The Light Phone II is recognized by Verizon as an officially supported unlocked device: https://www.verizonwireless.com/unlocked-smartphones/light-phone-ii-unlocked/ . We have many users successfully using the Verizon network with their Light Phone II already.
Below are some suggestion directly from Verizon senior technical team for troubleshooting your account with the Light Phone II. Sometimes older accounts (pre-2018) require a few back-end switches to work properly with the Light Phone II. Verizon is in the process of trying to make these switches happen automatically in the future, we apologize for this inconvenience regardless.
It is most effective to contact Verizon directly via live-chat or telephone and ask for TIER 2 Technical Support and walk through the steps listed below with the representative.
Texting Issues:
If you are experiencing issues with receiving text messages specifically, it may be required that you contact Verizon and ask them to make the following three switches in your account. We recommend asking for TIER 2 Technical Support, as not all Verizon representatives will be able to help or understand the issues and this should speed everything up.
1. Switch to 'CDMA-Less' Mode
Ask for your SIM card to be switched to "CDMA-less" status. Once they confirm they have done that, power Light off and back on and see if the issue is resolved.
2. Disable 'Enabled Address Book'
The enabled address book can cause issues if your device was being used on an iPhone. Please be sure to ask Verizon support to disable this feature.
3. Disable 'Verizon Messaging'
Please be sure to disable Verizon messaging from your online MyVerizon account.
4. Disable 'Video Calling' Feature
Please have Verizon double check that this feature is disabled.
Disable iMessage:
Specifically for existing iPhone users, iMessage is proprietary to Apple devices and must be disabled prior to swapping your SIM out of the iPhone to ensure that text messages are received by Verizon and therefore your Light Phone II (green bubble).
Voicemail Issues:
If you experience an issue calling your Verizon voicemail ("Your call cannot be completed as dialed" etc. ), please reach out to Verizon and have a representative check if there are any existing NumberShare or wearable cellular plans still attached to your account. Unfortunately when cancelling any existing wearable lines, Verizon representatives might forget to cancel the NumberShare connection, and thus causes voicemails to forwarded to the non-existing wearable, resulting in zero access to voicemail.
Other Notes about Verizon:
- Light II is not supported by Verizon prepaid.
- All grandfathered plans that do not include data options will have to be updated to a plan that supports some form of data.
-If you have multiple lines each with different plans, this can cause some issues if the plans don't have unlimited data (no call and text plans only in the same account).
- Verizon states Light Phone II only works with unlimited plans moving forward. Customers will have to activate on: Start Unlimited, Play More Unlimited, Do More Unlimited, or Get More Unlimited plans to utilize Light Phone II. Existing 'New Verizon Plans' can add a line with no issue.
- In some cases, Verizon will need to replace the SIM card.
NumberShare (Not Yet Available)
Verizon also has a NumberShare program which will allow you to get a second SIM using your same primary phone number for the Light Phone II for $10/mo. You'd have a seamless phone number across both devices. Verizon is finishing this project to allow pairing across all Android and Apple devices, and we hope to have an update about this feature in the near future.