Newsletter 
Google’s ‘Instant Tethering’ is like a one-tap web connection. If you’re one of the smaller number of Android users out there that has a device running on Android 7.1.1 Nougat, then Google is beginning to push out a new feature for Google Play Services that enables your device to utilize an instantaneous web connection from another device. More specifically, Instant Tethering essentially makes it easy for you to share your phone’s mobile hotspot without having to go through the whole process of navigating to the settings, turning it on, and then searching for a connection to latch onto from the other device.
While it currently only works for Android 7.1.1 devices and a limited number of them at that, once Instant Tethering is available and configured by the user, should they be using a tablet or other device that loses its connection, the new option can pop up a prompt on the device which asks if they’d like to connect to the web. The user could then simply say yes, speeding up the whole mobile hotspot process. This works by way of keeping your devices linked through your Google account, so any device where you have your Google account attached can utilize Instant Tethering the moment it drops a connection to the internet as long as the option is enabled on your device.
The new feature isn’t too hard to find if you’re interested in checking it out. If you navigate to your device’s settings menu, then scroll and tap on the Google sub-menu, Instant Tethering will either be there or it won’t, as Google seems to have to enable this on their end by flipping a switch. Once it is enabled though, you can find it there and then tapping on that option will take you into the Instant Tethering menu where you’ll find toggles for providing a data connection and getting a data connection. Naturally, turning these toggles off will mean that you don’t want your devices to have the ability to share or connect to the internet with this method. Currently this is only being rolled out to Google’s recent Nexus and Pixel devices. This includes the Pixel C and Nexus 9 tablet, too, although these can only connect and won’t be able to work as the mobile hotspot. You’ll also need Google Play Services version 10.2 before this feature will be available.
