By Rebecca Wright Brown
Family Handyman's Editorial Process
Published on Sep. 09, 2025
Have you noticed a blue dot on your Android? Fear not, it’s not indicative of a problem at all, rather it’s highlighting a new feature.
New phone features can be confusing, especially when they aren’t immediately intuitive. The orange dot that shows up on an iPhone is a perfect example. It’s a symbol letting you know something important, but since it’s so small, its function isn’t immediately clear. Samsung users have begun asking about another feature, a blue dot on their Android devices. It shows up next to certain contacts in the Google Messages app, but doesn’t immediately offer any further information.
According to the Samsung Community forum, if you’re seeing a blue dot (it may also appear as a blue chat bubble) next to one of your contacts, that means that they have RCS enabled. Instead of an outdated SMS chat with limited functionality, you’re using Rich Communication Services to text that contact.
Okay, so now that you know what the blue dot on your Android is, what exactly is an RCS chat? According to the Google Help Center, “when you use RCS chats, your messages are sent with the Rich Communication Services (RCS) protocol over Wi-Fi and mobile data….RCS chats are provided by Google or your mobile carrier.”
Google explains that RCS chats can:
These chats are only an option if “all the participants in a conversation have RCS.”
RCS chats aren’t limited to Samsung phones. RCS messaging is compatible with iPhones. On Android devices, a blue dot will appear next to iPhone users’ names (as Apple has enabled RCS in the iMessage app). However, RCS messages will still populate in green on an iPhone (albeit with all the bonus features of RCS enabled).
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