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Use A Regular Phone For Cellphone Calls
nizo writes "Not too long ago I decided to get rid of my landline, however I miss being able to make a call with a regular phone, especially long calls that might drain my battery. It would also be nice if I didn't have to hunt for my cellphone at home when it rings. Well, it looks like there is a simple solution with a Cell Socket, a cradle for your cellphone that can be used to attach your cell line to one or more regular phones." Even better, for those with a landline or VoIP phone, would be a system that automatically picks the cheapest route out for any given call.
a rotary cellphone
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
I think that you'd be able to hack something together with Asterisk to do the "Even better, for those with a landline or VoIP phone, would be a system that automatically picks the cheapest route out for any given call." bit.
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
Just the cosmically wrong image of my sleek Nokia cell sitting right next to a black Western Electric rotary phone is enough to make me want one of these.
The coolest voice ever.
Even better, for those with a landline or VoIP phone, would be a system that automatically picks the cheapest route out for any given call.
For those with a VoIP phone, there's already such a system: always use the VoIP phone.
Apparently the server needs a Cell Socket.
I can't wait for the page to be...well...not-Slashdotted.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
"especially long calls that might drain my battery."
It seems like a simple solution would be to not talk on the phone so long.
with cell phone plans getting cheaper, this looks to be a viable alternative what with national call plans and competitive prices from all providers. the only thing of course, is that to have DSL, you need an actual phone number/line. unless everyone is going to run to cable, land lines are here to stay. that and many places don't even have cell towers anywhere near them so cell phones are useless in many areas anyway. in that respect, i don't see the land line market dying anytime soon.
I have a set of lookup tables on my asterisk server which do this.
:)
Of course the cheapest route is always analogue, so it's not a great advert for VOIP
Not sure I'd want my mobile phone to link to it though.. that's a separate number that only a few trusted people know.
I hope their phone system is built better than their webserver.
I can't RTFA right now, so my only concern is the ability to adapt to different cell phone manufacturers, and what about newer cell phones after purchase. Otherwise, this actually doesn't sound like too difficult a project, but it's the idea that counts. This kind of device can easily be created with a few components and a PIC for under $10.
Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what's right. --Isaac Asimov
Why is this same joke being modded funny on every story where it gets posted? If anyone were to bother to RTFA, they would see it is a pretty straight-forward article. What could there even be FUD about?
Homme petit d'homme petit, s'attend, n'avale
Cingular offers a device called a fast forward. You put the device in a cradle that connects to the landline and it automatically forwards all calls to your landline while charging your device.
I miss being able to make a call with a regular phone, especially long calls that might drain my battery.
When you get home, plug your phone into the charger. If you use it, leave it plugged in.
It would also be nice if I didn't have to hunt for my cellphone at home when it rings.
Leave it in the same place... attached to the charger.
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:ZWgMwpNIwucJ: www.cellsocket.com/+cellsocket&hl=en
A company has a product. Slashdot notes the companies product. Company's website becomes Slashdotted. Product == No Good.
;)
How does one come to this conclusion?
The company's website is Slashdotted, therefore it cannot handle a massive amount of traffic, therefore they did not expect this much interest in their product, because they have little faith in said product, because, well, they developed it and they themselves think it sucks, so it must suck.
Just a thought...
Awesome concept though...I would love this. One of the biggest things I hate about talking on a cell phone for an extended period is how warm the phone gets cause of the battery.
interface with my shoe phone?
man, I feel like mold.
For those of you who live in an area without high speed internet access, devices like these will not allow you to use your cellphone to make calls to analog (traditional) internet service providers. (Same applys to mobile/flea market merchants with credit card terminals that dial into their processing center) 99.9% of cellphones are on a digital network (CDMA/TDMA/iDEN/GSM/GPRS/etc) and can not provide the channel clarity needed for analog signals
The Dock-n-Talk seems to be a much better product than the Cellsocket.
http://www.phonelabs.com/prd05.asp
It claims to work with over 400 cell phone models and has a bunch of features not found in the Cellsocket.
While we are on it, does anyone know of a product that allows you to make landline calls THROUGH your cellphone? Here is my idea:
1) Landline phone hooked up to a cell phone (Phone A)
2) You have another cell phone (Phone B)
3) Both cell phones are on UNLIMITED Mobile-to-Mobile plan.
4) You place a call from Phone B to Phone A and tell Phone A to dial a number through your landline.
5) You chat on the phone for 3 hours AND USE UP NO MINUTES since you are on Mobile-to-Mobile connection.
Viola, UNLIMITED PEAK MINUTES AT PRICE OF 2 CELL PHONES, CHEAPO 2-PHONE PLAN, AND UNLIMITED LANDLINE!!
Cellsocket is a great idea. I looked into them extensively about 2 years ago. But they didn't make a version for my cellphone, and worse, they were quite slow to develop new adapters for new phones. This is a great market for such a device, but I honestly don't think it'll really take off until the cell manufacturing companies start making this a default must-have accessory with every new phone.
Nothing sucks more than being forced to buy an old, outdated phone, just so you can use the Cellsocket.
Basically, you're looking for something like Least Cost Routers (anybody wanna translate this?). These things have been very popular in Germany ever since the telecom market was deregulated. In Germany you can use other (landline) telecom providers through a Call-By-Call system, dialing the provider's prefix before your actual phone number if you want to use a provider other than your default one (e.g., 01033 for German Telekom, 01013 for Tele2). There's whole websites dedicated to providing lists of the cheapest call-by-call providers. These LCRs can store such lists of providers and their rates for different types of calls (i.e., local, long-distance, other countries, cell phone networks, etc.) at different times of the day/week, and the automatically prefix the number you dial with the cheapest provider's. Of course, lists can be updated manually or automatically. Now, I'm not sure if anybody has built such a device with cell vs. landline vs. VoIP in mind, but if that exists, other Slashdotters who can be bothered to look it up instead of working ;-) will surely post links...
FWIW, there's also an isdn4linux-based LCR tool and corresponding phone rate databases (see English summary at bottom) available. For cell/landline/VoIP solutions, if there's nothing else available, there is probably a good starting point.
I had a Cell Socket for a while, then it died. Plus, I couldn't upgrade that one phone either since it was only compatible with a few models.
What I settled on was a Telular box. It's a company that makes high end boxes for companies that need phone service where there isn't anything but cell. They've got a bunch of products and it works pretty good for most needs. You can even hook it into a phone system so you can route your companies long distance through it to use free long distance minutes.
FYI, Sprint is doing a trial with Telular boxes in selected cities as a way to replace your land line.
according to an advertisement in CE magazine this cordless phone from uniden will allow you to make calls from your cellphone using the handsets in the house...via the dead bluetooth http://www.uniden.com/productpop/00_productpop.cfm ?prd_code=ELBT595
Another benefit of this is being able to record cell phone conversations, if that's something you need.
Another option would be to get a VOIP phone (i.e. Vonage) for home, and have it simultaneously ring your cell phone when it's called. Then you can just have people dial the VOIP phone when they want to reach you, leaving you to decide which line to pick up.
Of course, this means you'd need to get a new line with a recurring fee if you don't already have a VOIP line, which will cost you $20+ per month instead of whatever fixed rate the cell-socket costs. But its worth considering.
I got one of these about a year ago.
I recently built a vacation/retirement house in a remote area (where I could get a landline but can't get DSL or cable internet) and got cellphones to use during the construction project - then decided to try using them with a cell socket rather than installing a landline. Didn't work as well as I'd like.
My phone is an older Nokia model and the service AT&T (now Cingulair) wireless. That company is the only carrier available in the area - and no GSM, just TDMA (and maybe AMPS but I can't tell for sure).
The Cell Socket works reasonably well for voice calls.
It provides charging current when the cellphone is ON hook, but stops when the phone is engaged in a call. (Apparently the power brick is too small to power the cellphone and POTS-emulator line at the same time.)
The Cell Socket doesn't provide a dial tone. Instead (if you pick up the POTS phone when the cellphone is plugged in and ready) it provides a series of three beeps. Apparently these emulate the three beeps you get at the front of an intercept recording. My guess is that this is intended to keep people form trying to use modems and FAX machines with the Cell socket.
I tried programming a modem to use it (ignoring the wait-for-dialtone). But even at the lowest speed setting it would not work with the TDMA cellphone service.
(I hear you can get 1200 baud or so through an AMPS cellphone connection. Unfortunately, my phone was a Nokia with AT&T firmware, and (as far as I can tell) those (at AT&T's insistence) can not be forced to make an AMPS call when a digital carrier is available. So I couldn't test that.)
So it's good for:
- Making long distance calls on your cheep cell plans comfortably.
- Eliminating your long-distance carrier on your landline.
- Using your cellphone anywhere in a house when there's only a few good spots for the signal.
- Putting voice-only service into a remote location, where a landline would be expensive to run (or used too little to justify the expense when you already have a cellphone).
But it's not good for:
- Data
- FAX
- Long calls with little time between them to recharge the cellphone battery.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Another advantage of this that nobody's noted yet is that you don't have to worry about reception. My apartment gets such poor cell coverage that I drop calls just walking around. With one of these I could put my cell in the spot where it got the best reception and leave it there. Or I could just stop pacing maniacally, but then I'd have to cut down on the coffee...
My wife and I have LG VX3100A cell phones, We consider her number to be the "home" phone, regardless of where she is. She uses her phone about 1800 minutes per month and I use about 200 minutes per month. She recharges her phone every Sunday and Wednesday or Thursday, and I recharge my phone every Sunday whether I need to or not.
Getting rid of the land line was the best communication move we ever made. It got rid of the telemarketers, too.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
I'm still waiting for a trek style comm badge that works as a phone.
Web Design Tips
Call-Forward your cell phone to your landline. It won't cost anything as long as you're forwarding to another local number (same area code)
for Verizon Wireless customers, this is
*72 + 10-Digit Number to Forward + SEND, wait for the tone, END. (to deactivate, *720 + SEND, wait, END)
My cellphone doesn't work inside the house!
My group and I just finished something very similar to this for our senior project at Texas A&M. We used a Nokia 6100 and a land line phone, a DTMF decoder, a SLIC to convert from single ended to hybrid signals, and a Stamp microcontroller. We chose to drop the land-line subscription altogether. It worked out really well :)
Three days from now?? Thats tomorrow!! ~Peter Griffin
I have never understood people who have these problems with cell phones.
Can't find it? Easy: keep the damn thing on you! I assume you take it with you in some way when you leave the house...keep doing that when you're at home. In my case, that means my pocket. I have yet to misplace my phone for even a minute. Over several years. How difficult, eh?
Always running out of charge? How about plugging it in to charge when you drop it from your pocket (or whatever)? In my case, that means plugging it in when going to bed (along with dumping all the keys, wallet, etc., and in the same spot). I have yet to run out of charge. Over several years. Gee, amazing, huh?
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