Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)(Edited April 28, 2011)
The OBi100 is a FANTASTIC device. FIVE STARS FOR THE HARDWARE DEVICE ITSELF. The OBi100 is really small. And it's easy to hook up. There really isn't too much to say about the hardware itself except to say it's too easy to hook up. The OBi100 is designed to work with the various VoIP services that are out there. And, in particular, the OBi100 is "suppose" to work with Google Voice. Many people should have no problem getting the OBi100 to work with Google Voice (GV). Set up your GV account, log into Google Chat in GMAIL, and make at least one outgoing call from GMAIL. Then do the setup for the OBi100. The online OBiTalk setup for the OBi100 is relatively easy to follow. And then it should all work for both incoming GV calls and outgoing GV calls. The typical incoming GV call process could be illustrated as follows:Incoming Call
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Google Voice Number
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Phone But for some people, like myself, there could be a problem -- in particular, getting the phone connected to the OBi100 to ring on each and every incoming Google Voice call. Note that OUTGOING calls via Google Voice using the OBi100-connected phone were not a problem. The problem was getting the OBi100-connected phone to ring on each and every *INCOMING* Google Voice call. In other words, some incoming GV calls would ring but most other incoming GV calls would not ring. And this was with numerous repeated calls from the same phones calling into the GV number. It's was like: ring, not ring. If you don't encounter this problem, then consider yourself to be lucky and blessed.
I originally wanted to have my Google Voice to forward calls to my iPhone and also to the phone connected to my OBi100. However, initially, using the default OBi100 setup for Google Voice, the phone connected to the OBi100 may ring or may not ring -- although my iPhone would certainly ring. It was like hit-or-miss if the OBi100-connected phone would ring on an incoming GV call. I've tried directly hooking up the OBi100 to several different phones, which I know all ring when we last had AT&T service in our home, but the hit-or-miss ringing still occurred. This hit-or-miss ringing (or non-ringing) also happened with Google Chat which handles the calls in GMAIL. The OBi100 has a built-in google-chat function which is "suppose" to allow the Obi device to handle GV calls. It is "suppose" to work and should for most people. But it did not work for me.
As far as I can guess, there was probably some sort of issue with how Google Voice works with Google Chat. So, that was really more of a Google Voice problem and not completely the fault of this Obi device. If you do a search in the Google Voice discussion forum, and do a search for something like "not ring" or "not ringing", then you can see that a bunch of people are having problems with GV not ringing forwarded incoming calls on home phones, work phones, and in Gmail. Incoming GV calls forwarded to a cell phone seems to be more successful in getting the cell phone to ring. The frequent non-ringing of incoming calls in Gmail and the OBi100 appears to be with how Google Voice works with Google Chat to take incoming calls. The "Google Chat" capability should theoretically make the OBi100 ring on incoming GV calls. However, it did not work for me where GV is dependent on forwarding incoming calls to Google Chat and therefore to the built-in google-chat function in the OBi100. TELEPHONE NOT RING FOR INCOMING GOOGLE VOICE CALLS???
POSSIBLE SOLUTION: USE A SIP TO HANDLE INCOMING GV CALLS
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If you look in the Google Voice settings under Phones, you will see where you can select which phones GV forwards incoming calls to. The first phone is Google Chat. And the box for that may be checked as a default. This allows you to take incoming GV calls while in GMAIL if you are logged into Google Chat in GMAIL. And the OBi100 used a google-chat function to handle Google Voice calls. But it wasn't working for me because the phone was NOT ringing. So what to do to fix this? One option is to simply wait for Google to fix this issue. I really don't hold out any hope for Google fixing this issue anytime soon.
My solution is to take the google-chat function out of the equation for *INCOMING* calls and instead use something else to handle the incoming calls on the OBi100. That meant I had to use a SIP service. SIP stands for Session Initiation Protocol which is a standard used for Voice over IP (VoIP). You can look that up if you want more of a technical explanation. But from a practical standpoint that meant I had to look for a free or cheap SIP service that I could use.
What I got was a free account at SIPGATE dot com where I then set up SIPGATE as Service Provider 2 (SP2) in the OBi settings. Google Voice was already set up as Service Provider 1 (SP1) when I originally set up GV on my OBi100. When you sign up for SIPGATE, get the free account. The free SIPGATE account is free for taking incoming calls. SIPGATE is not free for making outgoing calls (after the initial free 60-minutes of outgoing SIPGATE calls that are good for thirty days). I got a San Francisco area code (415) telephone number which is not where I live in California. You may probably get one in your state, but don't expect one that is in your city since you're getting the SIPGATE number for free. If you want a SIPGATE number in your city, you will probably have to pay for one. If you don't get a SIPGATE number in your state, it shouldn't matter because you will be intending that only incoming GV calls to be forwarded to the SIPGATE number to be received by the OBi100.
The idea here is that the OBi100 uses SIPGATE to handle your incoming GV calls and therefore make the OBi100-connected phone ring. Let me also point out that, meanwhile, the OBi100 will still be using GV but for making your outgoing GV calls. The following illustrates the process:Incoming GV Call:
(using SIPGATE to get phone to ring)
Incoming Call
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Google Voice
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PhoneOutgoing GV Call:
(does NOT require SIPGATE)
Phone ( Outgoing Call )
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Whoever You're CallingSETTING UP SIPGATE + GOOGLE VOICE + OBi100
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The following is the step-by-step setup that I went through to set up SIPGATE to work with Google Voice and my OBi100:1. sign up at SIPGATE dot com
2. get free number
3. install SIPGATE software on computer
4. turn on the SIPGATE software
5. set up your SIPGATE number in Google Voice
6. verify your SIPGATE number
7. answer the call in the SIPGATE software and verify (you may have to do this several times to get it to take) (you'll have to click the dialpad button to get the dialpad in order to verify)
8. while you are still in the Google Voice website, go into settings, phones, and you can uncheck the box for Google Chat (to eliminate the need for the OBi100 to use the google-chat function to handle incoming GV calls, but this also results in removing the capability of receiving incoming calls in Gmail)
9. go back to the SIPGATE website where you should be logged in
10. go into the SIPGATE settings and click "SIP Credentials"
11. get the SIP-ID and the SIP-Password
12. log into the OBiTalk dot com website and go into the OBi Dashboard settings
13. under "My OBi Endpoints", click the gear icon in the "Action" column for your OBi100
14. below "Device Configuration", look for the section underneath at the bottom of the page for "Configure Voice Services"
15. Service Provider 1 (SP1) is most likely set up for Google Voice if you have that set up already
16. Service Provider 2 (SP2) may be blank (I remember it being there with nothing)
17. click the gear icon to get into the SP2 settings
18. when you get a list, click "Sipgate"
19. enter your SIP-ID from SIPGATE as your Username
20. enter your SIP-Password
21. make sure that the box for "Make This the Primary Line to Call Out" is NOT checked for your SIPGATE (because you want SIPGATE to only take incoming calls)
22. click submit
23. click "OBi Dashboard" in the left column and click the gear icon again for your OBi100
24. this time click the gear icon for Google Voice in the "Configure Voice Services" section at the bottom of the page
25. make sure that the box for "Make This the Primary Line to Call Out" is CHECKED for your Google Voice (to have Google Voice handle outgoing calls)Note: If SIPGATE did not show up as "Registered" in the "Configure Voice Services" section, then input your SIP-ID and SIP-Password again, and then go back to see if SIPGATE is "Registered". I had to do this several times before it took.
Note: By adding SIPGATE in the Google Voice phone settings, that also adds SIPGATE to your groups settings in Google Voice but that is what you may want anyways.
Note: If you are unable to get a free SIPGATE account because they ran out of numbers, you can either wait until they get more numbers or you can try a different SIP service provider. Just be sure you get the correct SIP username and password credentials for whatever provider you use because those credentials may be different than the SIP...Read more›
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he OBi100 has one phone port. It supports Google Voice, SIP & OBiTALK VoIP services. Use the OBi100 when you do not need an analog line to a traditional telephone network or service. The OBi100 is perfect for customers who do not have a traditional telco phone service and want the savings and simplicity of using a VoIP service for all their calls.
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