Bring your own router for the PC and iPad, and give it internet from a hotspot or the venue. A weak venue connection then won't stop the station.
1. Two different connections
Connection | What it's for | Needs internet? |
Local network between the PC and the iPad | With the iPad on the PixoShare PC tab: finding the PC, new photos right away, Print and AirDrop | No |
Internet on the PC | Syncing the event, uploads, texts and emails, the QR code, online galleries, AI effects | Yes |
Internet on the station | Only for an iPad on PixoShare Cloud or the Web Sharing Station | Yes |
The iPad finds your PC on the network they share, only while the PC's event is running. Can't find it? See iPad: connect to your PixoShare PC (and what to do when it can't find it).
2. Bring your own router
Venue and hotel Wi-Fi often stop devices from seeing each other (the iPad shows No PC found on this Wi-Fi). Your own small travel router avoids that:
Connect the PC and every iPad to your router's main network, not a guest network: guest networks often keep devices apart too.
Give the router internet. Many operators carry a mobile hotspot device from their cellular carrier, so they don't depend on the venue at all. Venue Wi-Fi, a venue Ethernet cable or a phone hotspot work too.
If the PC has an Ethernet port, plug it into the router with a cable. It's steadier than Wi-Fi, and the iPad still finds it.
If that internet drops, the PC and iPad keep talking through your router. Photos keep appearing, printing and AirDrop keep working, and texts and emails wait on the PC (see Do I need internet at my event? What works offline).
3. How much internet speed you need
What matters is upload speed. The PC sends each photo file as it is. Booth photos are often 1 to 5 MB, and full-size camera JPEGs can be 10 MB or more.
Rough time to upload one file:
File size | 5 Mbps up | 10 Mbps up | 25 Mbps up |
1 MB | about 2 seconds | about 1 second | under 1 second |
4 MB | about 7 seconds | about 4 seconds | about 2 seconds |
10 MB | about 16 seconds | about 8 seconds | about 4 seconds |
A slow line doesn't lose photos: they wait in the PC's Upload queue. What matters is that the queue empties between guests.
Test at the venue, before guests arrive. Start the event, then click Test upload speed on the PC's event screen. On a line slower than about 8 Mbps, the test shows Test failed — no usable connection to PixoShare cloud, but photos still upload, just more slowly. Send a test photo and check that it leaves the Upload queue.
On a hotspot, watch your data. Uploads use about as much data as your photos: at about 4 MB a photo, 500 photos are about 2 GB, plus about 20 MB for each speed test. Guests open their links on their own phones, so that doesn't use your data.
4. Firewall: set your network to Private
PixoShare lets the iPad through Windows Firewall on Private networks, never on Public ones. If the PC shows This PC's network is set to Public, click Open Windows network settings and set the network to Private. Do this only on a network you control, such as your own router. Don't turn the firewall off.
Good to know
Moved the PC to a different network during the event? Pick the PC again on the iPad.
Carrier hotspot as your only router? The PC and iPad can join it directly. Test it once before an event: if the iPad shows No PC found on this Wi-Fi, turn off the hotspot's AP isolation (or privacy separation), or plug it into your own router.
5 GHz or 2.4 GHz? 5 GHz is faster and usually less crowded, but it doesn't reach as far, so keep the router near the booth and the iPad. 2.4 GHz reaches further but is slower.
No way to put the PC and iPad on one network? Use the iPad's PixoShare Cloud tab instead. See Set up the iPad for an event.