I turn on WiFi hotspot and the blue banner shows up across the top, so it seems to be working. But when I click Connect to a Network on my laptop, I see many WiFi signals in my building, but not the name of my iPhone WiFi hotspot.
Hey there dj003,
Welcome to the Apple Support Communities! You've come to a great place to sort the issues you're having connecting to your iPhone's Personal Hotspot. I know how handy that feature is, and I'll be glad to provide you with the resources you need to resolve this.
Take a look at this support article and the steps listed at the very top first:
Get help with Personal Hotspot in iOS
Since you're trying to access your hotspot using the Wi-Fi connection, if the above steps don't work, check out this section specifically:
If you can't connect to Personal Hotspot with Wi-Fi
On the device that needs to connect to Personal Hotspot, follow these steps. Try again after each step:
- Check that you're using the correct Wi-Fi network. The network name should be the same as the iOS device providing Personal Hotspot (You can check the name of your iOS device in Settings > General > About).
- If you see a password error when you try to join Personal Hotspot, check the Wi-Fi password: On the device that provides Personal Hotspot, go to Settings > Personal Hotspot to see the Wi-Fi password.
- Check how many devices are using Personal Hotspot by looking in the status bar of the device that provides Personal Hotspot. Some wireless carriers limit the number of connections you can have.
- On the device that needs to connect to Personal Hotspot, turn Wi-Fi off and back on.
You could also try one of the other connection methods to see if you get a different result.
Have a wonderful day!
I see no status bar. Where is it?
I turned off my laptop's connection to my home router, then clicked "connect to a network" again. Still no WiFi Hotspot comes up.
Hi dj003,
Thanks for the update on what you've tried so far! The Personal Hotspot icon that appears in the status bar will be along the upper right portion of your iPhone's screen. The logo looks like two interlocking rings. If multiple devices are connected, a small number will appear on the logo as well.
You should also ensure that your iPhone meets the system requirements for using the Personal Hotspot feature:
iOS: System requirements for Personal Hotspot
If you're still running into issues, you may want to explore your support options via one of our other channels. You can find out more here: https://getsupport.apple.com
Take care!
can't find WiFi hotspot
