Possible - networking between 2 smartphones using a home router?

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rayonline

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Topic # 205548 17-Nov-2016 14:16

I know that a smartphone can view a laptop or desktop computer on the home network but can you do this between 2 smart devices (phone and or tablet)? Can a dekstop or laptop view the network contents of smart device?

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timmmay

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Reply # 1672829 17-Nov-2016 14:20

1. Yes.

2. Yes, if you have the right software installed on the phone. Not sure what the best app is.

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1eStar

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Reply # 1673277 18-Nov-2016 06:55

Try ES File explorer. I've never tried but I believe this is the app for that.

Coil

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Reply # 1673315 18-Nov-2016 07:47

1eStar: Try ES File explorer. I've never tried but I believe this is the app for that.

Used that app for a day before i uninstalled it due to it trying to take over your phone and add widget crap everywhere and some weird lockscreen overlay.

PaulBags

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Reply # 1673358 18-Nov-2016 09:16

You could look for an old version of ES on an apk mirror (3 is safe, maybe 4), the latest versions are nothing like what it used to be.

I'm currently using total commander, it has plug ins to work as an ftp client and connect to smb shares, but I don't know if it has any way to share it's file system - I haven't needed that since I ditched ES.

jonb

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Reply # 1673360 18-Nov-2016 09:16

Can also use a different solution to access the files - e.g. the OneDrive or Dropbox app to sync the files to a cloud storage and then access across devices

1eStar

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Reply # 1673383 18-Nov-2016 09:40

Yes I confess to still be using version 3.2.5.5 of ES

rayonline

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Reply # 1673475 18-Nov-2016 11:07

Yes, I have ES File Explorer - I can view my desktop computer on my phone but not too sure if I can view my phone from my PC. Will check again. Not sure either if I can view the phone from another phone. There could possibly be a way if I throw in some IP numbers. But from the simply scan option I didn't see them. I only saw the desktop PC (LAN), laptop (wireless) and my Fritzbox.

HowickDota

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Reply # 1673504 18-Nov-2016 11:37

You wont see other phones when you do the LAN scan in ES File Explorer because what it is listing is SMB servers on your local network, by default android devices don't have this function. There are applications like this that can make your android device an SMB server, however I haven't tried this and can't guarantee it will work. If your goal is to share files between android devices bluetooth is much easier especially if they aren't particularly large files, for larger files ES file explorer has it's own "Sender" tool which uses wifi and will probably be faster. Otherwise just using a usb cable to move files onto your pc and then to the other phone may be faster/easier than this.

edit:wrote smb client instead of smb server

rayonline

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Reply # 1673530 18-Nov-2016 12:13

Ok, thanks. Yes the USB cable is by far the fastest. I used ES File Explorer on the phone and copied a 3.5GB file (video) from a wireless laptop. 1.5m from my router. Was about 19Mbps. Wireless laptop to wireless laptop 90Mbps.