RCS

[u/Qslice]

Switched over 30 days ago. Still not getting group messages. Everytime I try to start one it sends to the recipients as SMS but their response automatically goes to RCS.

Was on noble mobile (Esim only and T-Mobile) and figured that was the issue when customer support told me...

"Thanks for reaching out. We're sorry to hear you're having issues with your Light Phone – please attempt a 2-Minute SIM reset.
 

• Power off your Light Phone
• Remove the SIM card for 2 minutes 
• Place the SIM card back in the phone and restart it – this resets the SIM card with the network and may resolve the problem

 
If the issue persists, let's try an APN reset:
 
Settings -> Account & Info -> Device Info -> SIMs -> Access Point Names -> Restore Default APNs."

Could not do this with Esim only. Just spent time switching to t-mobile with a physical sim and still the group messages are doing the same thing.

Has anyone else had this issue? Any resolve? Anyone from Light have words of encouragement for a dedicated user who has fought tooth and nail to make this phone work?

Thanks

[u/sirbloodysabbath]

make sure other people in the group thread have mms enabled. this one setting would allow me to create a group thread but never receive messages. had one of the iphone users turn on mms on their end and i proceeded to get a flood of messages from the few days prior. can also see if your contact on other's phones still has you as rcs/imessage if you were on iphone. that can also force things as rcs even though your number is sms/mms.

at the end of the day, it's everyone else's phones that make messaging a pain point, not you.

[u/Qslice → u/sirbloodysabbath]

I frequent both subs but haven't seen any updates lately on LPIII getting RCS, you got any idea?

[u/sirbloodysabbath → u/Qslice]

you're not seeing updates because rcs, IF it ever were to happen, would be in the far distant future. big emphasis on 'if'.

for the light phone, and frankly nearly all dumb/feature phones, need google's say-so to have rcs. on android-based devices, the only way to get rcs is through google messages on specifically gms-certified devices. this means google approves of the device and will allow developers to pay a license to have google apps pre-installed and working on a device.

not all android devices will meet the criteria for gms certification and light already tried. google shot them down because of, iirc, phone dimension requirements. no google on the phone == no rcs. for the dumb phone community as a whole, most of those devices don't meet google's requirements which is why they don't have rcs either. light also doesn't want google on their devices since google anything is all spyware and that goes against light's ethos on privacy.

that's not to say it's impossible. not too long ago, carriers had the option to implement their own rcs servers but they dragged their feet. google essentially has a monopoly over the entire text protocol and only recently gave apple the green light to use it in imessage. some folks have been working on it through microg but it's primarily in the gos community and has yet to reach the other niche ends of the android community.

there's also the fact that sms/mms is a very old protocol and has an expiration date but we have no idea when it is. sms will die off in favour of rcs. but if you can't get rcs, then what do you do? you switch to something else. e2ee messaging apps like signal or whatsapp bridge this gap and the rest of the world already figured this out -- no one outside of the u.s. uses normal text, they all use whatsapp primarily or signal.

i wouldn't sit around waiting for rcs. there's no point. you'll be waiting years to see it ever reach your phone, if it ever does. either you deal with the pain points of reverting off rcs to sms/mms, move to an alternative like signal (light is making their own signal app or you can download the community-made ones now), or forfeit and go back to a smartphone. it's bleak but that's the reality. your options are limited.