Setting up my Mac as a Wi-Fi source

[Howard Brazee]

I need to set up my M1 iMac with Sonoma 14.3.1 as a Wi-Fi source. I set up sharing as shown below, but with my iPhone and iPad sitting on my desk next to my Mac, I open Wi-Fi settings and don't see any source that could be my Mac.

What am I doing wrong?

 

[MacsBug]

Hi Howard,

What exactly are you trying to accomplish? Are you wanting to use your iMac as a WiFi Router, or are you trying to to set it up to transfer files?

 

[Howard Brazee]

I run karaoke night. There is an app that allows users to connect to my karaoke program. In my apartment, when my phone and my computer are on the same Wi-Fi network, that app works fine. But when I am in the apartment building's common room, we don't have a common Wi-Fi, and people can't connect. If necessary, I will see if there's some hardware I can buy, but I'm told that this setting will do the job (but I'm not getting it to work).

 

[MacsBug]

If you want to have your Mac act as an access point, then you will need to be connected to a router via Ethernet. The router is what will distribute the addresses to the other devices

However the software that you are using may still not work in this scenario.

If you want to use your iMac for karaoke then you should be able to get a small router and have everyone including your Mac connect to the router. Just note that some routers will require in internet connection to initially be setup.

 

[Howard Brazee]

If you want to have your Mac act as an access point, then you will need to be connected to a router via Ethernet. The router is what will distribute the addresses to the other devices

However the software that you are using may still not work in this scenario.

If you want to use your iMac for karaoke then you should be able to get a small router and have everyone including your Mac connect to the router. Just note that some routers will require in internet connection to initially be setup.

I was hoping there was a hardware device that would solve my problem. I looked at routers and extenders on-line without being convinced that I could use them this way. Do you have any advice?

 

[Howard Brazee]

I still would have the problem, that if I just extended a different wi-fi, the other user wouldn't have a password.

 

[MacsBug]

If you setup an network on a small portable router without a password then you and anyone else connecting to it just needs the SSID name.

I believe that a TP-Link TL-WR902AC (amazon.com/dp/B01N5RCZQH) setup in access point mode should do this for you.

 

[Howard Brazee]

I set up my Mac to use internet Sharing with the 2nd iPhone USB connection (what's the difference between the two), and created a name and password.

My iPad can see that network, but even sitting next to my iMac, it keeps spinning when it tries to connect.

 

[MacsBug]

What Internet sharing does it it lets other devices share your internet connection so that the other devices can access the web.

In order for this to work, your Mac needs to connect to the web via ethernet or a nother port. Then it will use the built in WiFi to share the ethernet connection.

 

[Howard Brazee]

It connected to the Internet via my iPhone, which was plugged into my Mac. And my iPad *saw* that connection. My iMac was connected to the Internet via the phone. It's just that the connection from my iPad to my Mac wasn't solid.

 

[Howard Brazee]

Today the connection was solid. But I have to go through the whole step (except it remembers my Wi-Fi name and password), every time I do this, including logging on to a master account (which is my normal account).

 

[Howard Brazee]

I got it working in my kJams session last night. The only odd thing was that I discovered the name of the iPhone USB session that counted depended on which USB port on my iMac that my iPhone was plugged into.