The My Econet app makes managing your account convenient. Highly recommended

If you’re an Econet subscriber and have a smartphone, you really need to get the My Econet app. It “provides you with information about Econet products and offerings,” as they put it.

It’s just a convenient way to check your usage and balances, buy/mix bundles, replace lines and more. You could get the same done through USSD codes but you know how that experience is like.

There is a lot going on with your Econet account at any time because of how Zimbabwe is. It might be one account but you have two currencies to deal with. Econet is in the practice of offering on-peak and off-peak data/voice in its bundles.

You have to keep track of all that. How much off-peak ZWG data do you still have as opposed to on-peak USD? Needless to say, it’s easier to see all of this at a glance in an app than by going through multiple USSD sessions.

And when you’ve run out, like me in that screenshot, it is easy to do the YoMix dance and mix it up like in the screenshot below. It’s also a similar experience when buying preset bundles:

When I said you can manage all sorts of things, I meant it. See how much you can do in the Recharge and Slef Care tabs:

In my testing, the app is zero-rated, meaning you don’t need to have an active bundle to use it. Which is great because if you needed a bundle to use it, very few would be interested. So, if you have the data to download it in the first place and your phone has the storage, there aren’t any reasons not to have the app.

It’s about 45.18MB on Android, which might be a lot. However, Android being what it is, you can have someone send the apk to you and get the app on your phone without using any data.

My frustrations with it

I find the app convenient and know you will too but it is not a perfect app. The first is just the homepage and how it dedicates more space to showcasing other Econet products and offerings more than managing your account.

As you can see the top third has a carousel showing a number of Ecoet products/services, including the gambling on YoFootball. The bottom third is yet another section dedicated to showcasing yet more Econet group products.

In the middle is where you get a snapshot of your account and a few shortcuts to manage it. It’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things but it detracts from the experience.

The other frustration I have is exclusive to iOS. Econet wanted to make sure the My Econet app is secure, which is great. Information about which phone numbers are in my name and to some people, even balances are confidential.

So, I have no problems with security but with how it was done on iOS. Someone in the development team decided to disregard FaceID as implemented by every other app and have their own face identification which appears to be dependent on the camera.

See, Apple’s FaceID uses a TrueDepth camera system which is advanced and the reason for the notch/ dynamic island being much bigger and unsightly when compared to the punch hole cameras on other phones.

It is secure and works well and because it relies on infrared and a dot projector, it works even in pitch darkness. Unlike the My Econet app’s implementation of FaceID which uses the camera and so is almost always a toss-up on reliability.

The other frustrating bit is the OTP situation. You need a one-time password everytime you open the app. Why? I understand that since you can buy airtime for other numbers, it means unauthorised access could be similar to someone accessing your bank account.

As if that’s not bad enough, if you make a mistake with your log in details (which you have to manually do half the time because of the unreliable face recognition) you have to wait 120 seconds for the OTP countdown to get another OTP sent.

All this would be avoided if they just used the official FaceID which the official EcoCash app uses.

The official EcoCash app, which is all about money does not subject users to OTPs every time they want to log in. You just scan your face in a fraction of a second and you’re in.

Convenience

Those two things annoy me but I still use the app because it is convenient. I think you will find it convenient too.