Computing on Demand PC News & Reviews
Sharing your WiFi with friends and family can quickly become a major annoyance. In my household, my son’s friends are constantly asking for me to enter the WiFi details so they can hop on and suck the life out of my wireless network. Grabbing each device or phone, navigating the menus, and then typing in my very complex WiFi password is a pain. With a little help from a QR Code, you can sit back, relax, and just point to a QR Code hanging on the wall.
In many cases, when sharing your WiFi network, it may not be in your best interest to share the information for your primary WiFi Settings. Many wireless routers today have the ability to create “guest” wifi that will segregate any guest from the rest of your network. This can help to keep your network and information a little safer.
To Generate a QR Code for WiFi
- Visit the following URL: http://zxing.appspot.com/generator/
- From the Contents dropdown, select Wifi network
- Enter in your WiFi SSID
- Enter your WiFi Password
- Select the Encryption type, if any
- Select whether or not the SSID is hidden.
- Click Generate
With the default settings, this will create a large QR Code that you can copy or download and paste into a document for Printing. In my house, this is framed and in place on the wall for when guests arrive and need access to our WiFi.
For those of you with Android Devices, you can recommend that your guests download and install QR Code Reader by Scan, Inc. in the Google Play Store. In my experience, this application is the most reliable when reading the QR Code for users in my home and office.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.scan.android.client&hl=en
For iOS users, the process isn’t as simple. Apple does not support any direct API into their networking settings so the only thing that can be accomplished is reading the barcode to expose the SSID and Password. Those items can then be copied and pasted into the configuration for the wireless network. The application that read the QR Codes most reliabley for me was QR Reader by TapMedia Ltd. Unfortunately, the app is ad supported…
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/qr-reader-for-iphone/id368494609?mt=8
Enjoy!
