Here Are The Specifics On Android’s Instant Hotspot Feature

Google’s New Support Page For Instant Hotspot Irons Out All The Specifics

Instant Hotspot has been announced since the May Feature Drop, so Google has no secrets to hide about the inner workings of this new feature. They’ve deployed the official support page for this feature, which gives us a lot more insight into how it works than we had before.

The first thing that you need to know is that Instant Hotspot is made possible by Google’s new Cross-Device Services feature. Needless to say, the device hosting the hotspot as well as every single device that will be joining the hotspot, needs to have Cross-Device Services enabled. At the moment, Cross-Device Services isn’t even available on Android, so you can’t use this feature yet until it is (and we have no idea when that’ll be).

All the devices, both host and clients, also have to be signed into the same Google account. This means Instant Hotspot won’t work when you’re trying to get your friends on your network, but it will work when trying to connect your personal tablet or another phone to your phone’s hotspot. You’ll be able to use this on devices running on at least Android 11, but you get the fully-fleshed feature set with Android 14.

Android Go And Samsung Devices Are Exempted From The Fun

Android Go devices won’t have access to Cross-Device Services, which means they intrinsically won’t be able to use Instant Hotspot. They are meant to be more lightweight Android devices, so it’s not the biggest tragedy in the world.

However, Samsung devices will not have access to this feature, and it is so hard to understand why. Even if you have a shiny new Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, you won’t be able to use Instant Hotspot. Google recommends that you use Auto Hotspot on your Galaxy device instead. This is basically Samsung’s take on the same feature, and it requires the devices to be connected to the same Samsung account or in the same Samsung family group.

Here’s How To Use Instant Hotspot (Once It’s Finally Live)

The support page lets us in on how to actually use Instant Hotspot once the feature goes live. The first thing that you need to do is make sure that the necessary toggles are on, and here’s how:

1. Open the Settings menu on your Android phone.
2. Select Google.
3. Go to “All services”, then “Devices & sharing”, and then “Cross-device services”.
4. In this menu, make sure the toggle for “Use cross-device services” is on.
5. After that, look for the “What your devices can do” section and select “Internet sharing”.
6. Enable both “Use internet sharing” and “Instant hotspot”.

After that, when using a device without an internet connection close to a compatible device with internet, you’ll get a notification asking you to connect. Once you press “Connect”, voila! That’s what Instant Hotspot is all about.