13 ms·

Show HN: Quickly connect to WiFi by scanning text, no typing needed

44 points by ylj 2y ago

I travel and work remotely a lot. Every new place—hotels, cafes, coworking spaces—means dealing with a new WiFi network. Sometimes there's a QR code, which is convenient, but usually, it's a hassle: manually finding the right SSID (especially frustrating when hotels have one SSID per room), then typing long, error-prone passwords. To simplify this, I made a small Android app called Wify. It uses your phone's camera to capture WiFi details (network name and password) from printed text, then generates a QR code right on your screen. You can instantly connect using Google Circle to Search or Google Lens. You can also import an image from your gallery instead of using the camera. Currently, it's Android-only since I daily-drive a Pixel 7, and WiFi APIs differ significantly between Android and iOS. Play Store link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.yilinjuang.wify https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.yilinjuang... I'd appreciate your feedback or suggestions!

kleiba 2y ago
While this is def neat, it shows signs of a classical computer scientist fallacy: "There's a recurring problem I occasionally run into, and each time it takes me about 3 minutes to solve it. No more! Instead, I'm going to spend a few weeks programming an app that solves the problem for me!"
- tcoff91 2y ago
  The thing is though that it takes 1 person a few weeks and then could save many more people time. Also if you are already familiar with Android this app should take hours not weeks.
- precommunicator 2y ago
  https://xkcd.com/1205/ https://xkcd.com/1205/
  - echoangle 2y ago
    This assumes that the app doesn’t help anyone else though.
- rrix2 2y ago
  it's too bad they didn't release it so a few hundred or thousand people benefit from it and save a few minutes each!
  - kleiba 2y ago
    Ah, the internet! The place where people go to paraphrase what others have already posted, just with passive aggressive sarcasm. Thanks for that!
- nashashmi 2y ago
  Nonsense. We have spent our time on less justifiable things. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43265431 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43265431
IanCal 2y ago
I do like people building things, but isn't this what the share network button is in android? It creates a qr code with ssid and password, and when scanned with lens it gives you a "join" button. Edit - ah is the point taking a photo of credentials and joining from that?
- nyx 2y ago
  Yeah, from the demo video, it looks like this OCRs a photo of text and turns it into one of those QR codes. Then you can use Google Lens against the QR code onscreen to get the "join" button.
  - jeroenhd 2y ago
    From this state, adding a button to join the network shouldn't be too complicated, at least not on Android. There's an API for offering a WiFi connection to the user. I don't know about iOS but I presume there's a similar API there.
    - syndeo 2y ago
      Yep, `NEHotspotConfigurationManager`: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/NetworkExtension/NEHotspotConfigurationManager https://developer.apple.com/documentation/NetworkExtension/N...
    - ylj 2y ago
      I’m not sure about iOS either. Could you point me to how an Android app can directly connect the user to a WiFi network? I know about the WiFi suggestion API, but I haven’t found a straightforward way to initiate a direct WiFi connection. That’s why I ended up with this quirky QR code workaround.
- ylj 2y ago
  Yes, exactly—the goal is to join a network using printed WiFi credentials when a QR code isn’t provided.
XorNot 2y ago
What driving me nuts is that we still don't have a widely deployed standard for this though. Work gave me an iPhone recently and I was shocked the wifi initial connection screen had no option to scan a QR code. It took Android way too long to get this as well. But on top of that, even when the option is there it's so limited - i.e. it gets presented as "must be a wifi QR code" without the option to just fill a text box from a plain text one (although on reflection I'm now wondering why that's not just a global UX option on phones).
- coder543 2y ago
  On iPhone, WiFi QR codes work just fine. You just open the camera app, and point the phone at the QR code. They're automatically detected and scanned, the same as any other normal QR code. (No, you can't open the camera app during initial setup... but, it's not for a lack of the standard or the feature.)
- frizlab 2y ago
  If I’m not mistaken iOS can scan the text directly from the text field though (not a very well known feature).
  - coder543 2y ago
    Also true. Tap on any text field. In the menu where the "paste" option lives, there is also a Scan Text option. I've used that for a number of things over the years.
    - frizlab 2y ago
      I’ve just setup a new phone, this is not enabled during the phone setup for some reason…
- ajsnigrutin 2y ago
  With 5g less and less people use random wifi hotspots, and for home locations, phone manufacturers assume that it's easier for the user to just type in the password than to generate qr codes for their new phone every few years.
cassepipe 2y ago
Meanwhile there is still a WPS option on my old 2016 phone and half the routers n my country have one. There's also a nmcli connection modify option for the linux laptop. Lucky me
- MortyWaves 2y ago
  Very lucky for WPS to ever work for you. I stopped even trying a long time ago.
- mvdtnz 2y ago
  Unlikely to have a WPS button in a hotel room.
mvdtnz 2y ago
Surely Android exposes an API to connect to the network? Screenshotting a QR code then googling it feels kind of janky. I have devices like robot vacuums that use a local wifi connection to set themselves up, implying that such an API must exist? I don't do mobile development so maybe I'm off base.
- netsharc 2y ago
  Yeah, I agree it feels janky. They could probably use this API: https://developer.android.com/develop/connectivity/wifi/wifi-suggest https://developer.android.com/develop/connectivity/wifi/wifi... or https://developer.android.com/reference/android/provider/Settings#ACTION_WIFI_ADD_NETWORKS https://developer.android.com/reference/android/provider/Set... to skip the step with Google Lens. Showing the QR-Code is still an interesting functionaliy, for the use case if they had a second phone they wanted to connect that doesn't have this app.
  - ylj 2y ago
    Exactly. I initially went with that approach [1], but eventually opted for on-screen QR code scanning. Suggested networks have lower connection priority and don’t always auto-connect. Also, passwords for suggested networks can’t be viewed or shared later, unlike regular WiFi connections. This is inconvenient because I often need to connect my Mac to the same network later. [1] https://github.com/yilinjuang/wify/commit/7e63f2a9e6759847b4d47f6418c85612d05f6692 https://github.com/yilinjuang/wify/commit/7e63f2a9e6759847b4...
- ylj 2y ago
  That’s exactly the problem. Android’s API for directly connecting to WiFi is limited—it’s mainly designed for connecting to local or temporary networks, like the setup used by robot vacuums. More details explained here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43384614 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43384614
tootie 2y ago
I have a Pixel 8a and there is a built-in feature like this already. If you connect to a protected wifi it give the option to use the camera to read the password off a sign.
- ylj 2y ago
  No way! I’m using a Pixel 7 and would love to have that built-in. Could you share a screenshot of how that works on your phone?
jmusall 2y ago
That's a nice idea. I wish stuff like this was builtin. Small suggestion: API level 29 (Android 10) introduced WifiNetworkSuggestion[1], which allows an app to prompt the user to add WiFi credentials to the system. The suggestion has to be sent as an extra in an ACTION_WIFI_ADD_NETWORKS intent[2] (which was added in API 30 for some reason, not sure right now what happens in between). [1] https://developer.android.com/develop/connectivity/wifi/wifi-suggest https://developer.android.com/develop/connectivity/wifi/wifi... [2] https://developer.android.com/reference/android/provider/Settings#ACTION_WIFI_ADD_NETWORKS https://developer.android.com/reference/android/provider/Set...
- ylj 2y ago
  Thanks for the suggestion! I initially went with that approach [1], but eventually opted for on-screen QR code scanning. Suggested networks have lower connection priority and don’t always auto-connect. Also, passwords for suggested networks can’t be viewed or shared later, unlike regular WiFi connections. This is inconvenient because I often need to connect my Mac to the same network later. [1] https://github.com/yilinjuang/wify/commit/7e63f2a9e6759847b4d47f6418c85612d05f6692 https://github.com/yilinjuang/wify/commit/7e63f2a9e6759847b4...
  - jmusall 2y ago
    Makes sense. Good to know that API has some serious (undocumented?) drawbacks :)
amenghra 2y ago
For anyone interested, the wifi QR code format is described here: https://www.wi-fi.org/system/files/WPA3%20Specification%20v3.2.pdf#page=25 https://www.wi-fi.org/system/files/WPA3%20Specification%20v3... These QR codes usually work with your device's default camera app -- point at QR code and get prompted to join the network.
- nkrisc 2y ago
  I created a few stickers with my guest network WiFi details QR code to put on my fridge and around the house for when I have guests. I also recommend writing the SSID and password on it for those times the QR code won’t work with someone’s device (usually my mom’s ancient Android phone).
  - ylj 2y ago
    That’s great! I’d love it if every place adopted this approach—then I wouldn’t even need to build this app.
endofreach 2y ago
Spending compute to encode a string just to decode it with more compute, because the whole purpose was to print the decoded string seems... a bit wasteful at best. I don't understand. Sure, the excuse here might be that the generated QR code can be used to connect other devices as well, but if that was the reason, it would have been mentioned i guess. It seems like the QR code is only generated & displayed to be read from screen... It seems to me– a judgmental moron– almost as if chatgpt came up with this... Sorry if this sounds harsh, most likely i am wrong and don't get something here. And usually i wouldn't have commented because my comment doesn't bring something positive to the table... But i really so much don't get it here, i had to comment in the hope of being enlightened why this is smart and not the opposite... But either way: if it solves an issue for you the way you want it to: perfect. Congratulations on finishing an app as you imagined it. That is really great, regardless of opinions like mine.
- wolrah 2y ago
  I think the intended purpose are cases like hotels where they really should be offering QR codes but instead just display text on the TV. If you control the display device then definitely just use the QR code but the problem this solves is when someone else has made bad choices.
  - jjayj 2y ago
    I guess the question is "why generate a QR code rather than just connect?" > You can instantly connect using Google Circle to Search or Google Lens. Is there something special about the Google integrations that other apps can't achieve (I'm not an Android developer)?
    - endofreach 2y ago
      > I guess the question is "why generate a QR code rather than just connect?" Exactly. Why not use the API directly? Why encode a string into an image for the sole purpose of displaying that image to then basically do a screenshot to then read from the screen, to run an algorithm on that to detect & decode to get the string you already had after doing the OCR on the wifi credentials. Btw: i didn't even open the link. My comment was based solely on this post. Now i see that it's an expo / react project... so the amount of wasteful energy spent is even higher. I have looked at the code. This here stands out to me: >>> if (Platform.OS === "android") { // On Android, we use system built-in WiFi connection dialog via qr code return false; } else if (Platform.OS === "ios") { // On iOS, we need to use a different method await WiFiManager.connectToProtectedSSIDPrefix( ssid, password, !isWPA // iOS only ); <<< Aside from the fact that the comments indeed look very llm-esque to me, the way they're phrased also implies that the ios way of directly connecting is the "different" method. Like that one is the workaround of both approaches– and the wasteful way is the desired one– for no apparent reason.
killingtime74 2y ago
This is already available on Samsung natively. Great project for those who don't have access to that.
tttym 1y ago
Interesting, when do you think it will be avalible for iOS users? WOuld love to see it in acction as I have had simmilar problems with finding SSID in the past.

44 points by ylj 2y ago

kleiba 2y ago

While this is def neat, it shows signs of a classical computer scientist fallacy: "There's a recurring problem I occasionally run into, and each time it takes me about 3 minutes to solve it. No more! Instead, I'm going to spend a few weeks programming an app that solves the problem for me!"

tcoff91 2y ago
The thing is though that it takes 1 person a few weeks and then could save many more people time. Also if you are already familiar with Android this app should take hours not weeks.
precommunicator 2y ago
https://xkcd.com/1205/ https://xkcd.com/1205/
- echoangle 2y ago
  This assumes that the app doesn’t help anyone else though.
rrix2 2y ago
it's too bad they didn't release it so a few hundred or thousand people benefit from it and save a few minutes each!
- kleiba 2y ago
  Ah, the internet! The place where people go to paraphrase what others have already posted, just with passive aggressive sarcasm. Thanks for that!
nashashmi 2y ago
Nonsense. We have spent our time on less justifiable things. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43265431 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43265431

IanCal 2y ago

I do like people building things, but isn't this what the share network button is in android? It creates a qr code with ssid and password, and when scanned with lens it gives you a "join" button. Edit - ah is the point taking a photo of credentials and joining from that?

nyx 2y ago
Yeah, from the demo video, it looks like this OCRs a photo of text and turns it into one of those QR codes. Then you can use Google Lens against the QR code onscreen to get the "join" button.
- jeroenhd 2y ago
  From this state, adding a button to join the network shouldn't be too complicated, at least not on Android. There's an API for offering a WiFi connection to the user. I don't know about iOS but I presume there's a similar API there.
  - syndeo 2y ago
    Yep, `NEHotspotConfigurationManager`: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/NetworkExtension/NEHotspotConfigurationManager https://developer.apple.com/documentation/NetworkExtension/N...
  - ylj 2y ago
    I’m not sure about iOS either. Could you point me to how an Android app can directly connect the user to a WiFi network? I know about the WiFi suggestion API, but I haven’t found a straightforward way to initiate a direct WiFi connection. That’s why I ended up with this quirky QR code workaround.
ylj 2y ago
Yes, exactly—the goal is to join a network using printed WiFi credentials when a QR code isn’t provided.

XorNot 2y ago

What driving me nuts is that we still don't have a widely deployed standard for this though. Work gave me an iPhone recently and I was shocked the wifi initial connection screen had no option to scan a QR code. It took Android way too long to get this as well. But on top of that, even when the option is there it's so limited - i.e. it gets presented as "must be a wifi QR code" without the option to just fill a text box from a plain text one (although on reflection I'm now wondering why that's not just a global UX option on phones).

coder543 2y ago
On iPhone, WiFi QR codes work just fine. You just open the camera app, and point the phone at the QR code. They're automatically detected and scanned, the same as any other normal QR code. (No, you can't open the camera app during initial setup... but, it's not for a lack of the standard or the feature.)
frizlab 2y ago
If I’m not mistaken iOS can scan the text directly from the text field though (not a very well known feature).
- coder543 2y ago
  Also true. Tap on any text field. In the menu where the "paste" option lives, there is also a Scan Text option. I've used that for a number of things over the years.
  - frizlab 2y ago
    I’ve just setup a new phone, this is not enabled during the phone setup for some reason…
ajsnigrutin 2y ago
With 5g less and less people use random wifi hotspots, and for home locations, phone manufacturers assume that it's easier for the user to just type in the password than to generate qr codes for their new phone every few years.

cassepipe 2y ago

Meanwhile there is still a WPS option on my old 2016 phone and half the routers n my country have one. There's also a nmcli connection modify option for the linux laptop. Lucky me

MortyWaves 2y ago
Very lucky for WPS to ever work for you. I stopped even trying a long time ago.
mvdtnz 2y ago
Unlikely to have a WPS button in a hotel room.

mvdtnz 2y ago

Surely Android exposes an API to connect to the network? Screenshotting a QR code then googling it feels kind of janky. I have devices like robot vacuums that use a local wifi connection to set themselves up, implying that such an API must exist? I don't do mobile development so maybe I'm off base.

netsharc 2y ago
Yeah, I agree it feels janky. They could probably use this API: https://developer.android.com/develop/connectivity/wifi/wifi-suggest https://developer.android.com/develop/connectivity/wifi/wifi... or https://developer.android.com/reference/android/provider/Settings#ACTION_WIFI_ADD_NETWORKS https://developer.android.com/reference/android/provider/Set... to skip the step with Google Lens. Showing the QR-Code is still an interesting functionaliy, for the use case if they had a second phone they wanted to connect that doesn't have this app.
- ylj 2y ago
  Exactly. I initially went with that approach [1], but eventually opted for on-screen QR code scanning. Suggested networks have lower connection priority and don’t always auto-connect. Also, passwords for suggested networks can’t be viewed or shared later, unlike regular WiFi connections. This is inconvenient because I often need to connect my Mac to the same network later. [1] https://github.com/yilinjuang/wify/commit/7e63f2a9e6759847b4d47f6418c85612d05f6692 https://github.com/yilinjuang/wify/commit/7e63f2a9e6759847b4...
ylj 2y ago
That’s exactly the problem. Android’s API for directly connecting to WiFi is limited—it’s mainly designed for connecting to local or temporary networks, like the setup used by robot vacuums. More details explained here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43384614 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43384614

tootie 2y ago

I have a Pixel 8a and there is a built-in feature like this already. If you connect to a protected wifi it give the option to use the camera to read the password off a sign.

ylj 2y ago
No way! I’m using a Pixel 7 and would love to have that built-in. Could you share a screenshot of how that works on your phone?

jmusall 2y ago

That's a nice idea. I wish stuff like this was builtin. Small suggestion: API level 29 (Android 10) introduced WifiNetworkSuggestion[1], which allows an app to prompt the user to add WiFi credentials to the system. The suggestion has to be sent as an extra in an ACTION_WIFI_ADD_NETWORKS intent[2] (which was added in API 30 for some reason, not sure right now what happens in between). [1] https://developer.android.com/develop/connectivity/wifi/wifi-suggest https://developer.android.com/develop/connectivity/wifi/wifi... [2] https://developer.android.com/reference/android/provider/Settings#ACTION_WIFI_ADD_NETWORKS https://developer.android.com/reference/android/provider/Set...

ylj 2y ago
Thanks for the suggestion! I initially went with that approach [1], but eventually opted for on-screen QR code scanning. Suggested networks have lower connection priority and don’t always auto-connect. Also, passwords for suggested networks can’t be viewed or shared later, unlike regular WiFi connections. This is inconvenient because I often need to connect my Mac to the same network later. [1] https://github.com/yilinjuang/wify/commit/7e63f2a9e6759847b4d47f6418c85612d05f6692 https://github.com/yilinjuang/wify/commit/7e63f2a9e6759847b4...
- jmusall 2y ago
  Makes sense. Good to know that API has some serious (undocumented?) drawbacks :)

amenghra 2y ago

For anyone interested, the wifi QR code format is described here: https://www.wi-fi.org/system/files/WPA3%20Specification%20v3.2.pdf#page=25 https://www.wi-fi.org/system/files/WPA3%20Specification%20v3... These QR codes usually work with your device's default camera app -- point at QR code and get prompted to join the network.

nkrisc 2y ago
I created a few stickers with my guest network WiFi details QR code to put on my fridge and around the house for when I have guests. I also recommend writing the SSID and password on it for those times the QR code won’t work with someone’s device (usually my mom’s ancient Android phone).
- ylj 2y ago
  That’s great! I’d love it if every place adopted this approach—then I wouldn’t even need to build this app.

endofreach 2y ago

Spending compute to encode a string just to decode it with more compute, because the whole purpose was to print the decoded string seems... a bit wasteful at best. I don't understand. Sure, the excuse here might be that the generated QR code can be used to connect other devices as well, but if that was the reason, it would have been mentioned i guess. It seems like the QR code is only generated & displayed to be read from screen... It seems to me– a judgmental moron– almost as if chatgpt came up with this... Sorry if this sounds harsh, most likely i am wrong and don't get something here. And usually i wouldn't have commented because my comment doesn't bring something positive to the table... But i really so much don't get it here, i had to comment in the hope of being enlightened why this is smart and not the opposite... But either way: if it solves an issue for you the way you want it to: perfect. Congratulations on finishing an app as you imagined it. That is really great, regardless of opinions like mine.

wolrah 2y ago
I think the intended purpose are cases like hotels where they really should be offering QR codes but instead just display text on the TV. If you control the display device then definitely just use the QR code but the problem this solves is when someone else has made bad choices.
- jjayj 2y ago
  I guess the question is "why generate a QR code rather than just connect?" > You can instantly connect using Google Circle to Search or Google Lens. Is there something special about the Google integrations that other apps can't achieve (I'm not an Android developer)?
  - endofreach 2y ago
    > I guess the question is "why generate a QR code rather than just connect?" Exactly. Why not use the API directly? Why encode a string into an image for the sole purpose of displaying that image to then basically do a screenshot to then read from the screen, to run an algorithm on that to detect & decode to get the string you already had after doing the OCR on the wifi credentials. Btw: i didn't even open the link. My comment was based solely on this post. Now i see that it's an expo / react project... so the amount of wasteful energy spent is even higher. I have looked at the code. This here stands out to me: >>> if (Platform.OS === "android") { // On Android, we use system built-in WiFi connection dialog via qr code return false; } else if (Platform.OS === "ios") { // On iOS, we need to use a different method await WiFiManager.connectToProtectedSSIDPrefix( ssid, password, !isWPA // iOS only ); <<< Aside from the fact that the comments indeed look very llm-esque to me, the way they're phrased also implies that the ios way of directly connecting is the "different" method. Like that one is the workaround of both approaches– and the wasteful way is the desired one– for no apparent reason.

killingtime74 2y ago

This is already available on Samsung natively. Great project for those who don't have access to that.

tttym 1y ago

Interesting, when do you think it will be avalible for iOS users? WOuld love to see it in acction as I have had simmilar problems with finding SSID in the past.