How and Why You Should Use Android’s New Instant Hotspot and Call Forwarding

It took a while, but Google has finally figured out how to make Android phones and tablets talk to each other and work together, just like Apple and Samsung devices do. The feature, called cross-device services, was leaked a long time ago, officially announced in May, and only started working for me a few days ago.

There are currently two aspects to this integration between devices: hotspot and calling. The idea is that as long as both phones are signed into the same Google account, they’re part of the same group and can share an instant hotspot or video call when they’re near each other — no setup or passwords required. And unlike Apple or Samsung’s solutions, you don’t have to have devices from one specific brand; it should work across all Android phones, regardless of brand (though we know that instant hotspot won’t work with Samsung devices, unfortunately).

In my experience, Google’s full Android rollout on many devices has been instant and seamless. I can’t believe it took this long, but I’m glad it’s finally here!

If you’re out and about and have a data connection on your phone, but you have a Wi-Fi-only Android tablet (or another Android phone) with you, you’ll need to grab your primary phone, turn on the hotspot, then go to your tablet and use the internet. The first time you do this, you’ll also need to manually select the hotspot network on your tablet and enter the password before connecting. It’s not that tedious, but it’s also not that hassle-free, right? At least not when these smartphones are supposed to be smart enough to share this information in the background. Then, when you’re done, you’ll need to manually turn everything off to avoid draining the battery all around you.

Another obstacle is when you’re video chatting on your phone and want to switch to another, perhaps larger display, like a tablet. You have to disconnect and then reconnect to the call, or simply end the call and restart it on the other device. This isn’t smart or intuitive either.

Integration between devices solves these obstacles by allowing phones and tablets to communicate with each other in the background when they’re nearby. You can stream a video call to another device or initiate and connect to a hotspot from a second phone or tablet without touching or unlocking the main one. Cool, right?

How to enable cross-device services

To enable cross-device services, you must perform this action on all your android devices to make sure everyone can benefit from this new integration (check the screenshots for step-by-step instructions).

1. Go to Settings > Google > All Services > Cross-Device Services
2. To obtain Next to configure cross-device services.
3. To obtain Okay to group your devices under the same Google account.

Once you do this, you will see the cross-device services settings, which include: Telephone casting AND Internet Sharing. Make sure both of these features are enabled if you want to use both features, or disable one if you don’t. You can also see all the account groups your device belongs to (if you have multiple Google accounts on your phone, like I do), all the devices that are part of each group, and change the name your device appears as in those groups.

And that’s basically it. Repeat this on every phone and tablet you have to add them to the same group. Once you do that, just get into a situation where you need a connection between devices and it will appear.

There are two ways your secondary phone or tablet can join your primary device’s instant hotspot. The first is via an automatic notification that I get pretty reliably every time I unlock my offline phone while I’m near my connected phone.

The notification just asks me if I want to use my main phone’s hotspot, and I click To combine starts the instant hotspot process and connects to it (first three screenshots below). This works for both data and Wi-Fi networks, by the way, although it’s obviously more useful for data — you’ll always be better off just sharing your Wi-Fi credentials with your secondary device and connecting to that network directly. You’ll see a notification on your primary phone (rightmost screenshot below) letting you know you’re now sharing data with another device. Then, when you’re done, just tap Disconnect option in the notification on your secondary device and boom! The access point stops working and everything goes back to normal.

If you don’t get an automatic notification, which I very, very rarely did, you can just manually browse for available Wi-Fi networks, and you should see your primary phone as an optional network, at the top, with a phone icon next to it. Tapping it initiates the same instant hotspot process.

How to Transfer a Video Call to Another Phone or Tablet

The second aspect of cross-device services is the ability to transfer a video call from one device to another, such as from a phone to a tablet or vice versa. To do this, simply tap To throw icon in the upper right corner during a Google Meet video call, and then a window should pop up asking if you want to transfer the call to other devices. In this list, you will find nearby devices and you can select one of them.

Once you do this, the receiving device automatically opens Meet, loads the video call screen, and asks you to confirm the transfer. Select Switch here, and you’re done. Now you receive a call from the second device while the primary device displays a notification that the call has been transferred.

A promising start to Apple-style continuity and cross-platform integration

I’ve been using these cross-device tricks for the past few days while traveling and covering IFA in Berlin. And I love this new magic trick. My Pixel 9 Pro XL has a data connection thanks to EU-wide roaming, but my Pixel 9 Pro Fold doesn’t, and instead of picking up the Pro XL and turning the hotspot on and off every time I want to use the Pro Fold’s larger screen, I simply pick up the Fold and initiate an instant hotspot, then turn it off when I’m done; no need to touch the Pro XL or unlock it. A piece of cake. I imagine it’ll be just as seamless when I’m using the tablet away from Wi-Fi. I no longer have to worry about the clunkiness of manual hotspots.

In some ways, the simplicity of this reminds me of Fast Pair. I take it for granted these days, as my earbuds seamlessly connect to my new Android phone or switch between two devices. But there was a time when this wasn’t possible and I had to manually pair them.

Cross-device services are the kind of seamless transition that works and makes you wonder why we had to wait so long to see it on stock Android. Better late than never, right? And yes, some brands had their own version in their Android theme, but it was limited to their phones. Google rolling it out to all of Android is a win-win for everyone, especially those of us who use phones and/or tablets from different brands.

But I hope that soon, manual configuration will no longer be necessary, and that cross-device services will be enabled on phones or tablets out of the box. Or at least as part of the initial phone setup process.

And now that that’s done, I can’t wait to see what else Google comes up with in terms of cross-device features. Copying and pasting between devices, instant sharing of media without having to manually accept it on the other phone (our own investigation tells us Google is working on a cross-device Quick Share feature), and perhaps more options coming soon to make integration between multiple Android devices, regardless of brand, a piece of cake. I’d love to see that.