When a friend asks for your WiFi password, how long is your explanation? Saying “Oh, it’s a mess of letters and numbers taped to the router behind the refrigerator in the rental unit upstairs” doesn’t make things easy for them. There are better ways to share your WiFi. If your guests are Android users, you can share the info via Nearby, Google’s version of Apple’s AirDrop. To do this, tap the Nearby button below the QR code and wait until your device finds your guests so they can hop online. And if your friends wield iPhones or iPads running iOS 11 or later, they should be able to scan the QR code with their regular camera app and instantly join the network. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, though, and in many cases, you can avoid having your guests type in a password at all. Then make sure the device sharing the password is unlocked, have your friend tap the network, and a prompt should appear on your phone. Tap Share Password, then Done. You’ll need to be somewhat near their device, and in my experience the process can be a little finicky, but it’s something to consider. If the prompt doesn’t come up, you can point them to the QR code instead. If you or anyone else in your home has an iPhone, iPad, or Mac connected to the network, you might be able to get by with even less work—at least if you’ve done some work beforehand. Specifically, both people need to have the email address associated with their Apple ID saved in the other person’s contacts, and you need to be signed into iCloud. For WiFi sharing to work, both devices also need to have WiFi and Bluetooth on, and personal hotspot off. And sure, each of these tips requires some minimal hoop-jumping, but it’s a heck of a lot easier than trying to dictate a password like “dD^#i16HJ9vD” to someone while they fumble with the password field.
