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Rita El Khoury \/ Android Authority<\/p>\n
For years now, we Android fans have been a bit jealous of Apple\u2019s Continuity features and seamless integration across its ecosystem of devices. The best one of the bunch is the instant hotspot, where you don\u2019t have to manually set up a hotspot to share your data connection with your secondary phone or tablet when they\u2019re nearby \u2014 it just works .<\/p>\n
You might not know, though, that Android has had this same feature since last September. It rolled out as part of a new \u201cCross-device services\u201d menu<\/a>, which came to many Android phones in a Play System update<\/a>. If none of these words mean anything to you, you\u2019re not alone. Everyone I\u2019ve talked to about it \u2014 including several tech journalists and nerdy friends \u2014 had no idea about this secret Android instant hotspot option, nor how to enable it.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s changing now. You no longer need to be a tech wizard to delve into Settings > Google > All services > Cross-device services > Next ><\/strong>\u00a0and more to set it up, because Google has finally decided to turn it on by default when you set up a new Android phone.<\/p>\n What happens when you set up a new Android phone<\/p>\n Rita El Khoury \/ Android Authority<\/p>\n I noticed this change when I was setting up a new phone, the realme GT 7 Dream Edition. But this isn\u2019t limited to realme, and it should be the case with most new Android phones from any brand going forward. After I was done signing in with my Google account on the phone, I received a notification on my main device, the Pixel 9 Pro XL<\/a>, informing me that a new phone can now share with me.<\/p>\n The notification came from Cross-device services and said that my new realme phone can now \u201cfind this [Pixel] device and share things like video calls.\u201d Ah, Google, why are you hiding the ball like that and not mentioning the hotspot? I delved into Cross-device services on my realme and, of course, they were already turned on, signed into my account, added to my device group, and both current features \u2014 call casting and instant hotspot \u2014 were on, even though I hadn\u2019t manually enabled them when setting up the phone.<\/p>\n So finally, after many months of a slow rollout and a silly phase where these had to be turned on by the user (check the screenshots above to see the obscure way to turn it on), Google has decided it\u2019s time to graduate these features and just enable them for everyone. You can turn them off, of course, but the gist is that no one will have to dig that deep into obscure settings to discover that this option exists.<\/p>\n What happens when you don\u2019t have a data connection<\/p>\n Rita El Khoury \/ Android Authority<\/p>\n With that done, it was time to put this to the test. I went out with my Pixel 9 Pro XL and realme GT 7; the former has my SIM card and complete data access, the latter doesn\u2019t have any connection besides my home\u2019s Wi-Fi.<\/p>\n After walking away from my Wi-Fi for a few minutes, I took out the realme and tried to use it. It took a few seconds for the \u201cUse your phone\u2019s hotspot\u201d pop-up to show up, but it did. I tapped it, and just like that, the phone turned on my Pixel 9 Pro XL\u2019s hotspot and connected to it without me having to even take my Pixel out of my pocket. No password set up or entry, to manual connections, nothing. It worked perfectly.<\/p>\n Throughout the day, I kept using the realme phone, and each time I needed a connection, I could instantly grab it from my Pixel without fussing with anything besides that one notification.<\/p>\n And this is what Android users who set up a new Android phone will soon experience: an option that\u2019s turned on by default and a notification to use their nearby phone\u2019s data when they\u2019re using a secondary, data-less, phone or tablet.<\/p>\n As long as the two devices share the same Google account and are near each other, this should work seamlessly.<\/p>\n Some caveats to keep in mind<\/p>\n Rita El Khoury \/ Android Authority<\/p>\n So, Apple Continuity-like features are live on Android now, and all\u2019s good in the world? Well, yes and no. I have to mention a couple of caveats that I can\u2019t test in my current setup.<\/p>\n First, I suspect that your primary device will need to have Cross-device services enabled (i.e., you need to do it manually). If not, your secondary device will be enrolled, but it won\u2019t have any phone to share with\/from. So, most normal Android users won\u2019t discover the instant hotspot or cross-device sharing until they have set up at least two new phones.<\/p>\n Second, I think the auto-enrollment in Cross-device services will only work when the new phone you\u2019re trying to set up ships with a specific minimum version of Play Services out of the box. So if you buy a Galaxy S25, for example, it\u2019s unlikely this will happen on your phone. But if you go for the S25 Edge<\/a>, you have a better chance of getting it. With time, though, all newer Android phones should ship with a Play Services version that turns this on by default out of the box.<\/p>\n![\"cross](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/cross-device-services-1.jpg\"\/ "\\"cross")
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