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Home Phone System That Syncs To Computer?
An anonymous reader writes 'In comparison to the advanced technology in today's smart phones, the standard home phone is painfully backwards. My current setup is a Panasonic system that has 4 cordless phones over one base station. Setting the time on one phone changes the time on all the phones; however, this is not the case for the phone book. Each entry must be manually copied (pushed) to each handset. Is this as far as home phone technology has come? What I would like is a phone system that I could sync to my computer so I could update the phone book over all the units (if not sync with Address Book or Outlook), keep a log of caller IDs, or even forward me new voicemail notifications. Does anyone know if such a system exists?'
What's a "landline"? :-)
Time for overkill solution number 1:
1) Buy a SIP to POTS adapter
2) Install asterisk on your Linux server (You do have a Linux server right?)
3) Create a web app, preferably Ruby on Rails, that connects to Asterisk over the management port and dials a phone number and rings it back to your home phone line
4) Profit until the system breaks and the wife wrings your neck because she can't call to make her beauty salon appointment!
Enjoy!
... they work *all* the time.
Personally, I would never replace my POTS phone with anything "high tech".
Yes, it's called Asterisk, but it requires more than a box you buy at a retail store. You can share a phone book and click-to-dial (Asteridex) based on entries in MySQL. It supports about every feature you can think of for the phone, from wake-up calls to auto-forwarding. Get a VOIP trunk running SIP and you'll also pay far less for phone service. You still need a tiny server running Linux, some IP phones, or an analog card, but you'll have total control and all the features you want. Personally, I like FreePBX (http://freepbx.org), and there are even easier-to-setup versions such as the distro at http://nerdvittles.com/.
The biggest reason this doesn't happen is cost. Those crappy phones you mention (I have similar setup) costs the manufacturer pennies to make. There's no fancy operating system, no connectivity with disparate systems, no pricey architecture, nothing fancy. In order to do what smart phones do, the cost would go up. Your smart phone isn't cheap, but the price is subsidized by the phone provider through deals with the manufacturer and built into the cost of the plan as a whole. Good luck, but I wouldn't expect it to happen any time soon because most people won't pay hundreds for a home phone system when they can get one that works with 4 handsets for $50.
I have a Panasonic phone system with 3 cordless handsets and one base station. It keeps all of the phone book entries centrally, so if you change it from one handset all get the change. Same with the caller ID log. No connection to my computer, but this sounds like most of what you're asking for. Maybe you just need a newer phone?
I might be indecisive, but I'm not really sure. What do you think?
Good old fashioned POTS stuff has its advantages(phones, even wireless ones, are incredibly cheap, you can carry the signal over cable of virtually arbitrary crappiness); but sophistication isn't really one of them. Even DECT gear, while ostensibly some kind of standard, is little more powerful or interoperable than the old-school proprietary RF linked wireless phones.
If you want power, you really want VOIP phones(even if you end up using a copper POTS line to dial out, though you can often save money by using a SIP provider). Voicemail sent to your email, speech to text, configurable menues, contacts lists that connect to LDAP/AD backends, the whole deal. Unfortunately, VOIP hardware tends to be substantially more expensive than the old POTS stuff(unless you count software VOIP clients running on hardware you already have) and need proper modern data connections(either wired or wireless ethernet, usually).
I really think the landline is slowly going the way of the dodo as far as home users are concerned.
My landline phone, never needs external power or batteries. It never has problems when the "tower" is overloaded with people trying to make calls. By LAW, it can always call 911 from any phone jack in any house. I never have to deal with "are you there? you're breaking up" nor deal with "ATT|Verizon|Sprint|T-Mobile has crappy coverage at my house..." related issues. I have a $5 corded phone from Walmart for emergency use and a cordless phone (requires external power) for normal use. Maybe as a society we're becoming too dependent on continuous sources of electricity.
And yes I've been without power to my house for days on end (ice storms in the Northeast). Light's didn't work but my home phone worked fine.
My horse, never needs gasoline or battery power. It never has problems when the "highway" is overloaded with people trying to go to work. By NATURE, it can always get me home from any bar in any area. I never have to deal with "you need an alignment" nor deal with "FORD|CHEVY|DODGE has crappy dealerships near my house..." related issues. I have a $5 leather whip from Walmart for emergency use and leather saddle from Walmart (requires external buckle) for normal use. Maybe as a society we're becoming too dependent on continuous sources of transportation.
Understandable. He was pissed off.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
I see lots of people deciding they don't need a landline any more. Well, for a single person or in the case where everyone in the house has a cell phone, that can work. It works better when your wireless carrier has a WiFi component to their plan - although since they lose money by the fistful on these I would expect either the carrier or the plan to disappear.
But what happens when you have a three-year-old child? Going to get them a cell phone? I don't think so. And while you can teach a three year old to dial 911 calling from a cell phone may not be anywhere near as easy or helpful. In a house the GPS chip isn't going to work so well, so your phone isn't going to know where it is. Meaning that the fire department doesn't know where to go.
Landline phone service is also just plain more reliable. If you live in an area where there are weather-related power outages, which is just about anywhere, you can't assume that the cell tower infrastructure has much battery backup - some have none at all. Contrast this with the landline Central Office which when the batteries start getting low fires up the generator to keep dial tone available. I have had no electricity from the power company for more than 24 hours after an ice storm, before there were cell phones. After a few hours a cell phone would be a paperweight under these circumstances.
Why do you need a land line? Children. Emergencies. Power outages. Maybe you don't care now, but you very well might in the future.
And one thing to consider. If enough people drop land lines, they will disappear entirely. Try, just try to find a pay phone outside of an airport or train station today. Nobody needs them, unless your cell phone dies and you need to call someone like maybe a tow truck. Good luck, because pay phones have been declared obsolete. So now there is no alternative. Land lines might be declared obsolete as well - in which case good luck teaching your young children how to dial out on your Blackberry.
Having set up Asterisk a couple of different places AND attempting to integrate most of the things discussed, I can tell you there are a whole chain of problems.
a phone system that I could sync to my computer so I could update the phone book over all the units
Meaning a single address book shared/synced at all phones? You would need phones with *some* kind of open client interface. Of which, there are exactly zero.
(if not sync with Address Book or Outlook),
Please, dear Lord. No. This is another binary jail. But it looks like you want your home computer's Outlook client to be somehow involved. Which, is another programming mountain to climb separate from the first feature.
keep a log of caller IDs
This, Asterisk can do. A more flexible solution requiring some coding is Freeswitch. As others have mentioned, you have to plug the POTS line into your PC. Is there a GUI that can render the results to meet your satisfaction? Maybe.
or even forward me new voicemail notifications.
Asterisk and Freeswitch can do this too. But, there are numerous details that drive people away. Do the hard/soft phones you end up using have ways to implement call forwarding? How about controlling call forwarding at the server only? Is there a GUI available to meet your standards of usable? I haven't worked with Asterisk in a long time though maybe there are prettier ways of doing things now.
Dog forbid you want to integrate your mobile phone into the fray.
BTW, there's a whole forest of patents on voicemail notification alone. Even *if* something was made, it probably violates patents. http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=98808
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Dang, I just noticed. I wasted post number 30 million on a bad pun. Sorry about that, folks.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
I am using a Siemens Gigaset system along with a Siemens M34 USB dongle, which allows you to manage directory form your PC and Skype etc, but you have to do it via outlook, which is painful as well. Personally, I found google contacts to be the most useful across platforms that can be a feature for home telephone that can be further explored. There are later Gigaset phones that allow you to simply copy your sim contacts from your mobile phone to your home phone or batch send it via bluetooth, but I found Siemens phones are not very popular in the US, which it strange because I found Gigaset phones are far more superior in call clarity, os friendliness and have better industrial design and build quality, and runs on standard AAA batteries instead of those battery packs.
About 400.