When you’re playing a game on your Xbox, it’s nice to have reliable Internet so you can play without any hiccups. If your home’s WiFi signal isn’t strong enough to provide good and reliable speed, you may want to look into using a hotspot.
I had a situation where my home’s router had horrible packet loss. So I had to connect my Xbox to my mobile hotspot to play online games like Apex Legends and it worked much better than my router. I recently fixed that issue by buying a brand-new router.
In this article, we’ll go over how to connect Xbox to a hotspot as well as some things you should know in order to get the most out of your gaming experience.
Can You Connect Xbox to a Hotspot?
Yes. You can connect Xbox to a hotspot and it will work with Xbox Live. You can play online games and join voice chat parties. However, some features will be limited.
Generally, hotspots weren’t designed for online games, so they have limited functionality. For example, when using an Xbox with a hotspot your NAT type will likely be set to Strict and UPnP might not work. Hosting game servers probably won’t work on a hotspot too.
Be careful. Streaming HD media or downloading games with a hotspot will quickly use all of your mobile data. I recommend disabling game updates on your console until you’re connected to a normal Wifi network. Generally, playing online games won’t use much data.
How to Connect Xbox to a Hotspot
- Turn on your hotspot. Don’t use any special characters in the name or password.
- Press the Xbox button on your controller, and navigate to Settings, General, and Network Settings.
- Locate your hotspot from the list of Wi-fi networks and enter the password.
- Xbox will connect to your hotspot and you’ll be online.
Xbox Won’t Connect to Hotspot
If your Xbox won’t connect to your hotspot, restart the hotspot, and fully restart your Xbox. I recommend pulling your Xbox’s power cable and letting it sit for 30 seconds before reconnecting it. When you restart your Xbox, it should be able to connect to your hotspot.
Xbox will occasionally run into software issues with the network card and a full restart should clear that up. Another tip is to disable the 5 GHz hotspot and remove any apostrophes from the hotspot’s name.
Xbox Can’t Find Hotspot
If your Xbox can’t find your hotspot on the list of Wifi networks, consider entering the SSID and password manually. Didn’t work? Restart the Xbox. The network card could be having issues.
Xbox Network Could Be Broken
Lastly, when your Xbox can’t find any Wifi networks and a restart/power cycle doesn’t fix the problem, it may be that your Xbox’s network card is broken. It’s rare by it can happen.
The only way to fix that is to send it to Microsoft for a replacement. Luckily Xbox’s come with a one-year warranty and all fixes are free within that warranty period. Visit Xbox’s official service page for more support.
The Bottom Line
To summarize, most Xbox consoles will be able to connect to a hotspot without any issues. The best solution for Xbox network connectivity issues is to do a full shutdown and remove the power cable for 30 seconds. 9 times out of 10, a power cycle will solve Xbox’s network issues.
Now, I recommend getting your hands on a good router (I like this TP-Link 1750), so you don’t need to keep switching your Xbox to your hotspot. Did any of these solutions work for you? Drop a comment and let me know!
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