I’m not sure how many normal people take advantage of Bluetooth technology, but I’m absolutely hooked. I run two and a half miles every morning using my Motorola S9 headphones. They are great for running, I can’t recommend them enough. I’m on my second pair; they unfortunately have an unreplaceable battery and would not hold a charge after a year or so. My car has hands-free Bluetooth, which I must say that is pretty cool! And now, my cordless phones are Bluetooth enabled too!
After the purchase of my OBi110, I needed to buy a real phone for the house, I honestly did not have one! I had researched Bluetooth / land-line phone integration solutions several years ago, but they always seemed rather “iffy”. I could never determine how well they really worked. They were always a little pricey, so I never took the risk. I happen to see that Panasonic had a line of phones with what they called a “Link-to-Cell” feature. The phone seemed to get good reviews and was pretty reasonably priced; I picked them up for $57 from Walmart! I have purchased Panasonic phones in the past and was always happy with them. These phone seem to be well made and comfortable to hold. I have not used the answering machine feature, since Google Voice provides that function for me; but did notice the “Voice Mail” indicator works on the phone! Think about that Integration – Google Voice services tell the OBiTalk network that I have voice mail, and then OBiTalk sends the message to my OBi adapter, which ultimately lights up the indicator on my cordless phone… Pretty crazy!
The Bluetooth integration is pretty slick. You can pair two different cell phones with the unit and assign different rings to each cell phone. You can also download your cell phone’s phone-book to the handsets. The phones even include “talking caller-id”, announcing the phone number or name of the person that called. My cell phone seems to pair instantly with the base unit when I walk into the house, no fuss at all. The call quality seems no better or worse than using my old Jawbone Bluetooth headset. I think the sound quality is actually very good and have had no problems carrying on a conversation. You can easily make outbound phone calls with your cell phone, just dial the phone number and press the cell button.
I have only had the phones for a couple of weeks, but have been very happy with them. The convenience of being able to pickup a real phone is kind of nice, plus I don’t have to worry about where laid my cell phone down!
OK, back to the more traditional blogs starting tomorrow! I just really wanted to share how well this inexpensive combination of technology really worked, linking together your cellular service, VOIP (Google Voice), and a traditional home phone into an unbelievably simple and convenient package!
