Can not connect to iPhone

Help setting up WiFi
Post Reply
k4qxx
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed May 04, 2022 3:19 pm

Can not connect to iPhone

Post by k4qxx »

Hello

I am new to pi-star and have purchased a second device to use in our Motorhome. It works great on the home wifi but I am having trouble getting it to connect to my iPhone hotspot. I was successful one time getting it to connect but I haven't been able to get it to connect again. Here is what I have done so far.

I have turned on the "Maximize Compatibility" option on the wifi settings on my iPhone. Initially I couldn't see my iPhone hotspot listed as a wifi device.

I made my iPhone name simple. It's just my callsign

The 2 problems I am having are not seeing my iPhone wifi name listed if there are a bunch of other hotspots in the area. Example, I was at a hotel last weekend and there were tons of hotspots/wifi devices and I didn't see my iPhone listed. I am wondering if there is a limit on the number of hotspots that can be listed in the wifi settings.

The other issue I have is when I do see my iPhone hotspot selected, I can't seem to connect to it. I was successful one time but after that one time, no luck.

Any pointers on how to get the iPhone hotspot to work? We travel a lot in our motorhome and it would be fun to be able to take this hotspot with us.

K4QXX
Burch
AF6VN
Posts: 821
Joined: Fri Jul 20, 2018 1:15 am

Re: Can not connect to iPhone

Post by AF6VN »

k4qxx wrote: Mon May 09, 2022 3:27 pm The 2 problems I am having are not seeing my iPhone wifi name listed if there are a bunch of other hotspots in the area. Example, I was at a hotel last weekend and there were tons of hotspots/wifi devices and I didn't see my iPhone listed. I am wondering if there is a limit on the number of hotspots that can be listed in the wifi settings.
"seeing my iPhone wifi name listed" WHERE?

If you properly set up the WPA Supplicant file with both your home WiFi credentials, and a second network with the iPhone credentials, the hotspot should connect to whichever is visible (with priority when both are in range based on network order in the WPA Supplicant file, I believe).

Possible problems:
  • mixed WiFi bands... Hotspot on 2.4GHz but iPhone on 5GHz or other way around (though 5GHz hotspot requires the newest R-Pi models).
  • iPhone is not broadcasting its SSID (I used to have my WiFi suppress the SSID broadcast until I ended up with one or two devices that just refused to connect if they don't first see the SSID -- whereas my older devices would "ping" the SSID and connect if it responded)

--
AF6VN
Dennis L Bieber
k4qxx
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed May 04, 2022 3:19 pm

Re: Can not connect to iPhone

Post by k4qxx »

I think I have it working about %75 of the time if I leave the "iPhone Hotspot settings" page open on my iPhone while booting the hotspot. I read somewhere else that if you have your iPhone open to the hotspot settings page, that it will connect. That makes no sense to me but I rebooted my hotspot several times yesterday and most times it connected to my iPhone hotspot. I will continued playing with it to see if I have any other quirky things I have to do.
M7WIM
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Apr 21, 2022 10:07 am

Re: Can not connect to iPhone

Post by M7WIM »

Hi , I can find and attach pi star to my iPhone connections but the dashboard won’t let me into admin, let’s me into configuration.
Am I missing something here?
Any advice would be appreciated
Walter
Post Reply