The iPhone's Personal Hotspot function is a lifesaver. It enables you to transfer cellular data from one device to another or from one device to another. This is extremely beneficial when someone need an internet connection immediately.
Sharing your iPhone's Personal Hotspot, on the other hand, might be risky. It has the potential to increase your monthly payment or, worse, put you at danger of allowing a hacker to steal your bandwidth. Here's how to check who is connecting to your iPhone hotspot and how much data they are consuming.
The Status Bar and Control Center Shows Your Hotspot Connections
First, you may check the status bar to see if a device is currently connected to your iPhone's Personal Hotspot. When a new device connects to your iPhone hotspot, a green bubble and a chain will temporarily show in the time display.
You can also check how many devices are connected to your iPhone's Personal Hotspot from the Control Center:
- For iPhones with Face ID, swipe down from the top-right corner of your screen. If your iPhone has a Home button, swipe up from the bottom of the screen.
- Press and hold the wireless section in the top-left corner of the Control Center.
- You'll see the number of connected devices below the Personal Hotspot icon
Check Who's Connected to Your iPhone Hotspot with an App
If you want to discover what devices are connected to your iPhone's Personal Hotspot at any moment, you can use a third-party network scanning application like Network Analyzer.
To use it, download Network Analyzer for free on the App Store. Then, select the LAN tab and tap Scan. The app can show you a device's name, IP, and MAC address and may even recognize the device's manufacturer, like Apple.
Download: Network Analyzer (Free)
Find Out How Much Data Your Personal Hotspot Is Using
While your iPhone can't show you who is currently using your cellular data in real-time, it does keep a record of devices that recently connected to your Personal Hotspot, as well as their data usage.
To find it, follow these simple instructions on your iPhone:
- Go to Settings > Cellular (or Mobile Data).
- Scroll down to the Cellular Data (or Mobile Data) section and tap Personal Hotspot.
- You'll see a list of devices connected to your iPhone's Personal Hotspot. Here is where you can check the hotspot usage of each of them.
If you find that your device is using too much cellular data, you can use Low Data Mode on your iPhone to help cut down on data usage. To prevent unknown devices from connecting to your iPhone's Personal Hotspot, it's also best to practice securing your smartphone hotspot.
Check and Manage the Devices Connected to Your iPhone's Hotspot
The ability to share your iPhone's internet connection with Personal Hotspot is an excellent utility. However, if you're on a limited data plan, things can get quickly out of hand, and you may suddenly find yourself reaching your data limit before you want to.
Therefore, it's important to monitor and see how many people are connected to your Personal Hotspot. Additionally, you can use a third-party app like Network Analyzer to specifically check the devices that are using your hotspot data at a given time