Question How to turn my android phone into a WiFi Repeater AND connect it to pc via tethering?

[HarryMaci]

Greetings people! Im not quite sure if thats the right place to ask but here we go.

I have 2 Xiaomi android devices,1 desktop, and access to a network. My endgoal would be to have Internet Access in my PC and after some searching i ended up downloading an app that lets you share the network your devices is connected to with another device. So far so good, but the issue is that i cant tether the 2nd device to my PC and i dont know what i can do.

Steps i took:

1. Connected #1 android to home Network.
2. Downloaded and Installed NetShare App on #1 android device
3. Activated NetShare App network
4. Connected android device #2 to android device #1 successfully
5. Changed Connection settings of network on device #2(as the app stated), which was to change DCHP to static with the given IP address and Proxy gate(both of these were shown in device #1 app )
6. Checked if it works( all good ,have access to internet)
7. Tried to tether device #2 to PC and failed.

What can i do in order for my PC to have access to internet?

 

[rgd1101]

get a wifi adpater for the pc

 

[bill001g]

This is a very messy thing to try. I don't know what app you loaded but windows itself has the ability to share connection and use tethered devices.

Just using a single cell phone connected to a pc tends to be complex but running 2 I am not so sure. I feel it should be possible but can't give you the instructions.

I would try to get both connection working independently with the other disconnected and then try to run both.

So to start with windows connection sharing is something very old back from the days of dialup modems where you wanted to connect a second device to a modem which you could not do and routers did not exist.

They have added features to the connection sharing but it is still very very basic. Windows was never designed to be a router.

So I would first start with the simpler of the 2 and get you pc to be able to access the internet via the first phone. This is pretty much your standard tethering configuration. I would disconnect this until you get the second part figured out.

So if you were just trying to share the internet with a ethernet port that would be pretty easy. The next level of complexity is to use a wifi card. The problem is the normal use case of wifi is you connect to say a router. What you want to do is have other devices connect to you as if your pc wifi nic was a router. The wifi nic must run in AP mode and then have the connection sharing options setup.

So if this is not bad enough you want to use your second phone as this AP and your want to connect if via USB cable. Although I have heard people do this I can't tell you how. The problem is the software/driver that accomplishes this must have the ability to interact with the internet connection sharing software. Even some USB wifi nic cards do not have the proper option in the drivers.

It would be somewhat simpler if you just used the first phone as a hotspot to begin with. If you continue in this path I would at least look at buying a wifi nic for the pc at least it is simpler than trying to use a second phone as a wifi nic card.

 

[HarryMaci]

Guys, EUREKA! After scouring the internet i found out i had to change my PC LAN settings in order to make it to work , specifically, change the proxy IP address and the port. Worked like a charm BUT i dont understand/know better HOW, so i'd love if any of you could please explain like im 5 😀.

​

1st PIC is from device #2 WiFi settings , i had to set a manual IP with a specific port(both of them provided by the app from device #1)​

2nd PIC is from pc settings.​

Why do i had to change the LAN settings from my PC ?

 

[lantis3]

Think this is the NetShare App you talked about.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=kha.prog.mikrotik&hl=en_US

Your android phone #1 is acting as a hotspot router proxy server, which has wifi IP address 192.168.49.1 that's why. Android phone #1 also has data plan right?

But you said you have network access and you should have a wireless home router too. What is router's IP?

It's a bit confusing here, If your PC is able to connect to Android #1, you should have changed PC's wifi adapter's settings, not wired ethernet LAN settings.

 

[lantis3]

My smartphone has data plan but can't tun on hotspot since I didn't pay extra $10 to have the feature.

I installed the NetShare App, configured my android phone, set the hotspot, set the password & pin, was able to connect the the phone using PC's wifi adapter and got a random IP in 192.168.49.xxx range

Disabled wired ethernet, changed the proxy setting in Windows Internet Options as suggested above, after several tries (using passphrase, not PIN method) and eventually was able to get online.

Be noted the hotspot SSID set in NetShare APP will appear as Direct-NS-SSID when surrounding wifi client searching for a hotspot.