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2 minute read - Mobile Testing Tips

Create a local WiFi hotspot for testing using connectify.me

Oct 25, 2013

We took delivery of the new iOS devices for mobile testing. And in order to activate them, you need to connect over Wi-Fi But they wouldn’t connect to the Wi-Fi network during the activation wizard. What to do?

I decided to use my laptop as a local Wi-Fi hotspot. That way I could configure it with different passwords and encryption types to try the different options and hope that the iOS device would connect.

I had trouble sharing the Wi-Fi connection using the in built windows functionality (ably explained on lifehacker)

So I installed connectify.me to help me use my laptop as a hotspot. And LO! The iOS devices happily connected through my local hotspot and activation could ensue.

Of course - once I had activated them, the iOS devices had no problems connecting to the Wi-Fi network I originally wanted to use for activation.

I suspect that the local hotspot approach might have some useful secondary benefits that I may have to research:

  • monitor traffic without having to setup a proxy
  • throttle the network speed

This also means that I can configure my mobile devices to connect over a single Wi-Fi network, and route the requests over other Wi-Fi networks by configuring the laptop connection rather than on multiple mobile devices.

Anyone else doing this? Any hints and tips or other uses you want to share?