WiFi or Bluetooth (or USB) for iPad Tethering

Question

How do the three tethering options for the iPad compare in the following areas:

Range
Security
Speed
Power usage (both laptop and iPad)

I'm mainly looking for the difference between WiFi and Bluetooth, as USB is pretty obvious except for the speed category.

And I guess one other advantage to WiFi is that you can connect multiple devices, which is not true for USB, though I can't speak to Bluetooth. — Tim, Jun 20 '12 at 22:49

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 19 '12 at 20:33

6

Range

Wifi is the best
Bluetooth shorter
USB length of cable (there are 10' USB cables for iPad)

Security

USB is the best assuming you have decent physical security
Wifi is pretty good if you use WPA2
Bluetooth is the lowest probably

Speed (usually all better than your 3G speeds so a moot point for 3G)

USB is the fastest @ 480 Mbps for USB 2.0
802.11n tops out @ 150 Mbps
Bluetooth is by far the slowest @ ~3 Mbps

Power Usage

USB is the most power efficient, however the iPad will try to charge off your laptop
Wifi and Bluetooth are less power efficient than USB but I don't know how they compare

Bottom Line: USB is the best if range isn't an issue, If distance is needed use Wifi with WPA2

answered Jun 19 '12 at 20:33

iracigt

414

Brief,but accurate. – iMom0 Jun 20 '12 at 00:47
How secure is bluetooth? Can simply anyone in range connect to my hotspot? – Pacerier Mar 15 '14 at 11:40
Is the slow speed for Bluetooth still accurate as of 2018? i.e. iPhone X with Bluetooth 5.0 ? – Nic Cottrell Apr 02 '18 at 15:04

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 07 '13 at 17:59

1

I just did some speed benchmarks using all three methods. Using WiFi and USB gave around 8.75 Mbps, which were extremely close to the result of doing the same speed test on the phone itself beforehand, but Bluetooth was much slower, at around 0.5 Mbps. The difference was very noticeable when browsing.

answered Mar 07 '13 at 17:59

Jon Colverson

111

+1 I like using Bluetooth, but will probably do much less after reading this. – bassplayer7 Mar 07 '13 at 18:23
My benchmarks were much closer (done using free internet speed tests though). 2.5 Mbps for wifi and half of that for bluetooth. – Pacerier Mar 15 '14 at 11:42
@Pacerier That's interesting. Do you know if your devices support Bluetooth 4.0? I can't remember whether I was testing with a Bluetooth 2.1 or 4.0 device (I really should have mentioned that in the post.) – Jon Colverson Mar 15 '14 at 15:46
@JonColverson, hmm how do you check the version? – Pacerier Mar 17 '14 at 18:56
@Pacerier Looking up the specs for your model on Wikipedia is the best way I know of. :) – Jon Colverson Mar 17 '14 at 22:58
@JonColverson, I'm using iPhone 4. I mean is there any way to check it on the phone itself? – Pacerier Mar 19 '14 at 05:21

WiFi or Bluetooth (or USB) for iPad Tethering

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