Google Voice + Obi100 = Awesome!

My wife and I decided to finally drop our home phone line and upgrade our cell phones to iPhones (the increase in our cell phone cost is offset by canceling our home phone line). After we did this, I realized "what if my stepson needs to make a call and we're not home?" He's 7 so a cell phone is out of the question. After some searching, I came across the Obi100 Obihai - Home. Using this, we set up a Google Voice #, and with some simple configuration we now have phone service via Google Voice on our "home phone". At some point I'm going to set up the SP2 port for Callcentric so I can have 911 service. In the short time I've had the Obi100, this has to be the coolest thing I've played with, well since I got my iPhone a few weeks ago!

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powerfool

I bought some Firefly phones off of eBay and added cell plans for my kids at $10/mo... They are programmable and only capable of calling the numbers you set and 911. When my eldest searched the Internet for Firefly documentation and reprogrammed it, I determined that she earned a "big girl" phone.

EDIT: Of course, I used to use Google Voice + Gizmo5 and a hacked DLink Vonage adapter to get free home phone service... but that no longer works.

MentholMoose

I picked one up myself last week but I haven't had a chance to try it out yet. I bought it with the hope that it is easy enough for my parents to use so they can finally ditch their land line (I stopped using one myself years ago, but they are still paying $600+ per year for one even though they both have cell phones).

rwmidl

MentholMoose wrote: »

I picked one up myself last week but I haven't had a chance to try it out yet. I bought it with the hope that it is easy enough for my parents to use so they can finally ditch their land line (I stopped using one myself years ago, but they are still paying $600+ per year for one even though they both have cell phones).

It's really simple to configure, just follow the instructions on Ohbhai's website on configuring with Google Voice. One thing I will point out is when configuring on the Google Voice page, they (Obihai) have a checkmark next to also ring your cell phone. If you do this, when someone calls your GV # it will ring your home phone and your cell phone. If you uncheck, it will only ring your home phone, which is what you want (I want at least). So keep that in mind. I think total time to configure (including some troubleshooting) was maybe 30 minutes tops.

The only "complaint" so far is I'm getting a slight electrical "hum" on the line - not sure why but really it's not a deal breaker for me. All the test calls I made yesterday no one complained of any echo, jittering etc.

rwmidl

powerfool wrote: »

I bought some Firefly phones off of eBay and added cell plans for my kids at $10/mo... They are programmable and only capable of calling the numbers you set and 911. When my eldest searched the Internet for Firefly documentation and reprogrammed it, I determined that she earned a "big girl" phone.

EDIT: Of course, I used to use Google Voice + Gizmo5 and a hacked DLink Vonage adapter to get free home phone service... but that no longer works.

For a 7 year old who still can't find his shoes at times a cell phone isn't an option (now). We wanted a "home" line for if he was by himself or something happened to one of us and he needed to make an emergency call (our iPhones are passcode protected and we aren't going to give him the code). Plus, if we had a sitter over and he/she didn't have a cell phone, or in the rare occasion we needed to fax something. I've read mixed reviews on faxing with Google Voice, so that is something I'll need to try one of these days.

powerfool

Well that is pretty cool... that would be just about like my old setup with Google Voice + Gizmo5.

With Google Voice, you can do all sorts of tricks... say that you wanted your GV# to follow you while you are not at home... you can schedule when GV should ring your cell phone (like during work hours). You might be able to use the ObiApp for your phone, as well. I would prefer to know if a number if coming in over my normal cell number or from GV, while still being able to use Caller ID.

rwmidl

powerfool wrote: »

Well that is pretty cool... that would be just about like my old setup with Google Voice + Gizmo5.

With Google Voice, you can do all sorts of tricks... say that you wanted your GV# to follow you while you are not at home... you can schedule when GV should ring your cell phone (like during work hours). You might be able to use the ObiApp for your phone, as well. I would prefer to know if a number if coming in over my normal cell number or from GV, while still being able to use Caller ID.

I "want" to say when it was ringing my cell and home # the callerid on my home phone was showing the incoming calls # (ex: my wife called the GV# on her cell, my cell + the home phone showed her cell #). There might be a way in the GV configuration to do what you want/mentioned. For us, we just want it to ring out home phone and that's it.

We are using our cells as our primary #'s. The main reason we wanted a "home" phone was, as I mentioned, an emergency line for the 7 year old. Also, we are going to use it for when we have to "register" a phone number for something, and we think we are going to get telemarketers calling us.

SteveLord

rwmidl wrote: »

Also, we are going to use it for when we have to "register" a phone number for something, and we think we are going to get telemarketers calling us.

This is what I don't get about people who use cellphones only. You are required to provide a contact number for many things in life so wtf would you want your cellphone out there being passed around or bought/sold?

rwmidl

SteveLord wrote: »

This is what I don't get about people who use cellphones only. You are required to provide a contact number for many things in life so wtf would you want your cellphone out there being passed around or bought/sold?

Other than telemarketers, we only had 2-3 "legitimate" people who called us on our home phone. Everyone else used our cell #, so saving the $40/mo (so far) by not having a home phone line is worth it (to us at least).

MentholMoose

rwmidl wrote: »

It's really simple to configure, just follow the instructions on Ohbhai's website on configuring with Google Voice. One thing I will point out is when configuring on the Google Voice page, they (Obihai) have a checkmark next to also ring your cell phone. If you do this, when someone calls your GV # it will ring your home phone and your cell phone. If you uncheck, it will only ring your home phone, which is what you want (I want at least). So keep that in mind. I think total time to configure (including some troubleshooting) was maybe 30 minutes tops.

The only "complaint" so far is I'm getting a slight electrical "hum" on the line - not sure why but really it's not a deal breaker for me. All the test calls I made yesterday no one complained of any echo, jittering etc.

Thanks for the info, it sounds promising!

SteveLord wrote: »

This is what I don't get about people who use cellphones only. You are required to provide a contact number for many things in life so wtf would you want your cellphone out there being passed around or bought/sold?

This is what I use Google Voice for now. My GV forwards to my "real" number and I can screen those calls. If my GV number actually started getting inundated with unwanted calls, I would just start over with a new number.

That said, I don't get unsolicited calls. Legitimate companies let you opt out of marketing offers or will have their own do not call list. The last time I can remember getting a truly unsolicited call was years (2008, maybe 2009) ago when there was a massive autodialer scam going on (I forget the details but the perpetrators eventually got busted). Occasionally I will get a call from some company I have done business with and hadn't opted out of their offers, but that is only about two calls per year, and not much of an annoyance for me.

rwmidl

MentholMoose wrote: »

Thanks for the info, it sounds promising!

This is what I use Google Voice for now. My GV forwards to my "real" number and I can screen those calls. If my GV number actually started getting inundated with unwanted calls, I would just start over with a new number.

That said, I don't get unsolicited calls. Legitimate companies let you opt out of marketing offers or will have their own do not call list. The last time I can remember getting a truly unsolicited call was years (2008, maybe 2009) ago when there was a massive autodialer scam going on (I forget the details but the perpetrators eventually got busted). Occasionally I will get a call from some company I have done business with and hadn't opted out of their offers, but that is only about two calls per year, and not much of an annoyance for me.

We didn't get that many telemarketer calls on our old home line. The worst we ever had was a collection agency that was looking for someone the same name as my wife (we confirmed she wasn't the person they were looking for). They kept calling and finally I threatened them with legal action if they didn't stop calling (along with letters to the attorney generals office in my state and the state the company was located in. I got a letter of apology from the president of the company and the calls stopped.

That being said, the Obi is a really cool product and in the 24 hours I've had it seems promising. The nice thing too is if we were to ever move, we can "keep" a number that people can reach us at.

Everyone

You let your 7 year old stay home alone? I think I was staying home alone at that age too, but not often, and that was a different time (80's!). Now in Illinois (where I live) if your child is under the age of 14 and you leave them home alone, you can be charged with child abandonment!

I haven't had a home phone for about 7 years now. Just cell phones. I had VoIP service for a little while before I went to just cell phones. I don't think I even have any old telephones around. I think if I was going to have a home phone again, I'd setup a trixbox (Asterisk) VM and get a couple VoIP phones.

exampasser

I've been looking for something like this for a while now. If it works out, goodbye $20/month TWC VoIP!

SteveLord

I was going to sign up for Magic Jack myself. Btw...charity and political organizations are exempt from the DNC list. Side note: Many do not know that when you sign up for those car giveaways at the mall/Home Depot/Cosco, you waive all those parties and their partners from the DNC list.

I am afraid to leave my kids (7, 6, 2.5, 1.5) in the car just to go in the gas station. Primarily for fear of police...not bad people. (No, I would not leave the younger ones alone obviously.)

rwmidl

Everyone wrote: »

You let your 7 year old stay home alone? I think I was staying home alone at that age too, but not often, and that was a different time (80's!). Now in Illinois (where I live) if your child is under the age of 14 and you leave them home alone, you can be charged with child abandonment!

I haven't had a home phone for about 7 years now. Just cell phones. I had VoIP service for a little while before I went to just cell phones. I don't think I even have any old telephones around. I think if I was going to have a home phone again, I'd setup a trixbox (Asterisk) VM and get a couple VoIP phones.

For clarification - when I say "leave him alone" it might be for 10 minutes or so. I think the most ever was 30 minutes.

rwmidl

Just like TWC voice, if the power goes out you can loose voice unless you put the Obi/your router on a UPS. As fyi, I have the device plugged directly in to my Netgear router, and haven't had any need to do any QoS or port forwarding (as of yet).