Enable Mobile Data While Staying Connected to No-Internet Wi-Fi

Recently, one user reached out to me with a rather intriguing issue [well, intriguing for me, but way too much infuriating for him]. He has a bike with a WiFi network [obviously without an internet connection]. However, he can connect to this WiFi network via his phone, which in turn allows him to move the navigation map from the mobile phone to the motorcycle display.

When he had an iPhone, it did recognize that the WiFi did not have any internet, so it enabled the mobile data so that the user could still receive messages on his device [and at the same time, his device was still connected to the bike’s WiFi]. However, when he made a switch to Samsung [Galaxy S25 Ultra to be precise], the device was also able to remain connected with the bike’s WiFi, but it did not activate its mobile data.

As a result of this, till the time he was on his bike, he was able to still use the navigation map with his bike as the device was still connected to the bike’s WiFi; however, on his device, there was no internet, and he wasn’t able to get any messages whatsoever on his Samsung device. So is there a fix? Let’s find out.

Enable Mobile Data While Staying Connected to No-Internet Wi-Fi

Enable Mobile Data While Staying Connected to No-Internet Wi-Fi - 1

I first suggested to the users a few tweaks related to Intelligent WiFi, but that didn’t spell out success. So we did a few advanced tweaks and finally stumbled upon the “fix”, which I decided to share here. So without any further ado, it’s time to bring that tweak right in front of you all!

Head over to Settings > Connections > Data usage > Allowed network for apps. Here here you will find all the programs installed, with the default selection being: “data connection or WiFi”. So long-press on a program and you’ll be given an option to choose from the following three options: 1) Data connection or WiFi, 2) only WiFi, 3) Preferred data connection. So you need to select the last entry, i.e., Preferred data connection.

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