I have done a bit of research online regarding this. I found out that Google Chat used to have this function for sending SMS/text messages. Google Hangouts can do that, however I will need to sign up for Project Fi account. Is there any existing methods that can do this (without a cost)?
Thank you in advance.
Some phone carriers have a way to send sms from email.
For example, 3057689900#att.com would send an sms to that phone number.
The only catch is that you would have to know what phone company your recipient is affiliated to.
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In a perfect world, the solution I'm looking for would be an api resource tied to my physical phone, e.g. I could POST an sms message to https://url.com/api/sms, and this api would have the end result of sending an sms from my physical phone. This means that the sms conversation would appear natively in my phone; if the recipient replies to the sms, it would appear just as a normal conversation as if I had physically typed the original sms via my phone.
I understand that I could set the replyto/callback/caller-id via Twilio's api. This would mean that the sms gets sent out by the api, and if the recipient replies to it, I could have the reply forwarded to my phone. But what would be missing in this scenario is the original message sent via the api, that the recipient is replying to.
Is there a streamlined way to achieve this, perhaps with Zapier?
One arduous solution I have in mind is to write an on-phone-app to intermediate the sms transmission so that I essentially have an sms-controlled api on the physical phone vs. a traditional http api. (On android, the api would "listen" via DATA_SMS_RECEIVED_ACTION and then send via sendTextMessage). But this seems cumbersome and would also require updating the app code when/if android changes the underlying SmsManager library. The advantage of this is that I could avoid Twilio altogether, by using my service provider's email-to-sms to send to the on-phone-makeshift-sms-api.
Twilio developer evangelist here.
I think you are looking for a feature that we just announced in preview. This is known as Hosted SMS and allows you to add SMS powered by Twilio to your existing phone number.
You need to apply to get access to Hosted SMS as it is newly in testing. You can do so with the form here: https://www.twilio.com/sms/hosted
I've set up texting to a physical phone by using Twilio's SIM cards and associating it to a phone number.
I recently started using Twilio to send SMS in one of my apps. Although the twilio's dashboard shows that the SMS was send using the set alphanumeric sender id. It arrives on my phone with a different number totally. Anyone have any idea why? There's nothing about this on the Twilio website.
It turns out this is a carrier problem. They can change sender id (within reason) to increase the chance that an SMS is delivered. So there's basically nothing Twilio can do about it.
If you still have doubts, contact Twilio support.
When I send a test sms from https://www.twilio.com/user/account/developer-tools/api-explorer/message-create with a predefined friendly name, it doesnt apear on my phone. I only see the number.
-if this isnt possible, do you know other providers with this function that work?
[UPDATE]: Twilio now supports this feature.
You can now send messages from an alphanumeric sender ID using Twilio. I wrote up a blog post on how you can achieve this in Ruby and you can check out this article on how to get started with an alphanumeric sender ID on Twilio for more of an overview. Then check out the documentation on how to send an SMS message from an alphanumeric ID.
[UPDATE] Previous answer is below.
Twilio developer evangelist here.
You're absolutely right, the friendly name defined in your account is actually for your uses only and is not intended to appear in place of the number when sending an SMS. We have a few reasons for this, which might be interesting to you depending on your use case.
I don't have a particular company that I can recommend that does allow you to do this. A Google search might help though.
Can user send sms from my app to friends using twilio . End user should get sms from the user, rather than a twilio assigned number. Is that possible ?
Twilio evangelist here.
Unfortunately no. Currently Twilio only allows you to use a Twilio phone number as the sender ID when sending text messages.
Check out this FAQ:
https://www.twilio.com/help/faq/sms/can-i-specify-the-phone-number-a-recipient-sees-when-getting-an-sms-from-my-twilio-app
Hope that helps.
I have two questions.
I am creating a website for a client I am trying to code in Twilio SMS tools for end users and for management. I have the request and response tools built so I am all set functionally. So the questions are:
A. Can I send SMS message to any phone number OR does every number I send an SMS have to be added to twilio and verified before I can freely send SMS? It would be nice if I could just collect my phone numbers from the end users and free them from the pain of the verification process.
B. If I must verify end users then can I send SMS messages to them with their verification code? Right now an automated message call is sent to the phone number that wants SMS updates and you have to key in a six digit verification code....AND then you can send that person SMS messages. The phone call is kind of awkward.
A. Once you have a regular Twilio account, you can send an SMS to any phone number. However, some phone numbers (e.g., most landlines) cannot accept an SMS. If you try to send an SMS to those numbers with your cellphone, you will probably get a message back from the carrier that the number cannot accept SMS. However, Twilio will report success in sending the message, even though the message obviously cannot be sent to that number, and you will get no indication that the message did not go through.
But, no, there is no need to specifically add the numbers as verified for them to work with Twilio.
You can use a service like https://www.carrierlookup.com/ (which Twilio told me about) to check if a phone number can receive SMS messages.
B. -- you do not need to verify end users through Twilio, although I do think there are restrictions on a Twilio trial account that will be removed once you have a paid Twilio account.
Twilio evangelist here
Once you upgrade, you can send a message to any phone number. While you are using a trial account, you have to verify a number in order to send a message to it. More info about how a trial account works is here:
http://www.twilio.com/help/faq/twilio-basics/how-does-twilios-free-trial-work
Hope that helps.
Regarding verification: Twilio has a service that allows verifying phone numbers, including format, carrier, if it's mobile or landline, etc: https://www.twilio.com/lookup
API Docs: https://www.twilio.com/docs/lookup/api