How to make a Wi-Fi QR code

Reading a 24-character password aloud is nobody's favourite part of having guests. A Wi-Fi QR code replaces it with one scan.

A Wi-Fi QR code does not open a web page. It encodes the network's name, its security type and its password in a small text format that Android and iOS both recognise, so the phone offers to join the network directly. No app, no typing, no reading characters off a sticky note.

What you need before you start

• The exact network name (SSID), including capitals and spaces — it is case-sensitive.
• The password, equally exactly.
• The security type: almost always WPA/WPA2/WPA3, occasionally WEP on old hardware, or none for an open network.
• Whether the network is hidden — that is, whether it broadcasts its name.

The single most common failure is a network name typed from memory. Copy it from the router's label or from your phone's Wi-Fi settings, character for character.

Making the code

In Sharen, pick the Wi-Fi type, fill in the four fields, and the code is built as you type. There is nothing to upload and no account: the code is generated on your device, which matters more than usual here, because you are encoding a password.

Under the hood the encoded string looks like this:

WIFI:T:WPA;S:MyNetwork;P:my-password;H:false;;

`T` is the security type, `S` the network name, `P` the password and `H` whether the network is hidden. You do not need to write this by hand — but it is worth knowing, because it is also how you check that a code someone gave you is what it claims to be.

Where it usually goes wrong

Special characters in the password

The format uses `;`, `:`, `,` and `\` as punctuation, so a password containing them has to be escaped. A generator that does not handle this produces a code that scans and then fails to join. If your password contains any of those characters, test the code before you print it — or change the password to something without them, which is easier than debugging it later.

Hidden networks

If the network does not broadcast its name, the hidden flag has to be set, or the phone will look for a network it cannot see and give up. This is a one-checkbox mistake that is invisible until someone tries it.

The wrong security type

WPA3 networks generally work with the WPA setting. WEP is a genuinely different value, and picking it for a WPA network — or the reverse — fails silently. Check the router rather than guessing.

Enterprise networks

Networks that ask for a username as well as a password (WPA2-Enterprise, common in offices and universities) cannot be encoded this way. The format has no room for the certificate and identity settings those need.

Printing it for a wall

A Wi-Fi code taped by a café door gets scanned from a metre or two away, often in bad light, by phones of every age. Give it room:

• At least 3–4 cm across for a table card, 15–20 cm for a code read across a room.
• Keep the white margin around the pattern — trimming it to fit a frame is the classic way to break a code that works fine on screen.
• Matte paper rather than glossy, if it will sit under a ceiling light.
• Print the network name underneath in normal text, so someone whose camera is refusing to cooperate can still type it.

More on all of these in why QR codes stop working.

Testing it

Forget the network on your own phone first — otherwise it joins from the saved profile and tells you nothing. Then scan the printed code, not the screen, and confirm it connects on both an Android phone and an iPhone if you have one to hand. Older Android versions in particular are fussier than the preview suggests.

Questions people ask before printing