SoftAP is an abbreviated term for "software enabled access point". Such access points utilize software to enable a computer which hasn't been specifically made to be a router into a

wireless access point In Computer networking device, computer networking, a wireless access point (WAP) (also just access point (AP)) is a networking hardware device that allows other Wi-Fi devices to connect to a wired network or wireless network. As a standalone ...

. It is often used interchangeably with the term "virtual router".

History on Windows

The first SoftAP software was shipped by

Ralink Ralink Technology, Corp. is a Wi-Fi chipset manufacturer mainly known for their IEEE 802.11 (Wireless LAN) chipsets. Ralink was founded in 2001 in Cupertino, California, then moved its headquarters to Hsinchu, Taiwan. On 5 May 2011, Ralink was ...

with their Wi-Fi cards for Windows XP. It enabled a Wi-Fi card to act as a wireless access point. While a card was acting as a wireless access point, it could not continue to stay connected as a client, so any Internet access had to come from another device, such as an

Ethernet Ethernet ( ) is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...

device. Following Ralink's card innovation, a number of other Wi-Fi vendors, including Edimax, later released SoftAP software for their devices. Neither Ralink nor Edimax updated their software to work with

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, released five years earlier, which was then the longest time span between successive releases of Microsoft W ...

, due to the installation of its new driver model, bringing an effective end to this software category until the release of

Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, ...

in 2009. Windows gained the ability to natively create software access points with the release of Windows 7 through a virtual Wi-Fi adapter, allowing a network card to function both as a

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and access point. This functionality was only exposed through the

netsh In computing, netsh, or network shell, is a command-line utility included in Microsoft's Windows NT line of operating systems beginning with Windows 2000. It allows local or remote configuration of network devices such as the interface. Overv ...

CLI CLI may refer to: Computing * Call Level Interface, an SQL database management API * Command-line interface, of a computer program * Command-line interpreter or command language interpreter; see List of command-line interpreters * CLI (x86 instruc ...

, indicating that it was unfinished. Upon the release of

Windows 10 Windows 10 is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. The successor to Windows 8.1, it was Software release cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on July 15, 2015, and later to retail on July 2 ...

, a user interface to create hotspots was added.

Purpose

SoftAP is a common method of configuring Wi-Fi products without a display or input device, such as a Wi-Fi enabled appliance, home security camera, smart home product or any other IoT device. The process typically involves these steps: # The headless device turns on a SoftAP Wi-Fi hotspot. # The user downloads a product-specific app on a smartphone, and the app then either uses the underlying Android or iOS operating system to connect to the SoftAP hotspot, or directs the user to connect the phone manually. # The app then asks the user for the user's private Wi-Fi network name (SSID) and passkey # The app sends the SSID and passkey to the headless device over the SoftAP connection. # The headless device then falls off the SoftAP network and joins the user's private Wi-Fi network. This process can work well, but there are two core problems. First, the process often requires the user to manually connect to the SoftAP network, which can be confusing for mainstream users. Second, if the user enters the passkey incorrectly, or if the phone gets disconnected from the SoftAP network for any reason, it is difficult for the app and device to smoothly recover, so the user is often left having to factory reset the device and start over. Third, different phones (hardware and OS versions) handle SoftAP differently, so the user experience varies dramatically—especially with the wide variety of Android hardware and software. Because of these complexities, many companies making Wi-Fi connected products are now adding BLE, ZipKey, data-over-sound, or another technology to facilitate a better out-of-box experience for users.

Internet of things Internet of things (IoT) describes devices with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other communication networks. The IoT encompasse ...

Platform support

Various

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...

platforms support SoftAP, including: *

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

Windows 8 Windows 8 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on August 1, 2012, made available for download via Microsoft ...

Windows 11 Windows 11 is a version of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system, released on October 5, 2021, as the successor to Windows 10 (2015). It is available as a free upgrade for devices running Windows 10 that meet the #System requirements, Windo ...

* Android * Windows Phone 7.5 *

Windows Phone 8 Windows Phone 8 is the second generation of the Windows Phone mobile operating system from Microsoft Corporation, Microsoft, released on October 29, 2012. It runs on the Windows NT kernel and is the successor to Windows Phone 7. It was the first ...

Windows 10 Mobile Windows 10 Mobile is the fourth and final generation of Microsoft's Windows Phone mobile operating system, succeeding Windows Phone 8.1. First released in 2015, it was marketed by Microsoft as being an Windows 10 editions, edition of its Per ...

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

Mac OS Mac operating systems were developed by Apple Inc. in a succession of two major series. In 1984, Apple debuted the operating system that is now known as the classic Mac OS with its release of the original Macintosh System Software. The system ...

Commercial vendors

Connectify Connectify () is an American software company that develops networking software for consumers, professionals and companies. Connectify Hotspot is a virtual software router, router and Wi-Fi repeater software for Microsoft Windows. Speedify is a ...

* Edimax *

References

{{Reflist Network access

History on Windows

Purpose

Platform support

Commercial vendors

See also

References