We may need to switch things around soon so I hope someone here knows more about this - as posting such a query at the Obi forum will not work.
AFAIK, the Obi200 series boxes still do this, but their pricing has gone way up;
The Ooma Telo is only able to do it if one pays an additional monthly fee for their 'premium' services;
Of course a smartphone with the GV app can do it - but not connect with the regular, plain old phone.
Those are the options I know of aside of getting another number from an ITSP & forwarding the GV number to that with an ATA at the endpoint, of course.
Given that we're currently paying ~$5/month for poor service to catch the GV number's calls, getting a number at VOIP.MS would be cheaper, but I hope someone here knows of a way that is even better, if any still exist. (I really miss the Simonics Gateway !!).
[quote="Extraterrestrial_Zoologist"]
We may need to switch things around soon so I hope someone here knows more about this - as posting such a query at the Obi forum will not work.
AFAIK, the Obi200 series boxes still do this, but their pricing has gone way up;
The Ooma Telo is only able to do it if one pays an additional monthly fee for their 'premium' services;
Of course a smartphone with the GV app can do it - but not connect with the regular, plain old phone.
Those are the options I know of aside of getting another number from an ITSP & forwarding the GV number to that with an ATA at the endpoint, of course.
Given that we're currently paying ~$5/month for poor service to catch the GV number's calls, getting a number at VOIP.MS would be cheaper, but I hope someone here knows of a way that is even better, if any still exist. (I really miss the Simonics Gateway !!).
Hi, E_Z---the only other way I'm aware of is an adapter such as linked below, or some newer cordless phones come with a cell to Bluetooth sync feature which might work. But, caveat, I have tried both options and wasn't pleased with the clarity and smoothness of calls, and returned the items. Yet others appear to have more success with the adapter than I had. Also, I'm not sure how the items would work when connected via Bluetooth with a cell phone that was using GV wifi only, that is, without a cell phone plan or service.
You know much more about this area then I do. That being said I read something about Polycom? Have you looked in this option? If not I hoped I have you a path to look into
As you stated, I also read you have very limited options.
Thanks Folks !!
Polycom snarfed up Obihai & the formerly $40-50 Obi200 is now around $200...meh.
I remember something about the Cell2jack product, but only vaguely...at any event it is cheap, and now that it has come up I'll have to see if the target cordless phone has that built right in...mine does, but I've never used that function as I do have an Obi200.
On the whole I will now mention that our hopes for a good experience with an Ooma Telo have been soundly flushed away & the $5/month it costs is way more than it is worth.
Make sure that you read the information carefully because they make some stuff that is only compatible with the business class version of Google Voice that is only available for G Suite customers.
That covers all the adapters that are compatible with Google Voice.
Thanks again for your efforts !!
The only thing that makes the Obi forum worthwhile is that if/when a good deal on the 200 series shows up it gets posted there.
It is only the 200 series that is useful for us, and since there is nothing $50 or less anymore - that is 100% out.
I'm going to look into the bluetooth option a bit later - but that is looking more & more like the best route given that all others are just too spendy.
The Telo is a nifty idea, but thus far its company has proven to be quite useless other than to push upsells that we have no use for.
As with all things amazon:
Their search results are largely what THEY want you to see vs. what YOU would like to see.
Very little shown had anything to do with GV at all.
Loads of IP phones & ATAs like those made by Grandstream - which sadly have zero chances of connecting via GV due to it using a proprietary protocol.
If this was for my own uses I could likely be satisfied with the GV Android app via wifi, but it is for the less technical partner, so it needs to look & feel like a plain old phone whilst having its GV connection just work.
What I found interesting about that search was seeing that amazon listed a 4 minute video about how to make the older Obi100 series boxes work via GV again.
Sadly that info is very out of date & no longer an option - so hopefully not too many folks get fooled into trying that method.
The big G has tried its hands at different devices several times - but I suspect they have finally gotten those choices down to those which will collect data the best,
Being as GV as a whole is an effective data suck - they need no more suction there.
As things go, I checked her phone and it does have the BT/cellular option - and what I can connect it to would simply be a non-activated device on charge 24/7 with the GV app & wifi, easily enough accomplished.
Before I jump into that I'm going to give the dratted Ooma company a little time to see if they are truly as worthless all the way through as I suspect.
They actually have a 'customeradvocate' email address, which we've made use of & being as it is the weekend only their outsourced, foreign 'support' is on duty, so the only lingering question is whether our emails still exist in their system, or not.
I did get things working correctly with the Telo, for now - no way to know how long that will stick though.
I found it at the cheaper price & posted about it - but now it is out of stock & unavailable there with the last SD comment posted ~ a week ago.
If the Ooma snafu had come around a week ago, I'd have snatched up an Obi...but I missed it.
Nuttin worth bothering with price-wise anyplace now...at least I've not found any.
Hi KentE !! (BTW, I PMd you here a couple of weeks ago...)
What I absolutely despise the very most about Ooma specifically is their foreign non-support which is even worse than other places that at least TRY to have decent support.
Dealing with folks who do not comprehend simple english words like 'please shut off the voicemail completely' - and then making the user repeat the request over & over & over is maddening.
When they don't actually perform what they claimed to have done, doing it all over again is then infuriating.
Now add to the above - many such calls & chats starting 10 months ago...Ouch.
The 'official' Ooma setup is something like this:
1 - Power it up;
2 - connect ethernet;
3 - in a minute it'll cycle and its 'flower' will turn blue - register at their site & it all ready.
Just as easy as 1-2-3 !!
The reality for some (or many) folks according to their forum & other places found in desperation:
1 & 2 are nice & easy - but #3 never happens at all - and when that fails=>
Their 'support' is 90% just script readers - and getting to the higher tier is nearly impossible;
When that happens, because their service is absolutely centered upon a solid connection to their server, the user wastes immense amounts of time with clueless script readers after paying $70-$100 to try to get their 'free phone service'.
On top of all the above - their 'free phone service' has severely limited features. To get what is in reality 100% free if one was using GV, actually costs a base rate of $9.99/mo + fees of ~$5.
And compared here it becomes clearer:
Besides all the time wasted between the several replacement boxes needed to get a single functional one - there can be the added $50 expense of a wifi adapter if Ooma is incompatible with your cable or DSL modem - and even then it may not connect.
Rather than connecting with their higher tier tech support, they will opt to send out replacement boxes when yours doesn't work, and getting those here took a week each time.
If/when a box doesn't work they blacklist its serial so it can NEVER be used, so:
I pried open a useless one of those, and the entire circuit inside likely costs ~$1.98 to outsource & produce.
The little PSU it uses & its plastic parts likely cost more to provide than its circuit board.
So my conclusion is that a $40-50 Obi box (if such existed anymore...) is a FAR better choice than all the hassles it took to get & keep the Telo working.
I suspect that they changed the Telo to have wifi built-in AFTER too many of the ethernet-only boxes forced them to replace boxes over & over & over - just my guess though !!
If I remember correctly.... Et_Z is more than comfortable with using items that might take considerable tech fiddling, and is familiar with SIP operation. Et_Z's aim was to provide a solution that would be invisible to the tech-phobic. The hope was the Ooma would provide that, at a marginally higher cost than the OBI.
Since being a happy Obi & Obi forum user for around a decade, this was a difficult moment to face.
The main concern was how my partner's original Obi box had become a paperweight when Obihai engaged some forced obsolescence - which is ALWAYS offensive when I run across any of that, anyplace.
So there we were, with her GV line in a useless state & needing whatever was very simple for her tech-challenged ways - as in...just pick up the phone & use it !!
The scuttlebutt in Obi-land at the time was that changes were in progress, with hints of the Polycom buy-out, and many users griping about being FORCED into spending for an Obi2xx at the forum and whose protests were endlessly censored to oblivion by the non-participating mods there, so:
Buy a $50-$70 Obi2xx which might become a paperweight too soon thereafter when Polycom says so;
Buy the ~$70 Ooma Telo and pay the $5/mo. for its (SUPPOSED) simplicity, trusting that it existed.
(Then forward her GV number to the Telo, which was not nearly as simple as it should have been...)
Lastly, the big G has full control of who & what connects with GV, and all the corpy stuff pointed to that as a possible failure point if/when things with Obi got dicey.
Ooma was always considered to have a high quality sound so it makes sense that it needs a solid connection to it's server to work. I believe the main reason for Whats App's popularity is that it works better than other options when bandwidth is poor. But for a company selling an alternative to the traditional phone line that needs to be plug and play for the average person, it totally makes sense that if the bandwidth was not there, that the service would not work rather than work poorly. I think that's actually better for the customer buying a landline replacement as well as important for the company's strategy and reputation.
At one stage I thought of buying an Ooma from Costco (so I could easily return it if there was a problem), but I was too cheap and I got an Obi instead. The Obi worked very well and then was no longer supported. I looked into options but ultimately decided to not bother. Everyone in the house has their own mobile number and we were getting less calls on the main number anyway. The main number now forwards voicemails and texts to everyone which are few and far between, but it comes in useful for certain things such as online order pickup notifications when it's possible anybody might be able to pick something up.
As well as from my laptop, I make my outgoing calls on Google Home devices which shows my Google Voice number or on my Amazon Echo Dot which can show any number so long as I can verify it. I actually have it showing my Google Voice number as well.
Cable modem here = full speed & BW
vs. Wifi router here that is ancient, limited BW & slow !!!
So:
NO - this had ZERO to do with low BW or there being other than 'a solid connection' via ethernet cable directly to the cable modem by itself.
This had EVERYTHING to do with the Ooma Telo being INCOMPATIBLE with our Motorola cable modem.
And now:
The dang-nabbed Telo connects 100%, 24/7 via that ancient router which is shared with around 10 other devices 24/7 & even more things at any given time if need be.
Unfortunately, incompatibilities amongst so many different products and versions are inevitable and customer service, especially from low cost providers, is going to be low cost quality.
I wish the reality was different but alas, that is the consequence of progress and the free market.