Several users on the DSLReports VoIP Tech Chat forum discovered how Obihai firmware could be reverse-engineered and updated so that features may be added. The first feature was the update of security certificates on the OBi100/110. Although Google Voice is no longer compatible with 100/110, this third-party firmware extended the life of these ATAs for those who like to use Google Voice.
All projects: DIY-IT Task GuideThis task: The Ultimate Google Tone of voice How-to Guide (2014 Edition)
<ém>Welcome to the 2014 model of the Ultimate Google Tone of voice How-To Guideline, shown by ZDNet's i9000 DIY-IT blog site. In this content, and the baker't dozen that accómpany it, you'Il understand just about everything you need to understand to get the most out of the Search engines Voice provider. This tutorial contains a full end-to-end revise of our 2011 Search engines Voice guideline, chock complete of fresh ideas, totally new articles, and amazing tips.ém>
You'll learn how to slot your landline to Google Tone of voice, how to arranged up phone devices, how to incorporate Google Voice into your iPhone and Android experience, how to set up a multi-line workplace, how to get the most out of making use of Google Voice and SMS, and actually how to make use of Google Tone of voice efficiently and securely in your car, and lots more.Therefore brew up a mug of coffee or your preferred tea, grab a few snacks, and get ready to find out how simple 'ol phone calls are about to become transformed into something virtually indistinguishable from magic.
This post will be a extension of our Google Voice series. In this write-up, we'll look at how you can set up a complicated home office with two mobile phone lines, have multiple devices, and enable either individual to effortlessly reply either cell phone line from any handset, all while making use of Google Tone of voice.
This article takes on you've already obtained a working Google Tone of voice accounts and it's linked to your mobile phone. If you don't, please study the earlier posts in this series. We are usually also aware of therumors that Google may end-of-life Google Tone of voice or migrate its functionality more completely into Hangouts and, if thát happens, we'll revise this series with all your best options.
Pieces of history. Words of suggestions.
This post is definitely a continuation of our Google Voice collection. In this post, we look at how you can create and receive Google Voice phone phone calls from any old wired phone you may have laying around your home, including cord-less phones.
This post presumes you've currently obtained a operating Google Voice accounts and it'h linked to your phone. If you wear't, make sure you study the earlier posts in this collection.
Knowing the problem
Let's obtain this out right now there right right now. Back in 2011, when I very first put this 'Mark I' answer collectively, I do not really like my iPhone. I got an even-then historic iPhone 3G, which I was waiting around on improving until either the iPhone 5 emerged out there or I lost patience composing about Apple and decided to proceed get an Google android phone, therefore I can spend all day time and all night tweaking my launch screen. As it becomes out, I do both: I purchased an iPhone 4S and then an Google android Samsung Galaxy S4.
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I didn't like making or getting phone calls on my iPhoné 3G. I had been proof to modify, and I liked producing and obtaining phone calls on my oId-school landline cell phone that I had utilized for years. It has been comfortable, got a great headset that sat correctly on my mind, with a mic that individuals could in fact hear. It just worked and I Iiked it.
Thé problem, of training course, is as soon as I ditchéd my Iandlines, my landline telephone became a papers fat (and I wear't also use very much paper anymore).
But whát if I couId connect my landline cell phone, total with its RJ11 jack, straight into Google Tone of voice? What if, when you called my workplace amount, my old landline cell phone rang, I could pick it up, and talk to yóu? And whát, if I needed to make a contact, I could simply choose up that phone, call a quantity on it, and achieve you? And whát, if when l produced that contact, you discover my Google Voice number best there, plain as time, on your Owner ID?
Whát if? Whát if, certainly.
Oh yeah, and whát if we couId perform this fer cheap?
A even more expensive option
This whole 'what if' style centers around setting up a Voicé-over-IP implementation. Basically, using the Web to transmit phone calls, and after that have those calls start from or appear at an real telephone quantity.
Search engines Tone of voice will get you part of the way, but you'll want a gadget to arrive in for a landing. That gadget is known as the OBi, ánd it's abóut fifty dollars from Amazon . com. It should end up being observed that while the Obi is certainly a practical remedy for Google Voice right now, because Google is discontinuing assistance of the XMPP process in May 2014, the Obi will simply no longer work with Search engines Voice after that date. Even therefore, I'll keep telling the story here so you have a full image of the choices and our expertise producing these systems work.
Before I speak about one vowel-based item brand, let's look at another, thé Ooma. After listening to a lot of great points about the Ooma, I significantly considered obtaining it. The company touts that you can create free calls 'for lifestyle'. Regrettably, those free of charge calls arrive after you buy a $250 container, and if you want to make use of it with Google Tone of voice, you require to add their $10/mo premium program.
(Ooma was eventually type plenty of to offer me with a evaluation unit, and I talk about that in the following content in this collection, Taking Google Voice to the extreme with Ooma)
Therefore, being cheap, I appeared for an choice solution. Wear't get me incorrect, the Ooma looked like a great device. But since most of what it will is provided by Google Tone of voice (in several methods, with a much better execution), I decided primarily to skip out on the Ooma. If you don't use Google Voice and need a great VoIP solution, the Ooma might end up being correct for yóoma.
But why invest $250 plus $10/30 days, when you can invest less than $50, simply once? Nicely, there are factors, but it had taken a even though to figure them out.
Help me, OBi110, telephone mé
Search engines Tone of voice for Little Business
Sigh. l couldn't assist myself. I'll simply apologize in progress for that heading and allow's simply shift ón.
Thé OBi, from á company called Obihai, will be a tiny package a little smaller than a 4-slot Ethernet change. It emerged in two options when I used it back in 2011, the OBi100 (for $39.99) and the OBi110 (for $49.99). They've since included the Obi200 and the Obi202 (shifting up to $59.99 and $69.99, respectively). The corporation was fine more than enough to send out me an 0bi202 to appear at, but I used the Obi110 for my telephone alternative for about a year.
The OBi is certainly a general objective VoIP box that sits between your network and your RJ11-structured landline mobile phone. You run a network cable from your router or network switch to the system interface in the 0Bi and a cell phone wire from your previous phone to the mobile phone slot in the 0Bi, and you'ré essentially arranged.
For the report, the higher-priced OBi110 has a second phone interface. This is certainly actually fairly great. What it does is web page link the OBi to a nearby landline mobile phone program and can be designed for international calling. Let's state you're also in Europe, but you live in New Jersey. Sitting down in your Paris hotel room, you link to your OBi making use of an OBi cloud account, and after that the OBi sitting down in your basements in New Shirt attaches to the local phone line, and telephone calls out from right now there.
Another application of this crack is usually tech support. Let's state you obtain a call returned from a technology support person that youknowoffers to end up being in India, but the Harasser ID says she's i9000 contacting from Indianapolis. She could end up being using the OBi. She connects over the Web to an OBi located in Indiana, and that OBi phone calls you over thé Iandline.
lt's a héck of a function, if customized, for a simple extra ten dollars.
Next up: making use of the Obi with Google Voice.<ém>I'michael doing even more updates on Twitter and Facebook than ever before. Be certain to follow me on Twitter at @DavidGewirtz ánd on Facebook át Facebook.com/DavidGéwirtz.ém>
Using the OBi with Search engines Tone of voice
Search engines Voice for Little Business
But let's obtain back again to Google Voice. Back again in 2011, you could use either OBi model with Google Tone of voice. I sprang for the additional ten bucks, actually though I got almost no possible use for the additional interface. It't a function, and I just can't resist me them delicious functions!
Before I move on, I should do it again what I mentioned on the prior page. Search engines is usually discontinuing support of the XMPP protocol in Might 2014. The Obi will no longer function with Search engines Voice after that time.
That mentioned, there were a few of simple actions to placing this thing up. Very first, you'll need to lift it up, as I explained abové.
Néxt, you'll need to appear on over tó obitalk.com ánd obtain yourself an OBiTALK account. It's i9000 this OBiTALK account that will link your Google Voice accounts with your OBi (at least until Google stops talking to OBi ovér XMPP).
Béfore I move on, I gotta tell you about something fairly slick. As soon as I agreed upon up for the OBiTALK account, my OBi basically connected out to the Web and informed the OBiTALK provider my OBi had been online. There had been zero settings. It just worked. How frickin' frequently does that occur? Did I mention this thing was just fifty bucks?
The subsequent image displays the OBiTALK construction screen. Many of what's on this screen was immediately produced:
Whát you're going to want to do, in order to configure Search engines Voice, is click on the Support Provider 1 assistance at the bottom of the form. You'll discover this type:
I would like you to pay special attention to those fields with the reddish arrows. Those areas are your Google Voice loginándyour Search engines Voice password.Thisis definitely why, all the way back again in an earlier write-up of this collection, I informed you to develop afreshaccount used solely for your Google Tone of voice amount.
Obihai seems like a fine corporation, but I didn't would like them getting full gain access to to my Gmail account or password. Now that you've filled in these areas, you're almost ready.
Next, change back again over to Google Voice and make sure Search engines Chat can be enabled:
OBi utilizes the Search engines Chat interface to pass phone calls along to you. That'h where the XMPP user interface comes in. This will be also where I started having issues with both thé Obi and 0oma solution, because the enabled setting on the Discussion checkbox in Google Tone of voice would sometimes turn off for both my wife's Google Voice accounts and mine.
Mastering Google Tone of voice
At this point, you should end up being able toreceiveGoogle Voice calls on your old-school mobile phone. You will not really, however, become capable to create any phone calls.
As it transforms out, there's a huge heap of fine printing on the OBiTALK settings display screen under the GmaiI username and GmaiI password configurations. The nearly all important notation in that text is certainly their admonishment not to make use of the OBi device for emergencies. 9-1-1 earned't function.
The 2nd useful piece of info is definitely that you're heading to possess to make at minimum one outgoing cell phone call directly from your Gmail account. You do this by pressing the'Contact phone' key on the lower remaining part of your Gmail interface. Search engines may demand you set up a pIug-in, but l've discovered it's not really at all intrusive.
As soon as you've produced your first call via Gmail (and you wear't actually possess to talk, so don't be concerned about a mike), you put on't actually have to do it again. From that stage on, choose up your phone handset, call a amount, and you're also producing a contact. The truth that the OBi' transmits that call over the Web, through Google Tone of voice, and back again out there through a mobile phone line somewhere else is definitely concealed from watch. It simply works.
Some final records
We've found that there't occasionally a small glitch that seems to clip off the 1st syllable of conversation. We put on't know if that's the fault of the OBi, Search engines Voice, or thé Link-to-CeIl, the device I'll end up being talking about in our following installment.
The good quality and reliability of the Obi110 ultimately got to us, and we shifted aside to the Ooma alternative I describe in the next post. Obihai did send out me an up to date container (the Obi202), but by that period, I'd moved onto other phone options and didn'testosterone levels desire to raise red flags to what has been kind of functioning on a new check.
More great project suggestions
Updated: If you're also functioning on a DIY project of your very own, this comprehensive guidebook to tech projects will be a good location to start.
Generally, voice quality was reasonably, but untrustworthy. In the beginning I didn't have got too several problems, but over time my spouse portrayed her measurable dissatisfaction with the answer.
Back again in 2011, I wrote, 'There will be some risk, because this whole solution requires the OBiTALK provider to remain working.' As we're seeing right now, that had been prescient, because the important XMPP user interface part of the Obihai answer is going away in May 2014.
The OBi gadget supports several more solutions beyond Google Tone of voice. The OBi gadget, itself, can act as a VOIP gateway for two different services. So, if you desire, you could connect a different service to the 2nd service slot machine. When making a contact on the second services, you'd simply have got to prefix the quantity you're dialing with a short code.
Therefore there you go. Cheap VoIP for fifty bucks, no monthly fee. It'beds enough to make any cheapskate grin with joy. And actually though I transferred away of it, I nevertheless suggest it to anyone who desires a inexpensive VoIP answer and is definitely ready to place up with a several glitches.
<ém>By the method, I'meters doing even more improvements on Twitter and Facebook than actually before. Become sure to stick to me on Tweets at @DavidGewirtz ánd on Facebook át Facebook.com/DavidGéwirtz.ém>