Windows 11’s best new feature will only be for Samsung phone owners
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Windows 11 has a nifty new feature that makes it much easier to connect your PC to a mobile phone, with the latter acting as a Wi-Fi hotspot, although the functionality is still under testing and will only work with Samsung smartphones.
The ability to instantly access your phone’s hotspot is powered by the Phone Link app (formerly Your Phone) and was introduced in preview build 25231 in the Dev Channel (early testing channel for Windows Insiders).
Instant hotspot means you can very quickly connect to your handset’s hotspot by clicking a button – assuming the device is in range – without touching your phone or fiddling with hotspot settings, typing in passwords and so on.
As mentioned, you need a Samsung device – with One UI 4.1.1+ to be exact – and your PC must support Bluetooth. Of course, you must also be running the new preview build 25231 of Windows 11 and have the Phone Link desktop app version v1.22082.111.0 (or better).
For more information on how to set up all of this, see Microsoft’s blog post (opens in new tab) on the new build which further lists the other tweaks the software giant has made here, mainly bug fixes (and known issues).
Analysis: Please Microsoft, bring this to phones other than Samsung
This is really a smart and useful touch for Phone Link to reduce the hassle of using your phone as a hotspot for your Windows 11 machine.
Common scenarios for when you can use the direct hotspot include when you’re on the go and want to use your Windows 11 laptop with your smartphone’s cellular connection. Or maybe you’re at home and the broadband goes down – maybe you then want to jump on your mobile broadband through your phone instead and be able to do it right away without the hassle of using this feature (until your full-fledged broadband is turned back on).
The obvious annoyance here is that it’s only a Samsung feature, but for Phone Link users, that particular stumbling block is nothing new, as functionality has been tied exclusively to Samsung devices a number of times in the past.
When will instant hotspot come to other phones? We do not know. This is indeed the early test channel as noted above, so there’s a chance the feature will be dumped before the Windows 11 release version rolls through. In this case, that seems unlikely, but who knows.
In any case, fingers crossed for wider support than just Samsung devices with this one. It sure seems a little crazy that you can’t take advantage of this capability on Microsoft’s own Android-powered Surface Duo 2, but hopefully that will change soon enough.
Through neowin (opens in new tab)