Hangouts SMS not showing emoticons I have a Nexus 5 with Kitkat 4.4.2 and have the Hangouts app as the SMS app. My friend has an Samsung Galaxy S Relay and also uses Hangouts app as SMS app. Whenever we send SMS to each other with emoticons, emoticons are not converted, instead we just see the text code for it. I'm baffled by this since we're using the same app for texting. I'd understand if it was like from an iPhone to Android, or something like that.

Any idea what could be causing this and how to fix it?
SMS are only normal text characters. Many phone detect emoticons in a SMSs content but it varies from each phone. 

Only messages you directly send from Hangouts i.e from your Google Account to your friends account.