I’m helping out an 80 year old veteran get Internet out in the woods, so thanks for reading this and thanks to anyone who can help!

THE SETUP: I have plugged a HyperDrive 5 Port USB Hub with Power Delivery Charging directly into a Motorola Moto G Play 2023, which is being used as a permanent hotspot via Visible Wireless.

Originally, I skipped the hub and was simply initiating the hotspot via Wi-Fi and then using a cheap router without a USB port in repeater mode to broadcast the signal. The phone stayed connected to a charger 24/7 as it is set in place and isn’t used for anything else. This works just fine and all his devices connect fine with great speed and good reliability, though you do encounter the expected occasional hangs and lag spikes through common internet usage, infrequent as they are. This is partially exacerbated by the fact he lives in a very old travel trailer in the woods, and very rarely there are large connection drops that resolve momentarily.

To help minimize connection issues, I decided to get the aforementioned hub so that I could simultaneously charge the phone while delivering a wired Ethernet connection to the antenna to serve as an access point via Ethernet tether. This was to avoid getting a USB enabled router, since everything except the phone has been bought at a small town Walmart and the only USB enabled routers in stock were of ridiculous price. The hub was on sale and much cheaper than the USB enabled routes, so I figured it would work just as well.

THE ISSUE:

The phone will provide Ethernet tethering through the hub no problem, as long as there is no external power to the hub. In this configuration, the hub is draining the phone battery for power, which defeats the purpose of a powered hub, obviously.

When the hub is externally powered (Hooked to a 100W AC plug-in variable charge bank with a great cord, plenty of juice), the phone will charge, but the option for Ethernet tethering becomes disabled.

I have opened the developer options and have toyed with the USB settings to no avail. I feel like this has to be a simple issue with the phone determining what to do with the USB device and is disabling all features of the hub in favor of charging.

I considered returning the hub and router for a router that supports a USB input, but I would personally like to get this set-up running because I feel like it’s just a very simple issue or setting that I’m overlooking.

Any thoughts, ideas, or suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you all!