starnet It's not really that you have to be in bluetooth range. It's just that the Wifi signal is extremely low powered (probably to extend battery life) so the Wifi range itself is very low. Can see the wifi signal bars drop as you walk away from it or go sit in your car. Same is true of my other tracker (Benro Polaris with even worse range).
Anyway, I've also been trying to figure out a way to keep internet access in the field on my phone while also controlling the Seestar, and I haven't got it yet on the same device. I did do a test where I connected Seestar's station mode to the wifi hotspot on my phone and then also connected a tablet to the same hotspot, and it now has both internet access through my phone's hotspot, and is able to see the Seestar, which would let me download images from the Seestar, edit and post to community all from the same device (as I can do with station mode at home). But if you try to connect phone to Seestar it loses internet access, and breaks the hotspot too.