Bluetooth tethering is not as popular as Wi-Fi hotspot sharing, but it has its advantages and your smartphone has this feature built-in. This guide shows you how it works, as well as its advantages and disadvantages.

We are in the sharing age. Everybody has something to share. One of the things that modern smartphones share is their mobile Internet subscription, and usually that is via WiFi hotspot. We share our Internet with our other devices and we share with devices owned by family and friends too. Not a lot of people know that they can share their smartphone’s Internet via Bluetooth.

Bluetooth Tethering

Internet tethering is the act of sharing your device’s internet with one or more devices. There are different media for internet tethering. They include:

  1. Wi-Fi hotspot
  2. USB tethering
  3. Bluetooth tethering

These days, it is more common to tether laptops and gadgets via Wi-Fi. If you have a smartphone mobile hotspot functionality, you can simply share your mobile internet with your PC and other gadgets via Wi-Fi hotspot.

Bluetooth Tethering

However, the option to tether via Bluetooth is also available on some platforms. Yes; it has some advantages over Wi-Fi tethering, as well as disadvantages. USB tethering is also possible, but does anyone still do that these days? It is good that you know it is there though, as you just might find it helpful some day. So, let’s have a look at what Bluetooth tethering has to offer us.

Advantages And Disadvantages Of Bluetooth Tethering

Low power consumption. – Bluetooth is more power-efficient than Wi-Fi, so your batteries will last much longer if you tether via Bluetooth. Modern smartphones are very energy efficient sharing Internet via Bluetooth because they use what is called Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) to achieve it.

No passwords! You do not need to enter password for Bluetooth tethering. Once your devices are paired, that’s it. As long as they both support Bluetooth tethering and it is enabled, you are good to go. Your connection is secure.

Bluetooth tethering is slower than Wifi tethering. Wi-Fi lets you transfer data at much higher speeds than Bluetooth. Bluetooth 2.0 limits you to just 3 Mbps. If you have Bluetooth 3.0 though, that provides theoretical data transfer speeds of up to 24 Mbps, which is not bad really. Of course, whether you tether via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, your service provider’s capacity is also a factor in what speeds you get in reality. Most devices today use Bluetooth 4.0 and newer, so you do get good speeds.

Limited number of connections. Another disadvantage of Bluetooth internet tethering is that it allows only one device to be connected at any time, unlike Wi-Fi where multiple devices can connect at the same time.

Bluetooth Tethering

How To Set Up Bluetooth Tethering

  1. Pair both devices – the one you want to share from and the one you want to share to.
  2. On the device you are sharing to, open the Bluetooth menu, and tap the settings icon beside the name of your host device.
  3. In the menu that pops open, enable internet access.
  4. The host device will prompt you to approve this request. Do so.

That is all. From now on, you will be able to use the data on the host device on the other device by connecting them via Bluetooth.

Now you know how Bluetooth tethering works, you never have to be stranded ever again. Put the information to use should the need ever arise.

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