The Public Broadcast
The Personal Hotspot feature on an iPhone is incredibly useful for providing a Wi-Fi connection to your laptop while traveling. However, when you enable the hotspot, your iPhone constantly broadcasts its name (e.g., “John’s iPhone”) to every single Wi-Fi capable device within a 50-foot radius. This allows anyone sitting near you in a coffee shop or an airport to see your device name in their network list, even if they cannot connect without the password. If you want to use your hotspot privately via a USB cable or strictly with your own logged-in Apple devices, you must disable the public Wi-Fi broadcast.
How to Turn Off Hotspot Discoverability
You can revoke the Wi-Fi radio’s permission to broadcast the network name via the Hotspot settings.
- Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
- Tap on Personal Hotspot (located just below Cellular).
- Look for the master toggle switch labeled Allow Others to Join.
- Toggle this switch to the Off position (the green background will disappear).
The Invisible Connection
The change is instantaneous. Your iPhone immediately stops broadcasting its SSID to the public airspace. Random people in the coffee shop will no longer see your phone in their Wi-Fi lists. However, your own iPad or Mac (signed into the same Apple ID) will still be able to silently detect and connect to the hotspot, and you can still share the connection to a laptop using a physical USB cable, ensuring total privacy.