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# Wi-Fi Aware

Securely pair and connect to external devices over peer-to-peer Wi-Fi.

## Overview

Wi-Fi Aware™ (also known as Neighbor Awareness Networking or NAN) is a Wi-Fi Alliance™ standard specification that enables devices to securely discover, pair, and communicate with nearby devices without an internet connection or access point. Your app can use the Wi-Fi Aware framework to connect with Wi-Fi Aware certified accessories. The framework offers a secure and standardized way to establish peer-to-peer (P2P) connections between Wi-Fi devices, providing networking capabilities such as:

- High-bandwidth and low-latency data transfers
- Connections to paired devices that are authenticated and encrypted at the Wi-Fi layer
- Simultaneous connections to multiple Wi-Fi Aware devices
- Simultaneous use of Wi-Fi Aware devices and a Wi-Fi infrastructure network
- Fully peer-to-peer topology, allowing peers to come and go without breaking connections to other peers

The Wi-Fi Aware technology works without the need for Wi-Fi infrastructure networks, cellular links, internet connections, or cloud servers. Your app can pair Wi-Fi Aware devices using [AccessorySetupKit](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/accessorysetupkit/) or [DeviceDiscoveryUI](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/devicediscoveryui). When paired, your app can create secure, authenticated, and encrypted peer-to-peer connections between paired devices on-demand, using the Wi-Fi Aware and [Network](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/Network) frameworks.

Your app may connect to paired Wi-Fi Aware devices whenever it’s running, in both foreground and background states. Your app may get runtime using any of the existing mechanisms on the platform, such as with the [BackgroundTasks](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/backgroundtasks) API.

If you are building a hardware device or accessory that uses Wi-Fi Aware, refer to the Wi-Fi Aware chapter of the [Accessory Guide](https://developer.apple.com/accessories/Accessory-Design-Guidelines.pdf) for the requirements to work well with Apple devices.

> Important: The following Apple devices support the Wi-Fi Aware framework:
> 
> - iPhone 12 and later
> - iPad (10th generation) and later
> - iPad Air (4th generation) and later
> - iPad Pro 11-inch (3rd generation) and later
> - iPad Pro 12.9-inch (5th generation) and later
> - iPad mini (6th generation) and later

## Topics

### Essentials

[Building peer-to-peer apps](/documentation/WiFiAware/Building-peer-to-peer-apps)

Communicate with nearby devices over a secure, high-throughput, low-latency connection by using Wi-Fi Aware.

[Connecting devices for peer-to-peer Wi-Fi](/documentation/WiFiAware/Connecting-paired-devices)

Make outgoing and accept incoming secure connections with paired devices.

[Adopting Wi-Fi Aware](/documentation/WiFiAware/Adopting-Wi-Fi-Aware)

Add entitlements and declare your app’s services.

  <doc://com.apple.documentation/documentation/BundleResources/Entitlements/com.apple.developer.wifi-aware>

  <doc://com.apple.documentation/documentation/BundleResources/Information-Property-List/WiFiAwareServices>

### Host capabilities

[`WACapabilities`](/documentation/WiFiAware/WACapabilities)

A structure that checks the host device’s supported features and capabilities.

[`WACapabilities.Feature`](/documentation/WiFiAware/WACapabilities/Feature)

Features that your app’s current host device can support.

### Services to discover

[`WAService`](/documentation/WiFiAware/WAService)

A protocol that defines a service that a device can publish or subscribe to.

[`WASubscribableService`](/documentation/WiFiAware/WASubscribableService)

A service your app discovers on remote devices and can connect to.

[`WAPublishableService`](/documentation/WiFiAware/WAPublishableService)

A service, hosted by your app, that remote devices can connect to.

### Paired devices

[`WAPairedDevice`](/documentation/WiFiAware/WAPairedDevice)

A known Wi-Fi Aware device that your app can connect to.

[`WAPairedDevice.Devices`](/documentation/WiFiAware/WAPairedDevice/Devices)

A dictionary holding a snapshot of currently paired devices accessible and known to your app.

[`WAPairedDevice.DevicesSequence`](/documentation/WiFiAware/WAPairedDevice/DevicesSequence)

A sequence that vends updates to a paired device list, as the list changes.

[`WAPairedDevice.PairingInfo`](/documentation/WiFiAware/WAPairedDevice/PairingInfo-swift.struct)

A collection of unauthenticated information the system receives from a device before it’s paired for the first time.

### Subscriber

[`WASubscriberBrowser`](/documentation/WiFiAware/WASubscriberBrowser)

The structure that configures a network browser to subscribe to a Wi-Fi Aware service and make outgoing connections to paired devices.

[`WASubscriberBrowser.Action`](/documentation/WiFiAware/WASubscriberBrowser/Action)

The structure that configures the Wi-Fi Aware subscriber operation the network browser performs.

[`WASubscriberBrowser.Devices`](/documentation/WiFiAware/WASubscriberBrowser/Devices)

The structure that determines the devices to connect to.

### Publisher

[`WAPublisherListener`](/documentation/WiFiAware/WAPublisherListener)

Configures a network listener to publish a service over Wi-Fi Aware and accept incoming connections from paired devices.

[`WAPublisherListener.Action`](/documentation/WiFiAware/WAPublisherListener/Action)

The structure that configures the Wi-Fi Aware publisher operation that the network listener performs.

[`WAPublisherListener.Devices`](/documentation/WiFiAware/WAPublisherListener/Devices)

The structure that determines the devices to connect to.

[`WAPublisherListener.DatapathParameters`](/documentation/WiFiAware/WAPublisherListener/DatapathParameters)

The parameter that sets the initial Wi-Fi Aware data path configuration for any devices that are connected.

### Parameters

  <doc://com.apple.documentation/documentation/Network/NWParameters>

  <doc://com.apple.documentation/documentation/Network/NWParametersBuilder>

[`WAParameters`](/documentation/WiFiAware/WAParameters)

Parameters configuring a Wi-Fi Aware data path connection.

### Connections

[`WAEndpoint`](/documentation/WiFiAware/WAEndpoint)

The endpoint of a Wi-Fi Aware connection.

[`WAConnection`](/documentation/WiFiAware/WAConnection)

Provides access to the Wi-Fi Aware-specific configuration and information that underlies a given `Network/NetworkConnection`.

### Security

[`WASharedSecret`](/documentation/WiFiAware/WASharedSecret)

A high-entropy shared secret unique to this network connection.

### Connection performance

  <doc://com.apple.documentation/documentation/Network/NWPath>

[`WAPath`](/documentation/WiFiAware/WAPath)

A representation of the current Wi-Fi Aware path.

[`WAPerformanceMode`](/documentation/WiFiAware/WAPerformanceMode)

The performance mode that indicates what performance criterion to prioritize.

[`WAAccessCategory`](/documentation/WiFiAware/WAAccessCategory)

The underling quality-of-service (QoS) the Wi-Fi layer uses to transmit data packets from a connection over the air.

[`WAPerformanceReport`](/documentation/WiFiAware/WAPerformanceReport)

The current performance state of the data path.

### Errors

  <doc://com.apple.documentation/documentation/Network/NWError>

[`WAError`](/documentation/WiFiAware/WAError)

An error in Wi-Fi Aware.


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