We are observing an issue on iOS 26.6.x where the Personal Hotspot SSID stops being advertised after a period of time, making it unavailable for discovery by nearby devices.
This behavior impacts our device onboarding workflow, which relies on connecting to the iPhone's Personal Hotspot. Once the SSID is no longer advertised, nearby devices are unable to discover and connect to the hotspot. Based on our testing, the behavior appears to be independent of our application and seems to be controlled by the operating system. The same behavior is observed even when our application is not running.
Observed Behavior
- Personal Hotspot is enabled and initially discoverable.
- After a few minutes, the hotspot SSID is no longer visible to nearby devices.
- Devices can no longer discover or connect to the hotspot.
- Simply opening the Settings app again causes the hotspot SSID to start advertising immediately and become discoverable once more.
- The behavior is reproducible on iOS 26.6.x.
Expected Behavior
- While Personal Hotspot remains enabled, the hotspot SSID should continue to be advertised and discoverable by nearby devices without requiring the user to reopen the Settings app.
- Alternatively, if this behavior is intentional, clarification on the expected hotspot advertisement lifecycle and any related system policies would be appreciated.
Impact
This issue affects workflows that depend on persistent hotspot availability for accessory provisioning and device onboarding. Users may be required to repeatedly open the Settings app to make the hotspot discoverable again, which negatively impacts the provisioning experience.
Questions
- Is this a known change in Personal Hotspot behavior in iOS 26.6.x?
- Is it expected for the hotspot SSID to stop advertising after a period of inactivity?
- Is reopening the Settings app expected to restart hotspot advertising?
- Are there any new power management or system-level restrictions affecting hotspot discoverability?
- Is there a recommended approach for applications that depend on consistent Personal Hotspot availability during device setup?
Personal Hotspot is intended to be a user-facing feature, so I recommend that developers not rely on it for their products. It’s easy to imagine scenarios, like this one, where the behaviour of Personal Hotspot changes in a way that’s compatible with standard user scenarios but breaks your product. I’ve been warning folks about this for almost a decade.
Given that, DTS doesn’t support this use case, and so I have various bits of advice for you:
- You should repeat your test on iOS 27.
- If you want this behaviour to change back, you can file a bug to that effect. There are two ways to position this. If the problem doesn’t show up on iOS 27 then this seems like a 26.6.x regression. OTOH, if the problem also affects iOS 27 then you should file your bug against that, noting that you first saw the behaviour in 26.6.x.
- I encourage you to explore other options for integrated with your accessory. For example, you could look at AccessorySetupKit, or see if Wi-Fi Aware makes sense for you. I have more background and links to resources in Working with a Wi-Fi Accessory, which is linked to by Extra-ordinary Networking.
Share and Enjoy
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Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"