ios - How to programmatically connect to a WiFi network given the SSID and password

Question

I am trying to replicate an existing Android Application that I made to iOS. In my application, I should be able to connect to a WiFi network given the SSID and the Password. The SSID and the Password can be hardcoded or can be inputted by the user. I was going through the internet to research how this can be done on iOS, however, it seems that this behavior is highly discouraged and that there's no way on doing this using public/documented libraries that won't get your application rejected by the App Store.

The thing is I'll be using this application personally and I don't plan on submitting it to the App Store so it's okay if I use external libraries. If my friends would want to use it, I could export an enterprise ipa and give them instructions on how to install it.

Upon searching, it seemed that MobileWifi.framework was a good candidate. However, it does not seem that there's a straightforward way of using this library to connect to a WiFi network given the SSID and the Password.

Is there anyone who has successfully tried to connect to a Wifi Network given the SSID and Password?

Answer 1

With iOS 11, Apple provided public API you can use to programmatically join a WiFi network without leaving your app.

The class you’ll need to use is called NEHotspotConfiguration.

To use it, you need to enable the Hotspot capability in your App Capabilities (Adding Capabilities). Quick working example :

NEHotspotConfiguration *configuration = [[NEHotspotConfiguration
 alloc] initWithSSID:@“SSID-Name”];
configuration.joinOnce = YES;

[[NEHotspotConfigurationManager sharedManager] applyConfiguration:configuration completionHandler:nil];

This will prompt the user to join the “SSID-Name” WiFi network. It will stay connected to the WiFi until the user leaves the app.

This doesn't work with the simulator you need to run this code with an actual device to make it work.

More informations here : https://developer.apple.com/documentation/networkextension/nehotspotconfiguration