The optimal solution is thus:

"What's your wifi password?"

"It's written right there on the fridge"

"oh, I have to get up from my table, carry my laptop over to your fridge and attempt to type in the password without dropping anything?"

(I have a horrible short term memory and struggle with short phrases)

I have solved this (and a surprising number of similar problems) by pulling out the powerful camera I carry everywhere and taking a picture of the text I would otherwise need to remember.

I have an iPhone 13Pro Max and this solution is cumbersome.

When I walk back to my desk, my phone locks (due to time out or intentional habit of keeping it locked). Then I have to tap buttons to unlock phone, launch the photo app, and find the image I just took. Then I have to spend time later to delete the image.

iOS has OCR on images. I can copy and paste the password from the photo, but still not as efficient as no or simple password, since I must still deal with locking.

Perhaps, this is better on android.

Is Face ID so terrible? I'm still on iPhone 8 with fingerprint reader and unlocking is not something I notice, it's absolutely smooth.

I use FaceID and it works well (even with a mask), but you still have to tap to find the Photos app and then the image you just took.

Open camera (swipe from up side, then swipe from right side), click on latest photo in the corner, swipe if necessary. I very rarely open photos app.

that is exactly my point: lots of tapping, when a simple verbal easy to memorize password is requires no extra typing.

a clay tablet perhaps?

You don’t talk like this when you are invited somewhere? You do ?

I internally think this every time I bring my laptop to a cafe and the barista points at a 'cute' wifi password sign (or bathroom unlock code).

If someone wasn't smart enough to realize they could take the piece of paper off the fridge, I'm not sure they'd be able to operate a computer

Is that an O or a 0?

I would never write something so ambiguous.

Return to monke:

    password123

The password is “1234”?! That’s the kind password an idiot would have on their suitcase!

That's amazing. I've got the same combination on my luggage.

Is that a 0 or a Ø?

My solution to this is that "password" is the literal password of my guest WiFi.

Might as well just open it up at that point.

No way. “password” protects me from the neighbor torrenting movies or Googling bomb recipes or whatever, which is the bulk of the threat model for residential Wi-Fi.

The proprietary Apple way is honestly the best but only works inside their system. You just try to join the wifi network and if the wifi owner has you as a contact they will get a popup requesting permission to the wifi and you tap accept and its done.

To be pedantic, it doesn't require the owner to give permission. It'll get it from anyone else near enough who has it on their device. My kids give away our primary WiFi to their friends with some annoying regularity, even though I keep telling them to scan the QR code on the wall for the guest network.

Why have a non-'guest' network? Force anything secure over a proper VPN E.G. wireguard.

Streaming services block VPNs, many sites like Wikipedia impose restrictions (no editing allowed from a VPN), and geoloc based services act oddly (I live in London and my VPN server is in a London data center, but Google thinks we are in Dubai and G.Apps default to Arabic).

Hadn't really considered that. A bit inconvenient, I don't know that I'd want to VPN inside my own network just to access my servers.

Surely this is desirable while away from home too?

Not sure I could enforce QoS priority on the wireguard traffic. Easier with a non-guest SSID. Is there a huge performance benefit if there's just one SSID running in my airspace?

Also, for the OP, sounds like it's time to put the kids on the guest network.

You can QoS tag by whitelisted mac addresses if it's just priority to known devices generally. At best your router may be able to slightly shape devices on the network (strategically dropped packets). QoS over the air doesn't really work as there's zero control of any devices tying up RF spectrum, and zero ability to defend against DoS attacks (E.G. neighbor trying to stream 4K over wifi).

> sounds like it's time to put the kids on the guest network

I have considered that, for sure.

It definitely asks for permission, and only prompts mutual contacts to begin with, as far as I know.

It asks the sender for permission, which is not the same as asking the WiFi owner. My kids have their friends as contacts, so it happily shares with them.

My wording was probably a bit wrong but there is no concept in wifi of ownership so by owner I meant the person who set it up but not exclusively them, just that they would have it.

Why would a coffee shop owner have me as a contact?

It’s terrible because it means on apple there’s no obvious way to share Wi-Fi settings like on android. Thanks apple for using Wi-Fi to try to do vendor lock in.

How is that lock-in? It's just a feature. It doesn't in any way lock you out of setting up WiFi the old fashioned way.

Okay so how do I find out the wifi password of a network an iOS device is connected to, using that device? On android it’s easy: go to Wi-Fi settings, hit “share”, show QR code.

That's just a normal security feature, passwords are input only. Just because Android lets you read them doesn't make it an ideal choice or any kind of standard. Besides, I don't want my kids to get the password from their devices and then share with their friends.

And how would that constitute lock-in anyway?

iOS 16 allows to look up a saved password.

https://images.macrumors.com/t/3REfPfn3TRhO5oOFqVsyqdR9qcI=/...

I wonder why they didn't just add it in at the beginning, I can't imagine the implementation being that difficult

you are not my father!

Just make your WiFi password simpler