[cosmosgenius]

Is this any better than just doing Hotspot with wifi bridge? I just have my hotspot on my pixel for my devices to connect to. Pixel itself is connected to whatever "public wifi" is there.

[PeterStuer]

Your hotspot just makes the untrusted hotel wifi available via your phone wifi. The networks between your computer and your target services can still inspect and alter your data. Tailscale, or more specifically the Wireshark underneat, sets up an encrypted tunnel so those "untrusted" intermediate networks can't do that.

[aembleton]

If my phone has a VPN to my home server, then it should all be encrypted.

[SpaceNugget]

s/Wireshark/wireguard

[gruez]

Does that actually work? I don't think you can both have hotspot on and be connected to another network.

[esperent]

Most newer (or at least new + expensive) phones can share their wifi connection via hotspot. 2.4gh only though I think.

[panarky]

Yes, it has actually worked starting with the Pixel 3.

It's called Dual-Band Simultaneous or "STA+AP" (Station + Access Point) concurrency that can bridge an existing wifi connection to an access point to other devices via a hotspot.

[dorfsmay]

Yes it works. Now you can also tether via USB. Both of them have worked flawlessly for me recently.

[Doohickey-d]

It seems to be only on certain devices feature(?): on my Pixel it worked, Samsung phone just says "sorry, can't do that".

[muppetman]

Works fine, yup.

[bentcorner]

In my experience hotels throttle wifi connection per device (IP/Mac address or whatever) and so you'd be better off using something that can use the wired connection in your room (which is usually unthrottled or has higher bandwidth) and be an AP for your personal devices.

If you don't have a wired connection then this wouldn't be any better, except for any connectivity features it might offer (probably some vpn capability).

I have a gl-inet device and it does pretty much all I need whenever I travel.

[kstrauser]

Hotels in Las Vegas typically charge around $15/day per connected device. Want to download a new book on your Kobo and play Diablo for a few minutes? That’ll be $30, please!

That’s the real win of a travel router, IMO.