My phone is connected to my laptop through syncthing. I haven’t enabled public access. But I wanted to know is my data always secured even if both my devices are at the same place and using a public wifi (such as when I carry my Laptop and my mobile both to the cafe)?
Yes, the connection between your devices are always encrypted and cannot be read in cleartext by an Hacker in the Public Wifi.
Just never accept/share folders with unknown devices. Always compare/match the Device ID on new Requests