SMS Messages

[pgordash]

Is the phone number in the contacts used to send SMS messages? If so, is there a specific format the number needs to be in?

Thanks,
Paul

[GrandWizard]

From the help page...


To make the system send a text message use the SMS email format in the e-mail field of the contact.

For example with Canadian carriers it goes as follows: Bell Canada: [10-digit-phone-number]@txt.bellmobility.ca ... Rogers: [10-digit- phone-number]@pcs.rogers.com. ... Telus:10digitmobilenumber@msg.telus.com (e.g., 4031234567@msg.telus.com)

[pgordash]

The problem with that system is that Rogers no longer allows you to directly send an SMS message that way. When you use their @pcs.rogers.com address it shows up as an "You have received a message from xxx@yyy.com, please reply with "read" to read the message". Kinda lame and a great way for Rogers to boost your sent SMS count.

I was hoping that you used an SMS gateway to sent out messages. Oh well...

Thanks,
Paul

[bpsmicro]

I'm not sure if this is just a Canada thing (where the cell companies work very hard to gouge their customers at every turn), but it looks like none of them allow direct SMS sending anymore.
In Rogers' case, they'll happily let you pay $5/month for the privilege of getting direct email-to-SMS.

Since I have a smartphone, and I'm a cheapskate, I set up a bit of a hybrid. I set up a special "alerts" hotmail address (hotmail, gmail, yahoo, any of the bigger reliable players), I have all my "alert messages" sent to that address, to keep them isolated from my normal e-mail.

I set up a separate contact in eyez-on with my SMS/Email , but only for "critical" messages (alarms/restores/troubles).

So typically, my phone will tell me of incoming e-mail as normal. But I don't need to look at it right away. But if I also get an SMS from eyez-on, I don't need to read that, just know that the last e-mail I got is important enough to read NOW.

Brad

[quatchi]

I'm on Rogers, and I send SMS's directly to my phone without issues using the email format @pcs.rogers.com

Perhaps something to do with your phone plan?

[GrandWizard]

I have heard that due to twitter notification overuse Rogers is using some opt-in strategies to lower the SMS messages on their network.

Unfortunately we cannot offer native SMS notifications and keep our low price (free). We would be charged per message so we would have to pass that along.

[davelive]

If you use an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, .. Try the free application Boxcar. They give you a free notification email that you can configure in your eyez-on account and will receive an instant push alert on your ios device. You can also configure a distinct sound to let you know it's your alarm notifying you.

[Pestus]

Hello there,

I have a client that has a Rogers iPhone. No matter what I try, I can't seem to get his phone to receive any SMS messages from the Connect2Go cloud service. This includes the preliminary SMS with the pin code in order to verify the contact.

I have verified that I personally can email to SMS him, by emailing 1234567890@pcs.rogers.com. The number being his 10 digit phone number. So I have tried using the Connect2Go email function rather than SMS in order to replicate the same thing, and it did not come through as well.

I am thinking that Rogers has a spam filter on their SMS system. In digging further, I find they have an interesting user configurable filter. They have an allow command! so, from his phone, if he texts ten zeros, then the word allow, then the address of the sender to allow, it ought to reprogram the spam filter. [0000000000 allow connect2go.com] My problem is, I need to know precisely what the connect2go address to type in. Has anyone here run into this, or has anyone at Eyez-On figured out how to deal with Rogers SMS system?

I do have a plan B and a plan C, but I'd like to be able to figure this out, even if just because I hate to be defeated.

Thanks!

[DeanRobinson]

I stared using an App. called "TextNow" it's free and seems to work the best. Format would be "Yourname@textnow.me I was testing different ones for the same reason, I wasn't getting my message half the time. Install the App. setup an account then setup it up your contacts, Configure what you want it to monitor.

Good Luck!
Dean

[bpsmicro]

I've just upgraded my 2DS to an EVL3 and switched over to Connect2Go's service, and I too have discovered that e-mail to [mynumber]@pcs.rogers.com isn't working. Your post is very timely. Since I also have a normal e-mail address configured, I used the 'from' address for that, which is "noreply@myconnect2go.com". So texting "0000000000" with "allow noreply@myconnect2go.com" resulted in a confirmation, and then when I resent my PIN, I got the usual "you have mail from..." text, and responding "Read" to that got me the original message.

Brad.