Routers supporting iPhone usb Tethering in 2022 (and beyond :)?

Hi Eric, and thanks for your reply. While using the iPhone as a wifi hotspot directly is possible – and indeed what I currently have to do when there is no other connection available – there is a lot of manual hassle, inflexibility and limitations with that solution.

TLDR: Iphone + router becomes in effect a mobile broadband router, which makes handling the internal wifi in the summer cottage endlessly more convenient than only relying on the iphone hotspot.

Whole enchilada:

Compared to a router to which your devices can connect automatically there are a lot of manual steps involved (I typically need to pick the iphone wifi manually every time I open up the lid on my computer or turn on the apple tv); many devices (like my windows computer) have a hard time finding the network, requiring me to switch the iphone hotspot button off and on several times or even restart the iphone; and the iphone signal is very much weaker than even the simplest of routers.

The upshot here is that the iphone hotspot feature is an excellent emergency or on-the-road choice because you always carry it with you. But for any kind of stationary connectivity solution it is really, really limited. That is of course fine, as long as you can connect it to other products which ARE made for what I am trying to accomplish here.

My actual use case is our summer cottage. We have always used the hotspot feature here, but with the kids getting older there is just a much larger drive for connected devices: TV, apple-TV, the kids’ ipads. And then the manual hassle with the iphone hotspot is just multiplying.

Thus the need for a proper router to which I can plug the mobile phone. With this marvellous device in place I can connect ALL the other devices to the router, where they stay connected come rain and come shine. And then just plug the iphone to the router. Apart from having one stable internal network, there is also a huge flexibility on the “feeding” end. We have four iphones in the family, and with this solution we can just connect any one of them to the router, where it will be charged and feed the rest of the internal network. Bingo.

In other words, what I want to do create a mobile broadband router. Why then not just buy one of those? Indeed I would, if not my mobile company wanted to charge me a non-trivial monthly fee for that setup. And there just goes my limit. I accept, of course, a one-time charge for the hardware (a sim and/or a mobile router), but adding yet another monthly fee for what I can already do (if less convenient) is just too much, given that we are already paying for (i) two unlimited plans, (ii) additional monthly fees for adding the two kids’ phones, as well as (iii) our two apple watches.

Thanks for your reply, Ed!

I think you are spot-on regarding the thinking of apple and the phone companies. I am not convinced of the performance degradation, however, in terms of practical use. From what I have read, the degradation should be negligible for most use-cases. Actually, I suspected that the performance would be improved using a router as a middle-man, given the superior wifi signal strength it would entail. At least in terms of speed, if not close-range ping (further away, I suspect everything will be better through the router).

Still, you are of course right that the patch problem remains: as my linked earlier thread exemplifies, the functionality is threatened whenever apple updates the iOS. In my opinion this is bad, apple should supply interface specifications so that other suppliers need not reverse engineer; but I know that discussion is a really big one so I will not dig deeper into that now. I am only happy some companies make an effort to keep this great feature working. 

Lastly, I’d like to stress that the router solution in substance merely is trying to make an already provided function – tethering via the iphone – less complicated, not adding something that I could not already get manually. I can connect all the devices to internet using iphone hotspot already. I just want to make it less bothersome and, if possible, getting a better signal quality. And, note, we are NOT talking about permanent shared internet connections here. A phone still needs to be connected and in the house at all times. So the connection is only there when the phone is, contrary to a mobile broadband router solution.

But like I said, sadly I think you are right about the current state of affairs. At the moment, my hope is placed on Synology which seems to have a good track record of patching things up when prior ios releases have broken the functionality.