Some Android phone users are wondering what is the blue dot that appears next to a person’s name in the contacts and on the messaging app mean and what is its significance. When a blue dot appears on the person’s name, it simply means that you can use the chat messaging feature on that particular person. It highly likely that the carrier of that person applied the RCS Universal Profile. To know more about what the blue dot means and what is RCS, continue reading this post.
What Blue dot android contact means
The Blue dot next to a person’s name signifies that particular person uses an RCS compatibility phone or device. It does not matter what phone that person is using as long as a contact person’s contact information list enabled RCS, a blue dot will appear next to their names.
Most often, the text message app on a phone scans your lists of contacts to be able to check and detect which of the individuals on the list uses an RCS compatible mobile phone such as most Samsung phone or any samsung galaxy phones and a blue dot will be marked beside their names.
What is RCS and how does it work?
Before we tackle about RCS, let us first talk a little more about SMS since the RCS is an upgrade to SMS.
SMS has become a big part in our daily lives. As a matter of fact, text messages is widely used means of communication nowadays as compared to phone calls. Especially now that almost all mobile devices are now capable to sending and receiving SMS. Not only because texting a hassle free way of communication, it is also a way to interact with consumers when in the business sector.
Aside from SMS, other chat applications have also emerged and gaining popularity in this modern world of technology. Chat apps such as Facebook Messeger, WhatsApp and the like. Other chat apps includes WeChat, Slack, Viber, Skype, and so much more.
And now here comes RCS or Rich Communication services. It is simply an upgrade to text messaging. It was introduced since 2008 promoted by the GSMA. Basically, an upgrade to how each person communicates.
The SMS protocol with RCS have several features such as allowing payments, file sharing while maintaining the resolution of the photo or file, location is shared, able to do video calls and a lot more.
It is basically a standard messaging app that is starting to replace the standard SMS and MMS messaging. With RCS network infrastructure, sending messages is faster and easier. in a chat mode. As compared to SMS, an RCS enabled messaging app allows users to send high quality images and large attachments that SMS is unable to do so. Aside from that, character count limit that you are allowed to send will increase with RCS while at the same time you are able to send uncompressed video files (large attachments) to any contact with a blue dot icon next to their names.
The next time you see a blue dot next to contacts icon on samsung galaxy phones or Android RCS capable devices, you will now know that you can do more than just sending and receiving a normal and standard text or chat messages while you are in a chat mode.
To better understand how it works, here’s an example. If your contact is using a Samsung Phones same as you, it is likely that both profile sharing is activated and both of you have blue dot next to each other’s contact on each other’s phones. You also be able to see if the chat messages are seen and have been read or if the person on the other end is currently typing a message to send to you.
The chat features should also be enabled, to do that follow the steps below:
- Go to Messages app
- Tap on the three vertical dots located at the upper right side of messgaes
- Tap on Settings
- Tap on Chat Features option (often, Chat settings option appears)
- Toggle ON by sliding ON the option Enable Chat Features
Removing Blue Dot Next to a Contact
It is possible to remove the Blue dot next to a contact on a samsung phone or Android device, to do that follow the steps below:
- Open Text messages app
- Tap on the 3 vertical dots located at the upper right corner
- Tap Advanced messages or advanced messaging.
- Toggle Advanced messages option OFF. Before it is completely turned off, a prompt message will appear showing the pros as well as the cons of turning the feature off.
- After confirming, the blue dot next to a contact name will be removed.
An alternative steps to remove blue dot is by doing the following steps below:
- Open Messages app
- Tap on the 3 vertical dots located at the upper right corner
- Tap Settings
- Tap Chat Settings
- Turn Chat Features OFF
- Scroll down and tap on Default Message type
- Tap to select Text or Multimedia option.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does a green text messages and a blue text message signifies?
Green and Blue bubbles received, When the text messages green, it simply means it uses a standard text messages without the need to use an internet connection or a mobile data and that is receiving green messages With a blue text messages on the other hand, itsimply means that the messages were sent using an internet connection and the receiving end also must have an internet connection to be able to receive a blue text messages.
What is the Blue dot next to an text message on an iPhone device?
Unlike with a Samsung device, when a blue dot appears next to a text message on an iPhone means that the message is either unread and or flagged.
Do you need an internet connection for RCS messaging to work?
Yes, an internet connection is needed for RCS to work. It can either be connection to the internet using the Wi-Fi or on cellular data.
Is there a character limit on RCS messaging?
As previously mentioned, when it comes to character limit an RCS has no character limit as compared to an SMS that has at least 160 characters only.
Will you receive chat messages green for blocked contacts?
Regardless of what device you are using, either an Android device or apple device, if you block a person it will not turn messages green because blocking someone means you will not be ble to receiving messages from that particular persons. Yes, it will appear to be green but the message will not be sent.
Conclusion
The next time you see a Blue dot next to a person’s contact on your mobile device you will now know what it means. The RCS new techonology will make sending and receiving SMS and chat messages easier and sending high resolution videos and photos will now be hassle-free.