How to: Share a hotel Wi-Fi connection via Bluetooth
Increasingly, hotels and conference centers only offer wifi internet connectivity. That is certainly good vis-a-vis convenience until you run into the all-too-common one device per connection limit. Yes, hotels et al will be glad to charge you again and again for the privilege of connecting each of your devices, but that’s just the bogus economics of false scarcity.
And, you don’t need to take it because you can share your Mac’s wifi internet connection via Bluetooth. As you would imagine, speed won’t be optimal yet it should be more than good enough.
The starting point is you’re already on the venue’s Wi-Fi network (see the concierge, event manager, etc. for help with that). That done, let’s set up your Mac to share its Wi-Fi internet connection via Bluetooth (image above):
— Open System Preferences and go to Sharing
— Select/highlight Internet Sharing (don’t tick the check box yet)
— Choose “Wi-Fi” from the “Share your connection from:” drop down menu
— In the “To computers using:” box, select “Bluetooth PAN”
— Tick the box next “Internet Sharing” (dismiss the warning)
You will now need to get your Mac and the idevice (or other Mac) ready to Pair (connect) via Bluetooth:
— On your Mac, open System Preferences and go to Bluetooth
— If Bluetooth isn’t turned on, click “On” and “Discoverable” now
— For the sake of future convenience, also tick the “Show Bluetooth status in the menu bar” box near the bottom of the window
— Make sure Bluetooth is active on the idevice or Mac you want to Pair with: iOS > Settings > General > Bluetooth and move the slider into the “On” position
I find it easier to Pair from an idevice. So, pick up your iPhone or iPad and go to Settings > General > Bluetooth and find your Mac in the list:
— Tap/select your Mac in the list
— Enter the pin, four zeros (0000) is the default
— Your Mac will spawn a dialog asking if you want to Pair with your idevice, click “Yes”
— If successful, you will see a pair of interlocked rings in the upper right corner of the iOS display
Lastly, you will need to set up your Mac’s Bluetooth radio to act as a modem and share the internet wirelessly:
— On your Mac, got System Preferences > Bluetooth
— Select your iPhone or iPad in the list and click “Advanced”
— As shown in the graphic above, tick both boxes and click the carrot at the far right and insure that “Modem” is selected
You are now sharing your Mac’s Wi-Fi internet connection to your idevice via Bluetooth.
Standard caveats apply — Bluetooth is generally slow and the range is generally limited to about 20 feet (6 meters) or so. Also, Bluetooth is notorious for chewing through battery, so be sure to it off when not it’s in use.
That said, if you’re not going to be using Wi-Fi, turn it off to conserve battery until you need it.
Setting up your Mac to share its Wi-Fi internet connection via Bluetooth is a bit of a hassle. Once devices are paired, however, it should happen automagically in the future.
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I’ve been trying to make this work. It was previously working from my MacBook to my iPod touch. However it’s stopped working recently. I can connect via Bluetooth but I get the auto assigned ip error and I cannot connect to the Internet on my Idevice. Not sure what’s going on. It’s almost like the MacBook or iPod just forgot.
Use this method — delete the setup, restart and manually add it back
As it applies to Airport: http://fairerplatform.com/2009/04/how-to-airport-wont-activate-try-this-simple-fix/
I did what you said but still a no go. Like I said I’ve got the bluetooth connection and all the sharing options are ready to go. Everything is fine except there is no internet being sent to the ios device (ipod touch 4gen) My situation is that my signal is weak. My macbook gets a good wifi signal but my ipod does not get a signal at all. So, I’m trying to send Airport from macbook to PAN (IOS Device) via bluetooth. I had it working a few days ago and recently the internet connection that I was getting via bluetooth is gone. In network preferences under Bluetooth PAN it says “Bluetooth PAN has a self-assigned IP address and will not be able to connect to the Internet.” I’ve tried to manually add the info for DHCP but it still doesn’t work. My macbook gets a great wifi signal still but something between the two has changed somehow. I’ve deleted all the settings and rebooted but still nothing.
Some weeks back, my iPad could connect to Home Sharing on my iMac, but couldn’t see any movies, music, etc. in the Library.
What ultimately worked was factory resetting the iPad and restoring it from backup — maybe a half hour of fussing.
Let me know how it turns out.
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