handoff bluetooth wireless

Question

Level 1

8 points

handoff bluetooth wireless

Hi new to Mac from windows. Brand new iMac 21" retina 4K fusion drive. high Sierra 10.13.3

I'm confused - can anyone help.

1. if I turn MAC bluetooth OFF, my Magic Mouse and keyboard still work. Why ? These are connected via bluetooth I thought ? it must be still on at some sort of default level ?

2. why does HANDOFF need WIFI AND BLUETOOTH both ON - on all devices.

I have iPhone wireless to home network, MAC via ETHERNET to home network.

why cant HANDOFF connectivity be established via the home network only ? ie no bluetooth ?

Or HANDOFF connectivity be established via iPhone to Mac via bluetooth only with just one of the devices connected to home network.

3. If - as I have as now - ETHERNET Mac to home network, what does the Mac wifi ON actually mean ? Is it some sort of separate hotspot with different IP to home network ? whats the purpose if I have ethernet connection ?

4. Bluetooth connectivity iPhone to MAC is hard to establish - have to switch on off etc . And it does not automatically reconnect. But as above, why do I need this if all on home network.

5. All Mac user guides mention WIFI for connectivity but rarely ETHERNET. maybe this is the norm, but I use ETHERNET as its bit quicker .

6. When all on - bluetooth and wifi on and handoff on on both devices, my iPhone wifi gets switched off !

7 .Last - I am on retina 4K H S 10.13.3. why isn't this on the drop down list of OS in "identify your product and os "? !!

Thats all folks.

Be very grateful if someone could explain these connectivity questions.

Paul

iMac, iPhone 7 plus

Posted on Mar 1, 2018 1:47 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

Paul@London Author

Level 1

8 points

Mar 2, 2018 1:03 AM in response to Paul@London

Found some answers so I’ll reply to myself if anyone finds useful .

When testing handoff I manually connected my iPhone and Mac via Bluetooth - I didn’t realise you don’t do this - as connection is automatic when needed for data transfer .

Related - somehow instant hot spot was activated and my iPhone was set as a hotspot and this turned my iPhone WiFi off . Cost me a few pounds on network charges ! I think this may also explain why I was able to turn off Bluetooth on my Mac and still have mouse and keyboard working - anyway , now I get error message when attempting to turn off Bluetooth on Mac - so this is correct .

Apparently WiFi on is needed (even if Ethernet used) to create a more stable connection between devices but I don’t see how this works.

Bluetooth is used for handoff as its much faster than via the home network alone.

So I still don’t know how the Mac WiFi helps connectivity between devices in this context .

I don’t like the Instant Hotspot at all , another device was able to switch on my iPhone hotspot without my authorisation .

I think handoff is overly complex in terms of settings required.

Reply

handoff bluetooth wireless

Similar questions