Hotspot and RV with prepaid eSIM

A hot spot is a creating wifi network to use cellular data.

You can have 2 esims active in your iPhone 16.

If you don't really want to use your iPhone 16 pro, you can use an old spare cellphone and it will hotspot and create a WiFi network for your smart devices. 

I tried with an iPhone 14 and our 2025 2 x LG Connect “smartTV” within the RV do not see a wifi network on my iPhone or the other one I tried. I have an Apple TV box installed and even Apple do not see the Wifi coming out of the iPhone, if any. The Personal hotspot on the iPhone is NOT a WiFi network, it is only for sharing cellular connexion.

I had the same problem in our motorhome and after trying everything it came down to a phone cannot be both a hotspot and wifi at the same time. I did some research and found that using 2 devices could make it work (for the most part). First phone is the hotspot and second phone connects to that hotspot and acts as the wifi. Here is the AI answer:

1. 1. Turn on hotspot on the first phone:

   Enable the personal hotspot feature on the first phone, making it a Wi-Fi network. 

2. 2. Connect the second phone:

   Turn on Wi-Fi on the second phone and connect it to the hotspot created by the first phone. 

3. 3. Connect the TV:

   On the second phone, use its Wi-Fi connection to connect to the TV (e.g., to a Chromecast or smart TV's built-in Wi-Fi). 

4. 4. Cast or stream:

   You can now cast content from the second phone to the TV, or use the TV's built-in streaming apps, all while using the first phone's data connection via the hotspot. 

If the Apple device can’t recognize the hotpsot, try to restart the wifi or the phone to see if that can help. As well turn on the “Maximize compatibility” as iPhone hotspot might choose only to use certain WiFi band that only other iPhone can recognize. 

No, this doesn’t work sin iPhone is not a WiFi network in shared connection 

Thanks but I don’t want another dedicated phone for this although I’m very skeptic that an iPhone can provide a WiFi network since there is no option anywhere to do so and even a deep search in Apple support do not point to anything like so. I’m the US they launched many solutions for that but it seems that in Canada, there’s a resistance or something else blocking this adoption. If you use this, you can achieve that solution https://www.sonimtech.com/products/hotspots/h500-mobile-hotspot

You can pick a dedicated mobile wifi device of your choosing that has the compatible frequency bands. Or pick an android phone. Unless I’m misunderstanding the specific jargon, I’ve never had issues using android devices for hotspots, and they should create a standard wifi network. I haven’t tried to connect smart TVs, but I’ve used it quite like any regular wifi. Samsungs and Pixels in particular seem to be quite good at being used for wifi. I can pick the band, security type, MAC address type, and couple other settings. As I understand it, you should even be able to connect via USB-C to Ethernet adapter to a router as the internet source.

Also, with postpaid you also can use it  for a short time, but cancelling and opening a line again can be annoying with potential connection fees. But prepaid ATM has plans with larger data buckets, so it;s quite fine to use prepaid as well these days.

Thanks but I don’t want another dedicated phone for this although I’m very skeptic that an iPhone can provide a WiFi network since there is no option anywhere to do so and even a deep search in Apple support do not point to anything like so. I’m the US they launched many solutions for that but it seems that in Canada, there’s a resistance or something else blocking this adoption. If you use this, you can achieve that solution https://www.sonimtech.com/products/hotspots/h500-mobile-hotspot
 

Hey don't know what to tell you, but our phones are iPhones and we have used this method on and off for a couple of years (in Canada). Not perfect but it does work for us for the most part.

​@JEVandenbroucke you keep repeating this but I think you need to maybe elaborate what you are trying to do.

I have an iphone right now on cellular mobile data.  I turned my hotspot on.  My laptops (macbook air and a dell laptop) are both connected to my hotspot wifi.  My Onn Android TV box is able to connect to my hotspot wifi and stream video.  I only have a dumb TV so I cant test is my tv can connect to my hotspot wifi.

I dont have my ipad’s with me but I know they have connected to the iphone hotspot wifi before when out and about to keep the nieces occupied (during long road trips). 

Can you elaborate what are you trying to do that the hotspot wifi is not working for your needs?

​@Lou can you elaborate on this too?  How can a phone not be a hotspot and wifi at the same time?  Isn’t hotspotting by definition, giving a wifi connection to other devices?

Well, I want my hotspot to be a real wifi recognizable by my “Smart TVs” as a wifi network. After 3 months trying, there’s no Wifi Network going out from my iPhone nor from the iPhone 14 of my wife. We see each other as long as we are on Apple platform (iPAD, MAC Air) but even Apple TV do not see me in networks. I’m with Bell on a small enterprise account. Do they block any wifi networking based on their cellular eSIM ?

Neither do I….

Yeah maybe ignore that comment. I am going by memory from several years ago of when I was setting up my RV's TV and having major issues - I read alot of troubleshooting stuff and that "wifi/hotspot” thing stuck in my mind. It was probably just one of the thousand things I read lol.

Anyway essentially we bought a new smart tv for the RV. No matter what we tried over several hours of troubleshooting advice from the internet - the tv could not see our hotspots on either of our iPhones. At the end of a very frustrating day, we found the only thing that worked was turning on phone 1’s hotspot with phone 2 connecting to that hotspot with the tv now seeing a connection with phone 2. 

AI explanation which is better than mine: Essentially, the first phone acts as a mobile router, providing internet access to the second phone, which then acts as a bridge to the TV. 

Ok I didn’t tried that chain reaction between iPhones… I’ll try this tonight. But in the end, with this approach, we would have to leave both iPhone in the RV while e-biking etc. so we can’t access the temperature log i.e. for the doggie or fridge, security cameras or be alerted if smoke is happening… BUT just for fun, I’ll try your method. 

 It is a bit of a pain to fiddle with but our situation is different than yours as we only occasionally use it with the tv. We usually just hotspot with our iPads. Good luck.

You can definitely shared internet from your iphone to multiple devices as per Apple instruction herehttps://support.apple.com/en-ca/111785 

Make sure you turn on “Maximized Compatibility”  option. I did test myself and my iphone can share to at least 2 different devices. The devices connected to iPhone via WiFi network. 

​@Lou  and ​@JEVandenbroucke  I hear your explanations but it just doesnt make sense based on my experience.  And I dont think it is RV specific as the common thing here.

If either of you were to hotspot something while in the city, does it work?

What if you were just hotspotting for an ipad, laptop, or another phone on airplane mode with wifi on.  Does it work?

We have absolutely no issues hotspotting between our iPhones and iPads. Sometimes our friend with his android phone connects to our hotspot also. We are gone 4 days at a time on 8 different weekends between May and October with only our data to rely on. I believe I have also hotspotted between the computer in our RV and my phone once or twice in the past.

So I believe the issue in our situation is the Samsung TV. Coincidentally I was in the motorhome yesterday getting it ready for our next trip so I played with the tv a little. Again it could not see my phone's hotspot but it picked up my husband's shop wifi along with some neighbours. I had forgotten that last year I bought a Lightning to HDMI adapter  which we can use to mirror our phones to the tv … or else do the bridge thing I mentioned earlier in this thread.

It really isn't a huge issue for us as we mostly prefer to hotspot to our iPads. We could probably remove the TV and not really miss it for the small amount we use it.

It doesn’t make sense to me neither 

I’m at home right now in my RV. I’m with Bell. There’s only 1 bar on LTE and I’m in the suburbs of Montreal. I have an iPAD with me and I can share my connection with it. NOT a wifi network: a shared cellular access on which I can browse internet at a snail speed. One of my smart TV is at 5 feet from me. LG Connexx 2024 model all new. The network settings show me the WiFi from my house but NOT my iPhone nor the iPAD. I see and connect to Starlink in an instant and can stream without problem. I switch HDMI to my Apple TV 4K brand new. I’m trying to find which WiFi network is available and same results I can see even the neighbour’s but nothing from the iPhone or the iPAD. What can I say!! 

The smart TV maybe using the 2.5Ghz wifi band.  Can you set your hotspot from 5ghz to 2.4ghz?  This might fix the problem especially if the tv/devices connecting to it is older

That is one of the problem: the iPhone is not a wifi hotspot. It can only share cellular connection. Hence there’s no switch to change the band. See attached.  

That is one of the problem: the iPhone is not a wifi hotspot. It can only share cellular connection. Hence there’s no switch to change the band. See attached.  

 

Apple iPhone can share personal hotspot signal via multple wifi band automatically, you don’t have to manually do that. This link can provide more context https://www.idownloadblog.com/2020/11/04/iphone-personal-hotspot-wi-fi-bands-tutorial/

Yes I did all that, see screenshot earlier. Moreover, just to show that the iPhone sharing connection is not a wifi network, look at how the MAC sees me : it is under “shared connection “ and NOT WiFi network 

Ok, Now I understand where the confusion about “shared connection” was from. Apple marked the WiFi sources as personal hotspot if it was from another Apple device. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t allow other device to connect. You should be able to use other Non-Apple device connect to that hotspots. See my snapshot below. My iphone can recognize my wifi source as “personal hotspot - iPhone 15 PM” but the samsung device can only see it as a normal wifi source “iphone 15PM"

My iPhone is not listed as available wifi network in the smart TVs. LG Connexx 2024 with updated firmware.

so I went to my new Sony Bravia 9 (Feb. 2025) and tried to list all available wifi networks : guess what ? No iPhone either.