No Rooms

[coip]

You guys should all vote to save Rooms here: https://windowsphone.uservoice.com/...ns/suggestions/7107389-don-t-get-rid-of-rooms

 

[Squachy]

Never used rooms. I was under the impression that it was windows only, and I was the only one who had a windows phone so kinda useless.....

 

[coip]

So March has come and gone but our Family Room still functions fine. Perhaps Microsoft had a change of heart and is not killing off Rooms just yet? You think they would've announced something.

 

[jasqid]

So March has come and gone but our Family Room still functions fine. Perhaps Microsoft had a change of heart and is not killing off Rooms just yet? You think they would've announced something.

The room tile will still work. You can't make new rooms anymore. And the chat is going to go away, if not already. But calendar and note update notification continue.

 

[coip]

The room tile will still work. You can't make new rooms anymore. And the chat is going to go away, if not already. But calendar and note update notification continue.

Chat still works. Haven't tried making a new room, but I definitely won't delete our current one.

 

[trev81uk]

Exactly the reason I'm going to miss rooms. Yes the calendar and OneNote functionality is still there, but now I won't be notified when someone adds an event to the calendar or changes the shopping list.

What are/are there any alternatives that work in a similar way.

 

[coip]

Exactly the reason I'm going to miss rooms. Yes the calendar and OneNote functionality is still there, but now I won't be notified when someone adds an event to the calendar or changes the shopping list.

What are/are there any alternatives that work in a similar way.

Just an head's up that Rooms are still fully functional: my family and I have been using them daily. We still get Live Tile updates for updated notes, calendar events, uploaded pictures, chat messages, etc.

 

[hcrick]

^ this is true, we still use the live tiles for notifications of updates / changes. When Windows 10 rolls around though I'm pretty sure the live tiles will no longer be available. So far I haven't found an adequate replacement.

 

[coip]

Microsoft has just sent out a new email:
"An update on the end of support for Rooms

"You may previously have received an email from Windows Phone or seen news about the rooms feature for Windows Phone being discontinued soon. While we decided to keep it around a little longer than we'd originally planned, support for rooms will end in June 2015. Once support ends, you'll still be able to view and use your room photo albums, calendars, and notes--but you will no longer be able to create new rooms or have access to chats.

"An alternative solution you may consider as rooms end of support nears is GroupMe. You can use GroupMe to keep in touch with groups of people who matter to you, and it has similar features to rooms, like group chats with shared photos and location. GroupMe is available to download today."

This is hugely disappointing. Despite a massive UserVoice thread that has accumulated thousands of votes, and despite being one of Windows Phone's best features, they are still going to go ahead an kill off Rooms with no other solution but to use the inferior GroupMe app which does not have the same features. Sometimes I really hate you, Microsoft.

 

[Noah Wardrip]

The family room is an invaluable feature to our family. It is causing us a lot of pain, having to give it up!

Please let me know the best alternative for:
1) Shared family calendar
2) Shared family lists

Microsoft, please reconsider!

 

[adrian1338]

They don't reconsider. They just don't like features that stand out because they would need to advertise them. They prefer to make it as hard as possible to like WP when you don't like android and iOS

 

[coip]

The family room is an invaluable feature to our family. It is causing us a lot of pain, having to give it up!
Microsoft, please reconsider!

Your best bet is to vote for this UserVoice thread and convince your friends and family too do so too, and then ping @joebelfiore on Twitter telling him not to get rid of Rooms and, instead, to improve it and make it a universal Windows 10 app.

 

[jefbeard911]

Rooms being removed they kill yet another feature of windows phone that was one of the selling points in the original versions. are they dumb or something?
Hubs - gone
Rooms - gone
pivot - gone

I can't agree more. MS has a terrible history of hyping and selling a technology or feature, then changing course and discontinuing it.

I was an early adopter of the WP 7 / Lumia 900 then a few months on we're told WP 7 is out , WP8 is in and they aren't compatable. Then WP 8.1 took out the FB/Twitter integration that I and most others loved (Which was a great reason to use WP over other platforms). Now Rooms is gone.

I don't trust MS anymore.

 

[Mike Dominski]

Just got a Lumia 830 last week. I've been gone from WP for about a year and I'm pretty disgusted at what ms is doing to the platform. I'm looking to dump windows again because this phone is more buggy and less functional than Android. The only thing keeping anyone on Windows is live tiles and it's looking pretty bleak when they keep changing customization and don't add anything to it. Microsoft you suck.

 

[coip]

So it's late July, more than 7 months after they announced the closure of Rooms, and 4 months past their proclaimed deadline, but Rooms is still fully functional on Windows Phone.

 

[Kevin Rush]

Family Room is still working for my family.

We use it multiple times, most everyday.

A great feature!

 

[adrian1338]

Well be sure that they are not available on Windows 10 Mobile

 

[otnos]

I reset my phone and family room got reset. Now I've lost the functionality of the family room. It will not allow me to add people, rendering it useless. So if you want to keep the family room, DO NOT reset your phone.

I have yet to find a comparable alternative. Please give me your suggestion.

 

[coip]

Sorry to hear that. Family Room still functions perfectly for us right now, so we'll be sure not to reset our phones, lest we lose functionality like you did. This is really unfortunate that Microsoft is being so foolish by killing off this great feature. If anything, they should've expanded it and turned it into a universal Windows 10 app. I'd even be fine with them making an Android and iOS version of the app. Their suggestion to use GroupMe instead is not a viable alternative. Nothing I know of provides the same wonderful merger of chat, Onedrive photo and video, shared Outlook calendar, and shared OneNote, all in one place.