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RCS on iOS
RCS is the modern version of SMS served over data/wifi. It improves security and allows you to group chat, send pictures/videos/voice notes for free without incurring MMS charges or having to use third-party apps like Facebook or Whatsapp. It has been the standard on Android for many years, but Apple recently launched support for it in iOS 18 last year. Due to the differences in how Apple and Google support RCS, iPhones require that carriers 'handle' the RCS protocol directly. Whereas on Android, Google handles the RCS chats for you. This means that Android users on UK carriers have enjoyed RCS for years, but UK carriers must do some work to support RCS on iOS. Three UK promptly supported RCS on iOS in December 2024. This means Three customers on iOS devices can use and enjoy the benefits of RCS. Smarty has yet to enable support for RCS on iOS, as of 18th February 2025. Someone did say in the forums that Smarty was actively investigating this in December, but we have not had any update since. Other UK carriers have swiftly done the work to enable RCS for iOS users, but there hasn't been an update on this from Smarty yet. I would really like some official acknowledging that this is coming soon, and ideally some realistic timescales to manage expectations. This is quite an important feature for me because I moved my elderly mother over to Smarty to save costs, but she routinely sends me (an Android user) images or videos over MMS which incurs charges. I am giving Smarty another 4-6 weeks to acknowledge and confirm that proper RCS support is coming soon, or I'll be moving my mother to another carrier. I can imagine there's quite a few customers in a similar situation.
Introduce a traditional PAYG tariff
Currently, SMARTY only offers rolling monthly plans, but it would be great if there were a traditional Pay As You Go 'plan' where you pay per minute, text and MB of data that you automatically switch to if you don't renew your plan, or don't select a plan when activating a SIM. There is a PAYG page on the website, but this has misled some customers into thinking SMARTY offers PAYG plans (examples here: How to activate a data-only payg SIM | SMARTY Community, Pay as you go Sim | SMARTY Community); instead, the page is only saying how rolling monthly plans are better than PAYG. That doesn't seem very "Simple, honest mobile" to me. I agree that rolling monthly combines the price benefits of a pay monthly plan with the flexibility of a no-contract PAYG, but PAYG is still cheaper for light users who only make occasional calls and don't want data, and it will only cost them pennies per month compared with a rolling contract costing £6. There is already a somewhat PAYG option, where you pay per minute and text if you have a Data-only plan (10p per minute & text and 40p per MMS text as set in the price guide), but there is no way of not paying for a monthly data plan and only using the PAYG calls and texts with an out of plan add-on. I think adding a PAYG tariff is a great way to capture extra customers and revenue that only want a PAYG plan. I would also push some of my family members over to SMARTY if they were available. There are probably other considerations to make, such as whether to use account balance or out of plan add-on balance, how to handle the 220 day inactivity account closure, if they can buy data and unlimited pass add-ons, how PAYG fits into groups/nickname SIMs, how to handle refer-a-friend rewards, and roaming & international charges. As for pricing, 10p per minute is great compared to networks like GiffGaff (25p/minute) or VOXI (30p/minute), which seem to treat PAYG as second-rate rather than a viable way to use the SIM. However, it doesn't quite match up to networks like iD Mobile (3p/minute) or 1pMobile (1p/minute), so maybe reducing it to around 5p or lower would be nice, preferably 2p to beat out iD Mobile. Some networks also reduce the cost or even make it free to call & text numbers on the same network, not only because it skips termination fees, but also encourages people to move friends over to the same network. It would also be preferable not to have minimum monthly top-up amounts, otherwise it won't be of much value over the monthly plans. And please don't make it hard to find out that this option exists by not including it on the plans webpage, hiding the rates, or making it hard for new customers to start out with this option. Your motto is "Simple, honest mobile", after all.Change Data Only plans pricing
The Data Only plans' pricing needs updating. They are supposed to be 'just great value data' and be cheaper than Voice plans because they don't include calls and texts, but that is not the case. At the current pricing, it is better to get Voice plans even if you only want data, as you get more data for the same price, and you also get free calls and texts as a bonus even if you don't use them. It's not like there are advantages to paying the extra money, like getting a public IP address instead of being put on CGNAT, being able to use a MiFi which we can already do with a Voice plan, higher priority than Voice plans, or removing fair use policies in the unlimited data plan which the Voice plans don't even have (there are people reportedly using 1.5TB of data with SMARTY, highest I've seen being 2.3TB). It's even worse when you account for those deals you find on sites like Uswitch, and the Data plans are just not worth it at all. Looking at this article covering Data SIM's introduction, it seems even back then its value wasn't as good as Voice plans, so what even is their purpose? There's only this thread trying to theorise why the Data plans are like this. I think the plans should be changed to be priced lower than the Voice plans, do the occasional promotions with these plans as you do with Voice plans, and add benefits that are clearly communicated such as replacing CGNAT with a public IP address. (and please don't deprioritise, add FUP or block MiFi devices with Voice plans to make Data Only plans better)Top title of help section on the app is bugged
The SMARTY app has a help section accessed by clicking 'Help' at the bottom menu of the screen. However, the title at the top after clicking a category shows no name, or shows the name of the previous category you entered. To reproduce this, go to the help section and click a category, e.g. 'About SMARTY'. At first, the title at the top is empty, only showing the category's description. Go back to the category view and click another category, e.g. 'Getting started with SMARTY'. The title will show the previous category name, 'About SMARTY ', instead of what you just clicked. The description, however does show correctly for the category you are in.Spend limits and bar control in dashboard/app
Currently, you can contact support to control the £45 worldwide data roaming limit, opt in and out of receiving "Advice of Charges Text" when you arrive abroad, and bar certain roaming services like data (according to this support article). I believe these should be a thing in the SMARTY dashboard and the mobile app, so that we don't have to reach out to live chat support, which would be faster to do and can also be done outside of the 8 AM - 8 PM times that support is available, not to mention that it frees up support to help other customers quicker. All the major mobile networks and some MVNOs have these kinds of settings, and it is something that some people look for if you look at community posts asking about it. While you won't get unexpected bills with SMARTY, and cannot get charged for things like making international calls, calling chargeable numbers or texting chargeable shortcodes without an out of plan add-on, it would also be nice to get bars for these too, so that people with an out of plan add-on balance do not use them up where they don't want it to. Also, if I missed any other controls that support can set, or something that uses the out of plan add-on credits, then include them too if this feature is ever implemented (and hopefully doesn't take too long like the other requested features in this forum).
Face/Touch ID & PIN unlock for SMARTY iOS app, rather than account details
The SMARTY iOS app is a useful way to track data usage, purchase add-ons, manage group plans and much more. However, if one doesn’t use the app for a couple of days, it automatically logs you out, presumably to protect your account and information. The problem with this is you have to constantly re-enter your full login details (email, password, sometimes 2-factor authentication) just to check something as simple as your remaining data. Plus, every time you log into your account, a security email is sent (for obvious reasons). This all seems too convoluted and unnecessary to me just for an opening an app every few days. When I was with EE, their app supported a simple 4-digit PIN lock and Face/Touch ID. A quick biometric authentication or PIN entry was enough to get into the app, only logging you out of your account if you were inactive for weeks or months. This to me is a far simpler, more effective and more streamlined process of getting the info you need from an app quickly while still securing your account and information. I’d like to see SMARTY implement a similar authentication system for their own app. Let us set a PIN and Face/Touch ID to access the app, and stop logging us out of our accounts for 2 days of inactivity. Instead, only log us out after several weeks of inactivity, the rest of the time relying exclusively on PIN/biometric authentication for app access. I cannot speak for the Google Play app as I don’t have any experience using it. Thank you for considering my suggestion! I wish the reader a pleasant day. - Kaiffe
