Using your Contact List with Buddy Beacon
Posted by Greg Kumparak on March 13th, 2008 at 12:08 PM
It’ll still be a few days before I’m done overhauling our guides section, but there is one little trick we think deserves to jump right past the queue and slip into a news post as its something a lot of people may have overlooked.
One gripe people have with Buddy Beacon is that it appears to be unable to access your contact list, requiring you to manually input the number for every new buddy. In this age of endless contact lists, can anyone remember the last time they sat down to memorize a phone number? Unless you’re Rain Man, getting buddies into Buddy Beacon can seem like a many-stepped process.
Fortunately, there is a way to import numbers from your contact list. It’s just not very intuitive.
How to add numbers from your contact list with Buddy Beacon:
- Open Buddy Beacon
- Click into the Phone Number text field, as if you’re going to type a number
- Hit the left soft key to bring up the Menu
- D-pad over to the “Search” dropdown, represented by a magnifying glass.
- Press 3, or click the third option, “Insert Mobile Number”
- After your contact list loads, select the contact you want to add.
Turns out, the functionality is built right into the browser. Contacts are imported a lot faster on some devices (Mysto) than they are on others (Ocean), the label is a bit whack (”Insert Mobile Number” sounds like a quick way to insert your own number), and the placement under the Search menu makes no sense - but hey, it’s better than having to copy the number to paper every time you want to add a new buddy.
You may now return to sending each other locate requests just for the hell of it.




March 13th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
i new this like the first day i go my phone
March 13th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
Well, Helio was asking for feedback about Buddy Beacon v2.0 right? Well, this news post obviously screams for change.
March 13th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Brilliant.
September 10th, 2008 at 3:07 am
Buddy Beacon Problem: I have Helio Ocean phone. My friends have the Fin and the Heat. I have sent them Buddy Beacon requests. They have sent me Texts asking me Hey Turn on your Buddy Beacon. Press OK to start. Well once I press OK it doesn’t give me any options to turn it on or to accept a buddy and shows my requests to my two friends as pending. I called Helio today and they tell me for the Buddy Beacon to work I either have to have the same model phone as my friends or they have to have a Ocean like I do. Is this correct? We all 3 have Helio service but we have to have the same model phone to be able to use the Buddy Beacon together? That’s doesn’t seem right and kind of defeats the purpose of Buddy beacon don’t you think?