FirstView Reviews

I used to love FirstView because it had a little countdown on the screen of an estimation of how many minutes away my daughters bus was. That feature is gone now. I emailed my feedback through FirstView and the response I got was that that feature was never there. Makes no sense. I was told that the gps on the map would be able to tell me the location of her bus in concordance with the pick up location(using a visual marker but it is NEVER accurate. My daughters bus was in front of my house and FirstView showed that it was on the opposite side of the city. It’s useless and it’s very frustrating. I emailed screen shots to ask for help and never got a response.

I had an issue where my children's student ID’s were removed from FirstView due to a data issue. Brian R. was the developer who assisted me with my issue. His responses were timely, helpful, and kind. My issue has been resolved, and as a former software programmer myself I’m impressed with the developer team. Great job!

My grandson and daughter attends Springfield elementary and take the bus off Sunnyvale and Butternut. For almost 2 weeks the bus has not been here. My grandson‘s mother has been in a life-changing accident and can no longer drive and has no left arm. In order to maintain medical and bills we have to work. My daughter has called every single day this week and last week let them nowThe bus has been late and per the principal he states just to sit out there and wait. Today is October 1 Friday in Per theThe principal at Springfield elementary he said the bus will be on time today just letting you know we need the bus

I was having issues with the time of my daughters drop off ranging 20+ minutes late, emailed feedback with my concerns and they were fantastic to answer and resolve all of the issue! I spoke with Stephen, and he kept me up to date with updates and reasonings. It put me at ease and made me feel more comfortable fo my 4 year olds transportation!

I can 100% understand that it will not always be accurate. But living in upstate newyork and standing in 6-10 degree weather with 7 y.o waiting 15mins for a bus to seem like it’s not coming. To go home and see that it’s at the school but no notification of it arriving to the stop. Or it tells you a bus is 10 mins away and 2.0 miles away and somehow you walk to the stop and still missed the bus, but it was 10mins away and you got the notification 3 mins ago.

FirstView is a new concept for our school district and I couldn’t be more excited! I never thought we would be able to track our bus and through the years FirstView will only continue to improve.

When it works it great! Syracuse weather can be extreme so during cold weather or rain it’s great to have FirstView to gauge when the bus will be arriving to reduce the time we are waiting outside. However when FirstView isn’t working waiting in the frigid cold is no fun, even when you are properly layered Or missing the bus because FirstView tells you you have 10 minutes just for it to refresh and show that the bus has already passed.

These gps’ will have you watching just to be re routed while your watching and waiting to send your child out. These buses will have you waiting outside for an hour now days, so you think FirstView would be more direct and accurate for parents with young children. It’s ridiculous, and I don’t know why they bother having it. It’s no help to anyone.. when the buses are tracking accurately then this could be of use but until then don’t even bother! Such a disappointment.

I am so pleased with FirstView. As a mom to a child with special needs, mornings can be a challenge. To be able to track his school bus in real time, especially during inclement weather is awesome.

When I heard of FirstView, I thought it was gonna be useful so I don’t have to sit outside and stuff. But FirstView barely even worked. I missed the bus twice because of FirstView. Not only is the map 5 minutes slow than real time, but there are some days where the map won’t even update until the map is 1 minute away. And now I have to go back to sitting outside in the cold just to avoid missing the bus again.

My daughter almost missed the bus because I used FirstView to know where the bus was. FirstView showed it about 10 minutes away when it pulled up to her stop. I also never saw a counter with the ETA information. I emailed the company and never heard back. The school sent an email with a specific ID for my daughter to use FirstView and I am not happy with the lack of privacy and information provided about my daughter, her name, school, and bus stop and schedule, especially considering how useless and unprofessional FirstView is.

Our daughters get off the bus between 4:20 and 4:25 half the time FirstView still shows the bus not even picking them up from school when they are actually getting off the bus. The other times I’ve been home with them and it’s alerted me that that the bus is almost to the bus stop. I’ve taken screens shots of FirstView showing the bus miles away yet me kids getting off the bus right in front of me.
I wouldn’t trust FirstView at this point to plan on when to be at the stop.

Doesn’t even work!! Says my bus already picked me up and it’s already half way across town but there the bus is in front of me!! Stupid app has a GPS tracker issue and will scare the crap out of you when it says “arrived” at your stop because you think “holy crap how did I miss the bus?”

FirstView isn’t reliable or usable at ALL. Just delete it off your phone, it’ll be more helpful to just come out 10 minutes early and wait for the bus.

Great idea in theory, especially for parents like me who have to watch for three different special needs buses every day. FirstView worked pretty well in the beginning. My kids’ schools started using it a few months ago. It wasn’t 100% accurate, but was enough so that I knew when to say “the bus will be here.” The last week or so, the time is totally off, won’t refresh, tells me nothing, or loses GPS. Worthless unless fixed.... please fix it!

I feel like FirstView was created by a toddler. It is beyond awful! If I could give 0 stars I honestly would. Nothing about FirstView is accurate from the childs bus number to the route or the arrival/drop off times. Good luck with reaching out to support whats the point when you get automated reaponses and nothing is being done to improve. Lets not even talk about the actual bus terminal employees or the customer care center. Honestly no one who works here has a clue about anything.

FirstView needs a lock option, password, pin, something. I’ve yet to find this option if it exists. It’s disturbing to think that if someone finds our electronics that have FirstView, they will know our children’s names, the school they attend and their bus routes! Other than this, I enjoy FirstView however I wouldn’t recommend FirstView to anyone until it is much more secure!

Technically FirstView works some of the time. When our daughter’s bus is on time we sometimes get an alert. However when the bus is late or routes are combined the bus doesn’t appear on the map and we get no information. The time when you need information from a bus app is when there are delays, not when everything is working fine.

I will give 1 star. FirstView is just keeping space in my phone. I can not see the bus icon to tack my child bus. And my kid bus puck up at all. It was working great, but in the last 3 or 4 weeks. The contact support said call the local port, I called the local port and they said call the school. I called the school, they said call the transportation. It’s crazy how the bus company is not taking responsibility on their end. I do not recommend FirstView.

It keeps refreshing, most of the time I don’t see where the bus was, or it showed the bus location but bus never moved. Or this morning, app is showing no gps while the bus was already gone. I set up the alert but it never worked I guess because it never locate the bus successfully. It’s brilliant idea, but need some improvement.

I really enjoy watching my grandson bus approaching him. I can called him instead going over there to let him know that the bus is near his house!! Very good ideal for parents and grandparents.

My child’s student number can’t be do me for reason. It’s a great app but I can’t seem to get it to work this year round

Third school year using FirstView, it's never dead on with bus location or ETAs, but usually it's close enough to know approximately where the bus is. For the past week it has not shown/tracked the AM/pickup bus AT ALL and sending feedback via FirstView or the website is useless. Please update/fix this problem!

It is nice that it has the estimated pick-up time, but that is the same information I was emailed at the beginning of the school year. The GPS map doesn’t update frequently, defeating the purpose of FirstView . Not reliable or functional at this point, based on the past two weeks. Find my phone works better than this.

FirstView doesn’t update have the time. Express the issue to my sons school said I needed to contact this app. I’ve left 2 messages still no word back. My sons bus route was changed FirstView tracked a random buss. At this point it’s COMPLETELY USELESS it doesn’t show the correct route for one of my boys and the other one I have no clue when it’s aiming because it doesn’t give updates as to where the buss is.

I I am grateful for FirstView, a few glitches. Overall, FirstView gives me a general idea of when the bus is coming and where it is. Hopefully in the future the GPS glitches are fixed so that FirstView can be more effective.