Travel WiFi Q&A July 2021
Every quarter we post the highlights on our subreddit dedicated to all things Travel WiFi, Travel Router or WiFi Cellular Hotspot related. There, you can ask any questions about these topics. We summarize the best or most popular questions for our quarterly Q&A blog posts. If you are on reddit feel free to join in the conversation at /r/TravelRouter. You can also ask us a question on Facebook or Twitter.
Recent topics we help answer include how to connect an Alexa to hotel WiFi with a captive portal, how to do a personal internet setup at a hotel for digital nomads, and how to connect an XBox, Nintendo Switch or Nintendo 3DS to hotel WiFi.
Q: How do I login my alexa to a hotel WiFi point with browser login
Posted by u/marciscool1h
How to I log in my alexa to a hotel WiFi with browser login screen? Pls help
https://www.reddit.com/r/TravelRouter/comments/oirm6o/how_do_i_login_my_alexa_to_a_hotel_wifi_point/
Answer:
Like many devices not designed for travel, the Amazon Alexa does not support captive portals. What are captive portals? They are those screens that popup when connecting to hotel WiFi that ask you to accept Terms and Conditions, or enter additional information such as room number, last name or a passcode.
There are a few options.
- If you have a laptop running Windows 10 you can use internet connection sharing.
- If your phone has a personal hotspot you can use it to create a personal WIFi network. We should note, this
- You can use a travel router or similar device to clear the captive portal on a phone, tablet or laptop.
You can find out more in our recent blog post about ways to take 15 different Smart devices with you when you travel, including the Amazon Alexa.
Q: Personal Internet Setup at Hotels
Posted by u/o_o_really
Apologies if this isn’t the right place to ask this question, if you know of a better subreddit, please let me know. Me and my colleagues travel a lot for work and we have to work in hotels with shitty hotel wifi lots. Is there a solution where we could bring our own travel router? Is it mad expensive? Has anyone had success with this and if so, what’s the range like? Any tips on this type of thing would be really helpful.
Thanks!
https://www.reddit.com/r/TravelRouter/comments/oirlnx/personal_internet_setup_at_hotels/
Answer:
There are a few things to unpack here, but they are both commonly related questions. The first is that when traveling for business or working out of a hotel as a digital nomad or remote worker two things are often true.
- You may have a lot of devices and connecting them quickly and easily is important.
- You want to have an additional sense of security when working remotely
- Hotel WiFi is often pretty poor
A travel router is a great way to create a personal (and private) WiFi network out of the semi-private hotel WiFi network. Travel routers are available on the market from $30-75 dollars, so it’s not a huge financial commitment.
In addition to creating a private network, travel routers can also help secure the WiFi. And if the WIFi is poor, a smart travel router can actually help optimize the connection. When that isn’t enough you can get hotspot with travel router capabilities to help augment the poor internet connection.
However, not all travel routers will support all of these features. Many don’t have or easily support built in security and very few have the ability to use both hotel WiFi and cellular at the same time.
Q: How do I connect my XBox / Nintendo 3DS / Nintendo Switch to hotel WiFi
Posted by u/multiple posters
I’m using an old 3DS, not the new 3DS and I can’t find the bloody terms of service for the hotel
https://www.reddit.com/r/TravelRouter/comments/nbqvhi/how_do_i_connect_to_hotel_wifi/
Answer:
We get this question repeatly – how do I connect my gaming console to hotel WiFi. While the newer consoles in some cases can try to display the terms and conditions (captive portal), most consoles do not. The Nintendo Switch and 3DS, along with the older XBox and PlayStation won’t even try.
In the case of the 3DS given the highly portable nature it’s not unexpected you may want to use the WiFi capabilities for online gaming, updates and even game downloads.
In each of these scenarios, or even with the newer consoles if the captive portal isn’t working or is just simply difficult to use you can:
- If you have a laptop running Windows 10 you can use internet connection sharing.
- If your phone has a personal hotspot you can use it to create a personal WIFi network. We should note, this
- You can use a travel router or similar device to clear the captive portal on a phone, tablet or laptop.