BAND - App for all groups Reviews

BAND is great, my job uses it for all of our communication including our staff meetings. One big problem that I would like the developers to really pay attention and fix is anything that deal with videos. Video uploads take forever and the buffering for videos even longer! Video calls have delayed glitchy sound and terrible quality. No matter what internet connection you are on or how great your service is. This is now 2022 with matured technology, not 1990’s and early 2000’s when this was all brand new. I believe this could be easily fixed if the developers just gave it some attention. We all love this platform and it holds great value for many communities of people and workers. Everything is all in one place and makes communication between a mass of people very easy, until it comes to anything video related, which is important these days. I hope the developers see this and fix it eventually. Thank you for all you do.

I've been using this app for over two years now for my MMO Guild and it just keeps getting better!! It makes organizing raids and keeping updated outside the game so easy! this app offers almost anything you could ask for groups and better than most social networks since it actually allows for more privacy. It's also a lot more organizational and tidy than other chat group apps. You can even have large group calls while gaming so there's no need for separate apps, this app offers almost everything!

The new "online" feature is awesome, but I would like to suggest that admins can still be able to view who is online, regardless if a person hides it from the rest of the group. I also agree with one of the other reviews that asks for a feature that allows people to see who reads comments in the chat room, which would make my previous suggestion unnecessary.

The only thing missing that would be perfect for gaming groups is the ability to add synchronized timers, but I'm not sure how complicated it would be .. but it's just a suggestion. Other than that, I wish there was a way to turn off Suggestions, but this app is awesome either way and I wouldn't use any other app for my community of gamers :)

I just wanted to let anyone that downloads BAND to create a social group that this app can and will delete your group at anytime without a reason, which is what they did with ours groups!!! They will freeze your account for 7 days so you don’t know what’s going on and they delete your this app group without a reason! All your members that try to access the group will see a message saying you are restricted by admin which is you and shows a icon asking members to leave the group and you will lose all your member contacts as you can only talk to members in groups that you belong to.

Our this app group consisted two local airsoft community groups called “Norcal Airsoft Classifieds” & “Norcal Airsofters” we had accumulated 1000 members between the two groups all from Northern California which took a lot of time to build up the group. We used it to communicate about future games, chat, trade/sell gear, and to help grow the airsoft community. We heavily moderated both groups to make sure everyone one was treated with respect. We have been using BAND for a few years without any trouble and then all of a sudden our groups are gone. This greatly saddens me that the group me a my fellow airsoft player spent 1000’s of hours putting together is all gone. this app should be ashamed at the way they treat their users. They have greatly damaged our airsoft community.

Please don’t let this happen to you!!!!!

Hi there! So I haven’t used BAND yet, but my sisters have. They say it’s great and they love it, and they like using it for the friend groups since some of their friends have different type phones. Now I wanted it for the same reason, so I got BAND and tried setting it up, I put in my birthday and once I did everything it said get the kids this app! Even tho I’m 12, and there’s no way to say no thanks. All I wanted was to be able to use BAND with my friends

EDIT
I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE this app! I set my account up today and have literally not stopped using it! I love the calendar feature especially, it’s really nice, and I especially love how you can see when people are online. One suggestion would be that you should make it on the chat so that there’s typing bubbles, it kinda bugs me that I can’t see when people are typing. But that would be it. This is probably my favorite app and deserves way more than 5 stars, although still, I don’t like the whole kids this app thing, it’s nice that you made that for people but I wish you could get normal this app even if your under 13. Just a simple no thanks option would be great.

I recently made the switch to this app from Team App for my teams and love quite a few features about it. It looks professional and is fairly easy to use (a little tricky for my parents who don’t understand phone apps though) and allows me to post videos of more than 1:00 to my teams so they can practice their choreography/routines. Inputting events into the calendar is quite simple and I am able to change the color of certain events so that they show whether it’s a class or an event. I LOVE how easy the albums are to create and add multiple photos vs team app where you could only add a couple at a time, as well as letting parents and students contribute their own.

My only tip and question for developers would be to let admins see parent/student emails that were used to sign up for BAND . Some of my participants have not changed their name to display both their first and last names (despite my reminders), so those with duplicate names are difficult for me to differentiate. Would it be possible to add something like this?

I love ALMOST everything about BAND. It does have some setting that get close to what I need but not all the way there yet. I like that you can select who can comment or post. But I WISH there was a way for me to select who can view or receive comment. Like most Group Texts. The most aggravating part is the constant replies. Some people leave groups for that very reason. I would LOVE BAND if there were a way for me to select that anyone could comment... but i would be the only one to get the comments. Not everyone needs to get notifications when members ask ridiculous questions or reply and unheard of hours. I would like to sensor that as a leader, but still have a way for the team to reply to me. BONUS, of BAND could also have a time restriction setting for notifications allowing some of us to sleep.
DOUBLE BONUS... Allow team members to receive messages and reply... even if they don’t have BAND .

Of all the group chat apps I’ve been forced to use because of my kids’ activities, this app is by far the one I dislike the most. It is hard to make a comment. Text is very small and hard to read. There is no way to edit a comment once it has been made. You have to set up a new profile for every group you use. It isn’t always clear to me where my comment will end up (as a comment on the OP or as a reply to someone else’s comment (probably because the text is so small on the mobile app). Because there are so many messages from this app promoting this app, I sometimes miss messages that I should have seen first. There is no prioritization of group messages vs this app spam, so it is easy to simply dismiss notices as unimportant. Ugh!

I know this is a disjointed list of gripes, but honestly, I feel anxious and frustrated every time I have to open BAND. I avoid using it as much as I am able, honestly. I wish I’d never heard of it, and can’t understand why my daughter’s gym thought BAND would be a good idea. I hope they stop using it soon. It’s awful.

This is an edit from the previous review, which was very professionally resolved by the this app team. It entails suggestions for improving BAND ’s capabilities.

I’ve really enjoyed using BAND for my online clan; we can set up events and communicate effectively and clearly.

But there are a few things that my team and I would appreciate more than anything.

1. The ability to create notes like in the Line application - Posts which you could access from the chat room directly. An example would be a list of rules easily accessible to anyone. It’d be like the shared photos function. By clicking the 3 bars on the top right of the chat room, you could access a in-app document that’s been created or post that’s been highlighted by an admin. (Also, the ability to edit said document)

2. The ability to edit a message you’ve sent in a group chat room. Sometimes we post events or trainings and then we pin them to the top of the screen. Then the time of that event changes but we have to post an entire new message because we can’t edit the wording of that text.

3. Some more emojis to add as “shouts” such as an OK emoji, or a thumbs down emoji.

Thanks for creating such a great app, we’d be euphoric if you could actually implement these suggestions for us.

I have used many apps to connect with teams and organizations. BAND by FAR is the most annoying and confusing app I have. First of all, I constantly am checking BAND because it appears I have a notification. 90% of the time it is an offer from the “sticker” shop or a notification from the “this app” guide. I am 43, I don’t need stickers to talk to my daughters coach. My time is to valuable to constantly have to check because BAND is advertising. I told the coach to do emails because I refuse to respond on BAND anymore. I have every setting possible set to not receive notification except for the one “this app” group I am on.

On top of it the threads are super confusing. You don’t have the option to delete an old thread off you messages unless I am guessing the administrator of the this app or if your the person who started the thread. The threads all look alike. It’s infuriating. Had enough. Told her to get S.I. Or huddle. At least the info huddle offers is useful, not unicorn stickers. I gave it one star only because it actually works and you can receive messages. Other than that, trash.

I’ve been using BAND for a couple months now. BAND has great potential but it’s the little things that create the most problems for my parents for usability. For instance you basically have to back all the way out of your team board in order to see the calendar from iOS devices. So the parents of my team are always calling, texting, and messaging within BAND in order to figure out when/where a practice or game is. Why in the world would you not have the calendar, posts, and messaging in the lower navigator of every screen your in when using this app. In today’s age, apps shouldn’t require me having training sessions with parents who aren’t old to figure out how to use an app. They’re almost always simple enough that anyone can use them. I hope you fix this soon before I find another tool for parents. I of course don’t want to go though that learning curve again so please hurry.

So I love BAND. I use it for work in the daily with keeping communication between everyone available. New sale? Post to this app. Tagging mistake? Post to this app. Random pile of clothes? Post to this app. I LOVE IT! However, the only issue I have is a recent development and that is the live streaming option in BAND has been crashing at random times in the live stream, and when it crashes it deletes the entire video! However, it gets counted as one of your 5 live streams. Please fix this, the live streaming option is what I use for our weekly meetings so we can do it in the comfort of our home, and the desktop option is too confusing since all the streaming services y’all recommended don’t stream to this app. Please fix ASAP! Also, try to make a way to live stream on the desktop without a third party streaming service.

I give BAND 5 stars because it works so well for our group of volunteer musicians.
Pros:
It links with our google calendar saving me time. It has a variety of tools to fit most situations, And overall it is the best solution for our group’s needs that I can find. And I looked for a vey long time.

Cons:
I consistently get 2 complaints from the musicians. One is that the email notification does not send the entire mess and they need to click a link. The other is that BAND defaults to too many notifications, so they turn them all of instead of the ones they don’t want, then complain they don’t get important info 🙇🏼‍♀️. I would like to see the admins and moderators see the default notifications BAND has now, but the group subscribers just get the basics. I think that would get them to use it more often.

As the admin, I’m having a tech issue and can’t find help. The tech button brings me to a Korean language that I can not change. My problem is with the link to the Google calendar. We canceled several rehearsals and events due to the COVID. BAND updated the calendar but is still popping up notifications. Since the event no longer exists I can’t seem to turn it off.

I keep trying to get ahold of this app in regards to a bug in their system but they won't give me a direct answer or even explain why they do this.

It's extremely annoying that this app puts a limit on and deadlines and dates for things on BAND I can only plan my deadlines for a couple of months ahead (Currently, mid October is the latest I can set one). I can't keep coming back to this app EVERY week to add in another sign up deadline whenever the deadline becomes available on the software, I have way too much paperwork to do in my job and it's such a simple thing to fix on the developers end. It makes no sense at all why I can set an event or a poll or a sign up for 10 years in the future, but for some reason I can't set my sign up deadline for whenever I need it as well.

Come on guys, this is such a simple fix on your end but it's INCREDIBLY frustrating as I try to plan out the school year for a group of students if I have a limit on when I can set the deadline for something.

I use the hell out of BAND EVERY day! As an active duty service member, it is hard to keep leaders up to date in an ever changing environment. With this app I am able to keep communications up, pass events, and well as changes to those events. What’s even better is the ability to add or drop members of the this app. As people come and go (as they do in the service) I can get their replacements in and they now have access to all of the content of their predecessor. Ive been using it for about 2 years and it’s been an amazing tool. So much so, it has been catching on in other areas of the units I’m in and every seems to be into it. Great job to the developers. Please let me know if you guys want some new insights. I am telling you, I’m sure I could find ways to continue to improve you amazing app.

BAND has potential but it’s not there yet. The layout is really set up for someone who plans on creating groups. Should be more designed for participants of groups.

Example - if you are in multiple groups and want to see a combined calendar, you have to click “more”, then click “my page”, then “upcoming events”. There should be a combined calendar icon from the home page. Instead their are 9 icons to create a new page. Creating new pages should be in the “more” section.

Also don’t accidentally log into one group with your Facebook login and another group with your email address. You can’t merge the profiles. I deleted one but had to get the help section to allow my phone number to be used on the remaining log in. They helped but with a snarky comment “FYI, If the same case happens again, please understand that we won't be able to help you. So, please be careful when signing up this app.”

ok, so, i use this app for like, school clubs and stuff, and i think it’s great. some things i wish they could add tho would be like a way to see if the other person was chatting with you, like how on iMessage it has the bubbles to show if the person is about to text you, i wish they could add that. i also which they could add more notification sounds, and also possibly a way to name people specifically for you, like if u wanna change that persons name or contact photo or put like stuff about that person just for u, but yeah. these are just things i would like, you don’t have to add them/ change them.
sincerely,
a person who likes your app🙂😶

You get a notification, you open BAND and see that same, one notification, in 3 different places and sub menus. I have to open the message 3 different ways just to clear it. And it doesn't help that the things that I don't care about mask themselves as notifications as well, such as new stickers and news. You start with one notification and immediately become overwhelmed when you open BAND when you see red, unread, dots in 3 different places. The problem only gets worse when you're having multiple conversations at once. The conversation layout is unintuitive and confusing.

Even after disabling everything, I still get notifications for stickers and news. I have never met anyone that uses BAND because they like it. It’s always due to a work requirement. How sad when your business model predicates on people being forced to use you service. Not a sustainable business model in the long run.

BAND itself is great, you can easily join a community and make posts, even let others know if you’re going to be there or not. However, the developers of BAND seem to think that not having an account linked with your this app account is worth a recurring red one in a circle. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, it’s just quite annoying. Developers, let me put it this way for you:

Imagine that you had a coffee shop you went to on a semi regular basis when you were hanging out with a group of friends, but only then! Now imagine that same coffee shop is nearby to the one that you go to on a regular basis, and every day they put up a sign that says “today’s deal:____” however when you go in to see what the deal is, the shop owners are asking you to fill out about 3 forms before you’re even considered to be on the receiving end of the deals. Wouldn’t you want to stop going to that coffee shop, even if it meant not hanging out with that group of friends?

Yeah, well your app is about 10,000x more annoying than that coffee shop with your stupid “link Facebook or google, otherwise we are going to put up a new red bubble every 1-3 hours.” And I’m honestly considering deleting it just because of that one annoying thing.

Otherwise it’s an alright app.

I have had the this app app for a couple of years now. Initially I started using it for my fitness classes to keep my students up to date with last minute cancellations. In 2020 when we were unable to have classes in person I was able to easily livestream classes, and continued for about 6 months even after we got back to the in-person classes for those who were not comfortable coming back right away. We still use BAND for class schedules and announcements and it is our primary app for this purpose.
I enjoy the different groups and the newsfeed and have recently made a this app group for my family since I am not on any other social media.

I’m the tech admin of our church and just started trying this app as our church has a need to switch from FB Messenger. So far we think this app is very good and pretty useful for what we need, except 1 feature we really need that this app doesn’t have: We can’t view who has read messages in chat rooms. We can see how many have read, but not who. You can see this in posts, but only in original posts. Once people reply/comment on a post, others in the group can’t see who have read the comments. The read status is a really important feature for us that we’ve been enjoying on FB Messenger. Would’ve given 5 stars if this feature were there.

I’ve been using BAND for a really long time, and I probably use it more than iMessages or any other social media. One thing, though, I wish the chat rooms would be worked on a bit more, because I’m always finding small glitches here and there. They’re usually fixed with the next update, but with that one there come more. Of course, I’m very nit picky and can’t judge. The number one glitch is when it was trouble loading messages, and just doesn’t tell me. Or when it doesn’t load notifications or feed from a specific this app. Other than that, though, it’s a fantastic app.

I’m going to disagree completely with mom198. Most of the issues expressed in that 1-star review are a function of not fully understanding how to use BAND . She recommends SI, which is used by my son’s rugby team, and I can positively state from experience that this app is a much more powerful and user-friendly app than SI. Does it have a learning curve? Of course it does, but once you learn to fully utilize it, it’s great.

I do agree that some of the pop-ups can be annoying, but it literally takes 5 seconds once every week or 10 days to turn them off for the week. Not really something to complain greatly about.

I do have one request from the developers...can you make it possible to “bump” a post back to the top of the feed? As my organization’s leader, my important posts sometimes get pushed down in the feed by other posts. (I already have other equally important stuff pinned to the important notices area.) It would be a nice upgrade if I could easily bump the important stuff back to the top.

Overall, great app! Easy to use and a powerful communications tool for my organization.

With the 6.2 update came all kinds of headaches, most notably messages appearing in some unknown order rather than by recent, and load times that are frankly unbelievable. Using 6.2 it takes 2-3 times as long to load each chatroom, which is frankly unacceptable when when I monitor so many.
To top it off, in response to the update I messaged the support team and have yet to hear back. I now have sent three requests for assistance in the approx. 12 months since I started using this app, and I have yet to receive a response for any of them.
After the 6.2 update, this app is absolutely unusable.

Edit- Chat error resolved promptly, thank you🙂

My phone is constantly receiving notifications from BAND to the point it freezes all other applications. It's not user friendly for those of us New to this app app. However it is easier to figure out and has a crisp clear voice chat compared to apps such as discord. I'm mostly annoyed by the settings because if you want to change anything in BAND you must customize each this app individually. If you attempt to change the notification settings for the entire app you only have 3 choices to turn off for 1 hour, 3 hours, or until 8am. I have multiple this app groups and would like to shut off all notifications while my app is not open and during certain times while sleeping or busy. I literally have to put my entire phone on do not disturb to stop this app notifications from waking me up every 3-5 minutes.

“I keep trying to sign up but it won’t load. I’m not sure if I have bad reception or WiFi but I can’t seem to get an account. Help!”
As my old review stated I had rly bad WiFi and internet connection. I have now had BAND for about a month now and it’s great! I am instantly able to receive notifications on when and where events are happening. I also love the feature of when you are in a group you can comment or add to a post they have made. It helps everyone out. I would definitely recommend BAND to anyone that is a part of a group or event because it makes planing so much easier.