhone Users are not voicing their dissatisfaction and disappointment that you cannot control which devices are connected to your hotspot.

As I have absolute control over who gets to connect to my hotspot, I have nothing to be disappointed or dissatisfied about. The only people who would be able to connect to my hotspot would be people I've given the passcode to. And, then, they can only do it when I turn on that feature.

However, as you seem to have a problem with this (are you giving your password out willy-nilly?), you should let Apple know how you feel.

http://www.apple.com/feedback