You’re out and about with a friend, but their device doesn’t have data. Easy solution: just use your phone as a hotspot.
Setting up your phone as a hotspot is convenient and straightforward but it’s not without its own cost. Think of a hotspot like a battery. By allowing other devices to connect to the battery, the data will drain faster.
If you want to avoid running out, and potentially incurring additional usage charges, there are a few factors to consider, including intended use, number of devices connecting, and length of time.
Average data usage per activity
Having a sense of the types of activities that will be used while your phone is a hotspot can help you monitor the amount of data. Here are a few ballpark usage estimates to consider:
- Checking email: 1MB per minute
- Browsing online: 2-5 MB per minute
- Streaming music or podcasts: 50-150 MB per hour (quality-dependant)
- Video chats like Zoom or FaceTime: 500 MB to 1 GB per hour
- Video streaming like Netflix or Youtube: 1 GB per hour (3 GB per hour fro HD, 7 GB or more for 4K Ultra HD)
If the second device connected is just scrolling through social media, you could assume that will use approximately 200-400 MB for a couple hours. If you’re connecting a laptop and attempting to do work via the hot spot, count on using up 2-4 GB or more.
Timing of data use with a hotspot
Assuming you’re hopping in and out of your hotspot, or have a specific set time in mind, you can more easily calculate how much data mobile hotspot uses.
- Checking your email for 5 minutes: less than 5 MB
- A 1-hour work meeting via Zoom: 750 MB
- Streaming a full movie on Netflix in HD: 3 GB
- Light online use like browsing website for a half hour: 50-100 MB
If you can keep your use casual while hotspotting your phone, then you’re likely safe from affecting your data plan. However, anything heavy, including streaming video, is going to burn through your data a lot faster.
How to reduce hotspot data usage
If you are stuck with just a hotspot for data and are concerned about using up your monthly allotment or incurring overcharges, there are a few workarounds that can help you temporarily to limit the amount of data that you’ll be consuming.
- Lower the quality of video streaming from HD to SD
- Turn off any automatic software updates that are on your connected devices
- Close any apps and browser tabs that you will not be actively using
- Mobile versions of websites will load with less data than full desktop versions
- Limit how many devices you allow to connect to your hotspot at one time
Need more data? Snag an eSIM
If you’re hitting the road and know that you’ll be relying on your phone to hotspot multiple devices, then you need to get a prepaid eSIM from aloSIM to help manage your data usage.
With flexible plans, you can choose a large data package to help fuel your phone’s hotspot for work or other devices without contracts or overage charges to stay connected with the data you need, when you need it.
