Just like any other Android device, the Galaxy S5 can also act as a hotspot. With its beastly battery life and efficient modem, the handset can act as a Wi-Fi hotspot for hours without the user worrying about the battery running out of juice. In fact, chances are you will gobble up your monthly quota of mobile data before you can completely drain the S5’s battery while using it as a hotspot device.
Follow the steps below to know how you can use your Galaxy S5 as a mobile hotspot and share its mobile data with other devices.
Step 1: Head over to Settings -> Tethering and Wi-Fi hotspot (under Network connections). If you want to create a Wi-Fi hotspot, select the Portable Wi-Fi Hotspot option.
Step 2: Now, you turn on the hotspot by simply toggling the switch in the action bar to On position.
Step 3: If you want to configure the hotspot settings, tap the menu overflow button and select Configure. Here, you can specify the Network SSID, change its security level, assign a password and even select the broadcast channel. Click on Save when done and then re-enable Wi-Fi hotspot for the changes to take effect.
You can share the mobile data via Bluetooth by enabling the Bluetooth tethering option as well, located under Tethering and Wi-Fi hotspot. There are no options to configure here though. Simply enable it and then connect your PC/Laptop to your S5 via Bluetooth.
A point to note here is that using Bluetooth to tether your mobile data to a PC or laptop is going to be less battery intensive than Wi-Fi. This is because when using Wi-Fi hotspot, the mobile radio as well as the Wi-Fi radio have to work overtime, thereby draining more power. Bluetooth, however, consumes less power compared to the Wi-Fi radio, thereby allowing your S5 to last longer as a hotspot.
