Apple Watches and ship wifi

[awhfy]

11 hours ago, Cruise till you drop said:

Maybe I wasn’t clear.  When I walk on land, it takes me about 2100 steps to do a mile and I do it in 18-20 minutes.  But since the ship is moving when I walk on their track, if the ship sales 15 knots per hour, it usually gives me credit for about 20 Miles in an hour of walking instead of how far I’m actually walking which is between 3-4 miles

There’s a setting you can adjust on your phone to set it up correctly. My Apple expert isn’t home right now (she’s in school)

[CruseKrazy]

Anyone know if you can run a wifi hotspot on a Starlink connected iPhone on board?  Tks.

 

Dave

[DaKahuna]

3 hours ago, CruseKrazy said:

Anyone know if you can run a wifi hotspot on a Starlink connected iPhone on board?  Tks.

 

Dave

 

Not on an iPhone.  If you use the wireless to connect to the ship's WiFi then it cannot be used as the hotspot at the same time.  I carry a travel router with me and connect it to the ship's WiFi and then connect the in room devices to my travel router. 

 

[CruseKrazy]

Thanks.  I did not think it would be possible.  How much does a travel router cost?

[Jim_Iain]

18 hours ago, jwlane said:

Why would it do otherwise?

I turn off GPS to get calculated distance by my stride x steps.   I do the same even on land as the GPS burns the battery faster.

[Jim_Iain]

21 minutes ago, CruseKrazy said:

Thanks.  I did not think it would be possible.  How much does a travel router cost?

About $29 up.     You can also create a Hotspot using your PC but in my experience you loose more speed using a PC

[Jim_Iain]

4 hours ago, CruseKrazy said:

Anyone know if you can run a wifi hotspot on a Starlink connected iPhone on board?  Tks.

 

Dave

 

You can't using an iPhone.   If you are in airplane mode and turn on hotspot it turns off Wifi and turns on Celluar.   Could be costly.

 

Some have said you can do it on a Android but I have been unsuccessful.   It reacts the same as an iPhone but I understand if two Androids are Close by you can share a wifi connection using bluetooth.   I only have one so unable to test.    I only use my Android for Security Testing.   

[Jim_Iain]

5 hours ago, awhfy said:

There’s a setting you can adjust on your phone to set it up correctly. My Apple expert isn’t home right now (she’s in school)

The setting is to turn off GPS Location on the watch possibly on the iPhone itself.   I have a Fitbit so can't test an Apple Watch.   I would start with the Watch.

 

 

Where is the GPS setting on the Apple Watch?

 

 

On Apple Watch, go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services to turn location services on or off.

[Peterson78]

9 minutes ago, Jim_Iain said:

I turn off GPS to get calculated distance by my stride x steps.   I do the same even on land as the GPS burns the battery faster.

Is there a downside ?
What ‘features’ do you lose by disabling GPS (on land) ?

[Charles4515]

39 minutes ago, Peterson78 said:

Is there a downside ?
What ‘features’ do you lose by disabling GPS (on land) ?

You won't get weather. EMS won't be able to locate you. 911 can't locate you.  You can't measure distance walked. I never turn GPS off on my Apple Watch or iPhone. When traveling I have a battery pack for my phone which I hardly evr use. Also if running low on charge the Apple Watch and the phone can be put in low power mode to save battery. I have encountered the effect described with inacurate  readings when doing laps onboard a ship but what I do is count laps. I have had an Apple Watch since series 0 and never turned off GPS. I have been on 40 cruises with different versions of the Apple Watch. I upgrade every 2 0r 3 years. Never ran out of battery. I now have an Ultra 1 which has a larger battery which I recomend has  a more accurate dual frequency GPS.

Edited October 24, 2023 by Charles4515

[mahdnc]

36 minutes ago, Peterson78 said:

Is there a downside ?
What ‘features’ do you lose by disabling GPS (on land) ?

 

If you look at Settings>Privacy & Security>Location Services, you will get an idea of some of the apps that may depend on GPS (not all apps "Location Services" are completely GPS dependent as they can use other things like W-Fi).

 

For me the most important apps that become disabled or less functional when GPS is switched off is Uber (less convenient to use), camera (no geo tagging of my photos), Pokemon Go (won't work), mapping services (less convenient to use), and weather apps (less convenient to use). 

[neverlaysup]

Your apple watch is typically blue-toothed to your phone so if the WIFI is on your phone, the watch will work as normal as long as the phone is in range.

[NutsAboutGolf]

2 hours ago, Jim_Iain said:

 

You can't using an iPhone.   If you are in airplane mode and turn on hotspot it turns off Wifi and turns on Celluar.   Could be costly.

 

Some have said you can do it on a Android but I have been unsuccessful.   It reacts the same as an iPhone but I understand if two Androids are Close by you can share a wifi connection using bluetooth.   I only have one so unable to test.    I only use my Android for Security Testing.   

 

With the droids, even if the phone refers to the setting as "wi-fi bridge", "wi-fi sharing" or something different, the term network folks use is "Wi-Fi Repeater".  Neither network folks nor the Android phone settings use the term "hotspot"

 

All of the following comes from Reddit, I have an iPhone, so take the following with a grain of salt:  The function is supposedly on the Galaxy and Pixel and a lot of other mid-high end droids and is NOT on the HTCs or OnePlus.  To be able to repeat a wi-fi signal, the device needs two radios with one acting as a client station and the other as an access point, as a single radio cannot both at the same time.  All of that is over my head (lol) 

[Jim_Iain]

3 hours ago, Peterson78 said:

Is there a downside ?
What ‘features’ do you lose by disabling GPS (on land) ?

 

Probably any app that uses location control.   I disable it on my watch and keep it live on my phone.   I would rarely use any of the GPS functions on my watch.   One of my older Fitbits used the GPS on the phone.     When walking unless I want it to map my walk it is pretty much useless for walking.   I've compared the calculated distance vs gps location distance and they are withing 1%.

 

I guess you would loose mapping and directions but something I wouldn't use while on a ship.   Easy enough to turn on and off at will.

[Jim_Iain]

1 hour ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

 

With the droids, even if the phone refers to the setting as "wi-fi bridge", "wi-fi sharing" or something different, the term network folks use is "Wi-Fi Repeater".  Neither network folks nor the Android phone settings use the term "hotspot"

 

All of the following comes from Reddit, I have an iPhone, so take the following with a grain of salt:  The function is supposedly on the Galaxy and Pixel and a lot of other mid-high end droids and is NOT on the HTCs or OnePlus.  To be able to repeat a wi-fi signal, the device needs two radios with one acting as a client station and the other as an access point, as a single radio cannot both at the same time.  All of that is over my head (lol) 

 

My Motorola Android has Hot Spots designated under Network -  It also list USB Tethering and and Bluetooth Tethering but all force the phone to turn off WiFi

 

 

  

 

 

 

I have however found many citations on rooting (jailbreaking) the phone and sideloading un-official software to override the phones restrictions.    I really only do this when security testing.

 

Not disagreeing with your interpretation of needing two WiFi signals but at least not my understanding.  I can create a WiFi hotspot on my Windows PC and only have one network card.   Just simply press the Mobile Hotspot icon to activate.    True I have a 2.5 and a 5 ghz card but even works if I disable either one.  

 

As a 'ol hacker, WiFi signals need to both transmit and receive and validate each packet to the router password -  each packet bounces back and forth for authentication thus a primary hack location.  Lots of my security testing was intercepting the validation packet and decrypt the password to the router's network.

Edited October 24, 2023 by Jim_Iain

[rj59]

The watch will mimic your phone, so put your phone in airplane mode. You can also use multiple devices on a plan, but only one at a time, so if you use a phone and tablet you can log out of one to use the other. Two things to know--for time changes at sea, you have to go into general settings and change date and time to manual, and then input a city from the time zone where you're at--iPhones won't adjust the time with ship wifi. If you have screen time, you have to turn it off to manually set the time. Secondly, if you use your Apple Watch for walking, it will give you several miles for a short walk, because it's seeing the ship's movement as you. So if you want to close rings, I use high-intensity workout setting, which just takes into account your heart rate, not distance. 

[jwlane]

4 hours ago, Jim_Iain said:

I turn off GPS to get calculated distance by my stride x steps.   

I'll count laps, then edit the distance in my running app accordingly (except for Strava---a manual entry is required).

[NutsAboutGolf]

1 hour ago, Jim_Iain said:

 

My Motorola Android has Hot Spots designated under Network -  It also list USB Tethering and and Bluetooth Tethering but all force the phone to turn off WiFi

 

 

  

 

 

 

I have however found many citations on rooting (jailbreaking) the phone and sideloading un-official software to override the phones restrictions.    I really only do this when security testing.

 

Not disagreeing with your interpretation of needing two WiFi signals but at least not my understanding.  I can create a WiFi hotspot on my Windows PC and only have one network card.   Just simply press the Mobile Hotspot icon to activate.    True I have a 2.5 and a 5 ghz card but even works if I disable either one.  

 

As a 'ol hacker, WiFi signals need to both transmit and receive and validate each packet to the router password -  each packet bounces back and forth for authentication thus a primary hack location.  Lots of my security testing was intercepting the validation packet and decrypt the password to the router's network.

 

I have no idea if the software can either convert a single radio to perform two functions or simply can find a way to repeat the wifi signal or even if the two radios is accurate as you'd imagine by now they could have a dual-radio device or something

[Jim_Iain]

1 hour ago, jwlane said:

I'll count laps, then edit the distance in my running app accordingly (except for Strava---a manual entry is required).

Iain does that at times.   My fitbit I can turn on and off GPS independently of my phone.

[ebockelman]

On 10/24/2023 at 3:18 PM, NutsAboutGolf said:

 

With the droids, even if the phone refers to the setting as "wi-fi bridge", "wi-fi sharing" or something different, the term network folks use is "Wi-Fi Repeater".  Neither network folks nor the Android phone settings use the term "hotspot"

 

All of the following comes from Reddit, I have an iPhone, so take the following with a grain of salt:  The function is supposedly on the Galaxy and Pixel and a lot of other mid-high end droids and is NOT on the HTCs or OnePlus.  To be able to repeat a wi-fi signal, the device needs two radios with one acting as a client station and the other as an access point, as a single radio cannot both at the same time.  All of that is over my head (lol) 

It's actually possible with just one WiFi radio. The Pixel phones don't have separate client / AP radios. They just virtualize one radio into two and set them to their respective functions. It's not too different from how some travel routers do it with their wireless client modes.

[NutsAboutGolf]

22 minutes ago, ebockelman said:

It's actually possible with just one WiFi radio. The Pixel phones don't have separate client / AP radios. They just virtualize one radio into two and set them to their respective functions. It's not too different from how some travel routers do it with their wireless client modes.

Thanks for sharing, like I said the two radio claim was from Reddit.  So do you think the iPhone could do it if jailbroken?

[DaKahuna]

42 minutes ago, NutsAboutGolf said:

Thanks for sharing, like I said the two radio claim was from Reddit.  So do you think the iPhone could do it if jailbroken?

 

 i cannot say with 100% certainty but my experience is the IOS does not support the virtualization of the radio, so not I do not believe a jailbroken iPhone could do it. 

 

Something to think about if you travel with a laptop.  You can change your laptop into a WiFi repeater using a separate USB Wifi dongle.  This gives you two WiFi radio's, one to connect to the Ship's WiFi and one for your other devices to connect to when in proximity of your laptop.  You just need to configure the laptop to bridge / route traffic between the two devices.  Lots of solutions on how to do this on Google  / YouTube. 

 

 

Edited October 25, 2023 by DaKahuna

[Jeremiah1212]

On 10/24/2023 at 3:59 PM, rj59 said:

Two things to know--for time changes at sea, you have to go into general settings and change date and time to manual, and then input a city from the time zone where you're at--iPhones won't adjust the time with ship wifi. 

 

If you do this there is a good chance your iMessages will stop working...just fyi. 

[NutsAboutGolf]

21 minutes ago, DaKahuna said:

 

 i cannot say with 100% certainty but my experience is the IOS does not support the virtualization of the radio, so not I do not believe a jailbroken iPhone could do it. 

 

Something to think about if you travel with a laptop.  You can change your laptop into a WiFi repeater using a separate USB Wifi dongle.  This gives you two WiFi radio's, one to connect to the Ship's WiFi and one for your other devices to connect to when in proximity of your laptop.  You just need to configure the laptop to bridge / route traffic between the two devices.  Lots of solutions on how to do this on Google  / YouTube. 

 

 

Makes sense.  If you bring a windows laptop or Mac, they can both be used as a WiFi repeater right out of the box, no hardware or software required

[Charles4515]

1 hour ago, Jeremiah1212 said:

 

If you do this there is a good chance your iMessages will stop working...just fyi. 

 

 I always turn off automatic time changes and do time changes onboard ships manually and iMessage keeps working. Explain why they would stop working. I can't think of a reason iMessage would stop working. Maybe there is possibility becasue of a mismatch with servers but it hs never happened to me. 

Edited October 25, 2023 by Charles4515