How to access a device by hostname through Jetpack/MiFi?

Question

I have a Verizon Jetpack Mi-Fi device, which behaves as a wireless router. Connected to it are three clients:

1. A Windows laptop whose hostname is windows1. IP address from the Jetpack is 192.168.1.2.
2. A Windows laptop whose hostname is windows2. IP address from the Jetpack is 192.168.1.3.
3. A non-rooted Android tablet. IP address from the Jetpack is 192.168.1.4.

I have a web server running on windows1 and listening on port 80. If I open a web browser on windows2 and navigate to http://windows1, the web server home page loads properly. If I open a web browser on the tablet and navigate to http://windows1, the web server home page does not load, and I get the following error:

This webpage is not available

ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED

On the tablet, if I navigate instead to http://192.168.1.2, the web server home page loads properly.

I would very much like to access http://windows1 from the Android tablet by hostname, not by IP address, just like I can do from windows2. What is a simple way to achieve that, if it is even possible?

UPDATE

I do need to access content on http://windows1 from Chrome running on the Android tablet. I also need to access http://windows1 from another app that is not a web browser itself but consumes web services that run on windows1. Those web services provide responses that tell the app to get other resources via absolute URLs on windows1. Changing my services to use IP addresses exclusively would be a very undesirable workaround for multiple reasons. Therefore, I'm asking for a solution in which the Android device makes a DNS request for windows1 and the correct IP address is returned.

Answer 1

I believe the issue is that Windows uses multicast DNS to advertise servers on the local network and the default DNS system the Android browser uses does not resolve mDNS for some reason.

Android does have mDNS support that apps can use though, so one solution may be to use a browser app that supports mDNS such as ZeroConf Browser. Your call whether that’s more convenient than entering the IP address.