@mcanavino ever heard of magic jack? its like that except the audio quality is better. the idea is you pay $3 a month for 5000 mins of calling and you get to use a real normal phat phone. its for the people that want a home phone but dont want to pay verizon $40 for just local calling.
@grammarsheriff Good to know, damn. Is it always expected to be free aside from the initial cost and taxes? Or does this use google voice protocols or something?
@communist Yes, it started out as free until the government wanted a piece of the action. Ooma still doesn't charge for their monthly services unless you get the premier/premium package. I don't use that because I also have google voice and it does everything that you pay for in the premium package.
I have the older version of this. I bought it at Woot about 3 years ago. I have never had any regrets about my purchase. Best $100 I spent that year.
They charge about $3.50 or so a month in taxes, but aside from that, it's free. I highly recommend anyone that's required to carry a landline for work to look into these.
The only downside is they won't work if your internet or power goes down (a true landline will).
@RandomQuark I only use my Ooma for work. I don't want to talk to those bastards anyway. I certainly don't plan to answer it if the power is out. No power = no work!
@RandomQuark said: "Set your ooma service to automatically forward to cell if no power." Why even have the Ooma? Use your cell phone and downside eliminated without the over $36 extra fees per year.
@Kyser_Soze This is for those that want/need a "land line". If you are happy with your cell, then this would be a waist for you. However, call quality is MUCH better with ooma then cell phone. For those of us with young kids, a landline is nearly a necessity.
@Kyser_Soze My wife uses ours to call her cell phone at home when she can't find it. I suppose she could also use Find My iPhone from the computer, but she's more likely to call me from the home phone and ask me to do it.
@Kyser_Soze $36 a year for Ooma allowed my wife and I cut our cell phone bills by well over $40 each month. We pay for fewer minutes and have better quality/reception at home now.
My house has had one for a couple years. Love the thing! No problems what so ever! 3 bucks a month for unlimited nationwide calling down from $25. I highly recommend this! I bought my refurn for like $120 so this is great!
I've had Ooma for 4 years or so. It's a great service. If you get Premier, you can even blacklist numbers you don't want to call you. The $10 a month is worth that feature alone.....
agh you disappoint Meh, I have thrown my money at tigerdirect for what I requested you have, not the rice cooker, I still need that if you wanna get on that too, also a really cheap mobile hotspot would be great that works good enough to game on sometimes thanks yours trully @sp3ar
like skype 10,000 minute limit, ooma apparently also has a limit of 5,000 mins on the "unlimited" with a $40 overage charge
YOU ONLY GET 5,000 MINUTES PER MONTH. Although this is fine for most people, if you go over that there is a $39.99 fee which is completely absurd and exploitative.
@cengland0 And they "enforce it on a case-by-case basis in the event that a subscriber is clearly abusing the service". So I imagine most of us will probably be fine.
@enoch I calculated it more like 83 hours a week. I've had Ooma for several years and didn't even know about that limit until today. Anyway, over 80 hours for 4 weeks would mean that I'd have to be on the phone for outbound calls for more than 50% of my day to hit that limit. With an average of 21 working days a month, that would be almost 4 hours a day and all those calls must be outgoing calls.
@liammc 100% free is good. But Obi-Google Voice is for geeks (I'm one, so that is a term of endearment). Would not recommend it for folks who just want to plug stuff in and have it work.
@RedOak Obi might be a tiny bit harder to set up (not really) but once you set it up for non geek friends it just works. So therefore I WOULD recomment it for those folks if you are ok taking the 5 minutes to set it up for them.
@liammc Me too. Didn't want to give up my home phone number, so transferred that to google voice. i my home phone also has blluetooth, so i have that connected to a spare cell phone. Make calls on either line from the same handset.
I purchased an Ooma for my mom in 2011 from Woot. We were switching around various telecom services to save money, and being old-fashioned, she insisted on keeping a land line.
So now it's been going 4 years strong. I'm really impressed with it. Setup is easy as cake. Service is reliable. The online interface is really nice, and more importantly, it only costs two or three bucks a month (literally).
Probably the best internet-phone solution out there as far as I know. Can't comment on how good their customer service is, because I've never needed it. My mom claims to have had a few phone calls that have dropped out, but I've personally never had an issue. (Then again, she is a bit tech-illiterate and has been known to accidentally press the hangup button with her face.) Highly recommended.
Edit: We use Centurylink. It's not as fast as Comcast, but it's been far more stable than Comcast, at least in our area. We also use a third-party telephone set, not an Ooma-branded one.
I also have never been aware of any overage charges for using too many minutes, until someone mentioned it above. I don't believe we've ever been fined for it (I would have heard my mom freaking out about it if we did. She watches her bank statement like a hawk. Maybe it's a recent thing though.) My mom spends a lot of time on the phone though, so I'm guessing it must be somewhat forgiving. I also can't seem to find anyway of viewing monthly minutes usage on the Ooma website.
My wife and I have Ooma. And we bought their phone to use with it and the phone totally sucks. The battery constantly dies. Add to that comcast service that regularly konks out on us, and we have a very unreliable phone.
If you buy this, just make sure you have reliable internet and do not buy an Ooma phone to use with it!
@daveJay I use a regular phone line and regular VTech cordless phones. My internet does go out periodically but I cannot blame that on Ooma. The biggest problem that I have is the power plug is sort of loose so if you barely touch the plug, it falls out and it takes a long time to boot back up. I had a lightning strike and it got my first unit so I bought a second one that had the same loose power plug issue. I now store it in the wiring closet to prevent anyone from accidentally touching it.
Been using Ooma for several years. Perfectly happy with it. It just works. And for only $3.70/month in taxes/fees (Gov't always gets its cut). $80 is a good price for the Ooma box.
Activate the Ooma service online. Plug the Ooma box into the Internet and plug your existing cordless phone into it. You're up and running.
I love my Ooma system, I didn't want to give up my landline number and miss calls from people who only have that one (accounts my dad had before he died, etc) so I just ported the number to Ooma and pay much less per month, even with Premier service (which recently added free calling to/from my cellphone, although I haven't tested that yet)
911 also works well from it, I have used that because it has my exact address unlike the cellular.
I have mine on the same UPS as my modem and router.
I recently moved and simply changed the service/911 address on the website. No calling a phone company and setting up move date, etc.
Ooma beats everything. One note of caution - Most of their slick features require that you use THEIR telephone. That's another $60 or so. If you want great sounding phone for $4/month, then buy it, and plug your phones into it. If you want other features that you see at ooma.com, make sure that you read up on which ones require "at least one Telo handset". Premier is not worth $10 unless you have an HD2, IMO. Also note, if you want your existing telco wall jacks to work like they do with your landline service, it requires a trip to the box on the side of your house for some snippy snip-snips. Should have >10 Mbits/sec internet, in my experience (I had 4 Mb/s long ago, and other people heard Klingon from my phone occasionally.).
@G1 I respectfully disagree that you need the Ooma handset to use "most of their slick features". We use ours with a Panasonic cordless phone system that pairs our mobile phones into it via Bluetooth. Also, depending on your needs, the Premier package could be very well worth it.
@RedOak I had Premier for almost a year, and I forget the small sub-set of features that it gave me, but it wasn't worth it TO ME. I'll admit, if I HAD an HD2, then the FULL Premier list is worth +$10/month, but I got a shitload of phones that I can use. I kinda miss that second number though... EDIT: Even with basic service, turn on that thing that texts you if someone from your home dials 911. Then hope you never get that text...
@G1 Yep, a personal choice. I use that second phone number that comes with the Premier package to support a side-business. But the list of other extra features is long and handy as well.
@theco2, at least in my case, the sound quality is much better than a cell. Plus, you know you have a phone at home. Plus, you pay only $3-4 a month vs $50-100 a month for a cell. (Yes, you have pay for Internet too... but presumably virtually everyone here would have that already.)
@theco2 I have had their original model since 2009. I may get this. One simple reason I'll never give up the landlines : call quality. Personally, mobile to mobile conversations are a pox on humanity. "what, what was that?" "you dropped out" awkward starts and stops. Grr. This is the first I've heard about the monthly taxes, though.
@haydesigner@ronnyd@G1 I have never had a problem with call quality in a few years. Then again, I don't use Sprint or T-Mobile and I only pay $45/month for my phone, which includes unlimited calls and data. I haven't needed or wanted a home phone in many years, so there is no use going back to the 90s, now. I did have a VoIP phone, years ago; the internet went out a few different times and I was stuck without a phone, so there is that.
@theco2 who says you can't have both this and your mobile? I have both. I prefer to use the ooma when i am home, mostly when I am working from home. Personally, I prefer the clarity of the landline, and the ooma provides that without a phone bill. I win. However, YMMV.
@theco2 Oh, also, can I borrow your time machine (which much also be a dimensional transporter) so that I can travel back to this alternative 90's where VOIP devices were all the rage?
@ronnyd Ok, maybe it was early 00s, now that I think about it. Anyway, I still don't see a reason to use it. I don't even talk on my cell phone enough to justify having a 2nd phone. Most of my communication is via email, text and message forums/Facebook.
@theco2 you clearly will not get the same mileage from this device as I have and should stay away. :) But I will assume you've already made that decision. However, how about this? IF you find yourself wanting or needing a landline THEN please consider this device.
Magic Jack is as low as $2 a month. I've had them for 5 or so years now. The MJ-Go device will forward your calls to your cell phone. I don't have the go device, but have the app which is supposed to do the same thing. Can't say the app works like it says, but the MJ itself is great for landline replacement service. Cheaper than Ooma all around.
@katbyter we tried Magic Jack prior to settling on Ooma. While MJ works OK most of the time, we wouldn't go back to it. We also got really tired of that stupid late night infomercial video auto-running everytime you went to the Magic Jack site to log into your account..
@RedOak Why do you not like it? Other than the admittedly annoying infomercial... I'm finding myself using it more than my cell phone when I'm at home because it now gets better signal most of the time.
@katbyter From their website, a year is $35 which is $2.91 and then you have to pay tax on top of that. "here is a 7.8% fee added to your purchase and/or there may be other pass through taxes, fees or surcharges where applicable." Ooma just charges the taxes that are required for your area.
@katbyterour Magic Jack dislike: 1) Sound quality was inconsistent. 2) Needed to use their support several times - was not pretty. 3) No answering machine-like box. (just a dongle). 4) Took 3 tries to port our old number over vs one try for Ooma (and it was very clear Ooma was actively managing the transfer). 5) Ooma chat support if you have any questions is generally pretty good.
@RedOak We've had a MJ for about 6 years and a MJ Plus for the last 2+ years. The call quality is perfect now. There is no discernible difference between it, a cell phone and a land line anymore. We used to use our old home answering machine with it and just delayed the MJ voicemail pickup for 6 rings so our answering machine would pick up first but eventually we switched to the MJ voicemail since it forwarded every voicemail to my wife and I via email. Plus, we now had an archive of all of our voicemails. Haven't really had to use chat/tech support after our initial switch to MJ. 6+ years without needing tech support is pretty good.
@kcmark great that you like MJ. But since there are several of us in the house, we find being able to tap the voice mail button on the Ooma box handy for checking messages. Also easy for everyone in the room to hear messages that might apply to them.
Other handy features of the Ooma box: pre-screening calls as the message is left and do not disturb by holding down the VM button which sends all calls to VM. (Both Premier features.)
Being e-voice mail, the messages are archived just like MJ unless you delete them. Can even save them off to separate email-able sound files if you like. You need a separate paid service/app to do that on a cell phone.
I have one of these already for about a year now. Works great. It's about $4/month and I got to pick my phone number. Why pay more for a home phone?
I have a cell, but it's nice to have a second line for resumes, business calls etc. that I worry about fuzzy connections. It pairs well with a regular phone (I don't use their special phone or Premier.)
Ya got me - I kept missing this on Wo.. woo... well you know where. I did find it listed for about the same price on Ebay (w/o the bluetooth). I was always one of the 'landlines are always on so good to have when the power fails' but at this point we use our land line so seldom that it seems silly to pay all the extra fees for a long distance plan that we never use.
I used to have a very early majic jack and have a friend who loves hers but I have more confidence in Ooma based on what I have read over the last few months.
@ilovereality You can say Woot here. Regarding buying on eBay, be very very careful. If the phone has been registered to someone before, there is a $75 fee to transfer a device from one person's account to another. I almost went this route when I had a lightning strike destroy my first unit until I called Ooma and they advised me of that transfer fee.
@cengland0 I heard about that same $75 transfer/activation fee for a used Ooma box on one of the Woot sales last year. I asked Ooma at that time and they said that used to be the case, but no longer is.
I may be the cheapest guy on earth, I bought my ooma unit, the first white one, probably in 2009, have been using it since, its free because at that time there were no taxes so it was the best 200 bucks I ever spent
@rhedayi Actually, Ooma made an error when they did that and they are having to pay the taxes for you. They are taking a loss but they are honoring their commitment of not charging the customer. Once they discovered the government is making them collect the taxes, they do charge the customer at least that amount.
@RandomQuark Not a bad video, but anyone who pays $180 for the box hasn't done any shopping. They are regularly availble for around $100. And that $40 keep your existing phone number fee is a good excuse to try the Premier package for a year since they waive the $40 that way.
@unixrab I'd say at least a dozen of those 52,221 already own one, but then I guess they have rights to bitch just like you. Couldn't find anything to sell this weekend - everyone is gone at CES :(
@snapster you're a master of understatement. Since quite a few more than a dozen of the folks now on meh came from Woot, I'll bet there are several hundred (like me) who already have Ooma. When you're a cheapskate like us, you search out bargains like Ooma.
I wish I could convince my parents to switch to this. They pay a stupid amount of money for a landline that they've had for the last 30+ years and they don't even have caller ID. I think they might actually pay more to NOT have caller ID.
@christinerenee they pay more because they are on a legacy plan, call their phone company and threaten to switch, they might give you a better deal. i remember paying verizon $40 for only local calling.
@christinerenee I'd be very surprised if threatening to leave would get you much, if any of a discount. The legacy phone companies are eager to dump the old fashioned POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service). It is more expensive for them to operate (vs. the VoIP telephone service in cable packages) and fewer and fewer folks are on it. Watch your parents' monthly cost go up every 6 months to 'encourage' them off of it.
@RedOak I had both Ooma and a POTS line until last month. I went to cancel my POTS line and AT&T was very eager to save me considering I had that line for over 20 years. They asked if they could check for better offers but at that time I was already upset about the $45/month I was paying for the most basic of local service (no call forwarding, no call waiting, no caller id, etc). I just canceled without seeing what offers were going to be available.
@cengland0 I'll bet they attempted to convert you to a U-Verse VoIP package - that's what they tried with us. ;-) ... BTW, AT&T filed with the FCC for relief from being required to offer POTS (requirement of their market dominence at one time) - didn't hear the result.
Lookie here, anybody that wants to make some comparison of a cheesy Magic Jack to Ooma, or complain about a $3 monthly fee, or make a statement like "my cellphone is just as good as a landline" or whatever other pathetic excuse for not buying this Meh deal qualifies for a knuckle sandwich from yours truly. I've been adding some mustard on them lately so they've been extra tasty. Hell yeah!
@stoopkid Huh? The LAN line is far from being obsolete. Did you mean "Land line"? Those are nice if you want to fax something, have an alarm system, run a small business, want to use regular phones, etc. If you only have a cell phone, how many hours do you get before your battery is dead and how many minutes of free calling do you get for less than $4/month?
@cengland0 You CAN fax through a VOIP line like this, but it's not great. Other services allow you to scan and basically "email" a fax to some number. I can see the alarm system point...particularly if there is a power outage that would take out your router and stuff. Also, you can use regular phones with the Ooma. Maybe we're talking about different things though...
We had another VOIP service, and had issues with call quality when all the neighborhood kids got hone from school and sucked up the Internet. Switched to Ooma, which has QoS capabilities, and call quality returned to normal that day. I work from home often, so I put hours of free minutes on Ooma, and never an overage charge and perfect quality.
Why still a landline? Maybe I don't want to be accessible 24x7. The pharmacy autorefill calls, the "confirming your appointment", and business loyalty programs all get my Ooma number.
We went with the Premier service so we could keep our land-line phone number. We still save a ton of money over ATT basic monthly land-line cost. We have not had any issues and the email notification is very handy.
This is the best price I have seen and I'm tempted to buy one as a back-up. How much does Ooma charge for out-of-warranty equipment replacement?
I have an Ooma and love it. Used to have Cox home phone. When I cancelled that all I had to do was plug my ooma into my phone jack. Now all the jacks in my house are live and I can plug any corded phone into a jack.
It's worth it to have a 2nd phone to cell. Because who knows when you'll drop your cell phone in the toilet and otherwise be inaccessible.
I have Ooma. I buy the premier service. I use the 2nd line for my unified communications setup. Dial 1 number to reach me. The day and time determine which phones ring for me. I can give out my google number, that forwards calls through my Ooma's 2nd number giving my Google number Ooma's Community Blacklist, Anonymous Call Blocking, Personal blacklist. My point is I rarely get call spammed. I also get Voice Mail via email.
@caffeine_dude Help me out here. What is this ooma thingy? First I'm hearing of it. I hace at&t cell (mobile share 4 devices) and comcast internet & home phone. How would/could ooma be practical for me? thanks.
Had an Ooma, but had to leave it behind when I moved out. Grabbed a NetTalk Duo. It SUCKED out loud. Terrible service to boot. I'm jumping at the chance today to get back on Team Ooma. Calls sound great, the old-school answering machine feel of VM playback is great. And...faxes work. YES I'M OVER FORTY, SHUT UP. For the record I hate VM, but my family doesn't! So I have to listen to them, and playback on the box is awesome. And I only fax about once a month. And sure, I could do eFax (or some facsimile thereof (see what I did there)), but this is stone simple and works.
If you don't mind learning how to set it up, you can get a generic 'Analog Telephone Adapter' (search for that phrase) which will work with any VoIP provider that uses the SIP protocol. This typically excludes providers that use custom hardware like Ooma, Vonage, MagicJack; but you can find a list of well-liked providers here (under VoIP): http://www.dslreports.com/gbu
They often have equivalent or better features for the same or lower prices, and the nice thing is you can switch providers (even port your number) at any time while keeping all the same hardware. But again, you have to be somewhat technically-minded and willing to learn how it works.
I have the original Ooma Telo, and it's pretty slick. It has a mobile app I can check my home voicemail from my iphone, and it works great as a "land line". I don't know anything about the bluetooth portion of it though.
Very excited for this. We're building a new vacation house and looking at all services (telco, cable, security) to determine what we need and don't need. Internet is a must but all other services look to be on the chopping block! Maybe I'll play with it in my current home and if it works well - then maybe I'll pick up a 2nd one in a MEH-OFF.
@Oharafamily a cool feature of Ooma (and Magic Jack) for vacation homes - you can simply unplug the home box and take it with you, plug it in at your vaction home. (Remember to update the 911 address each time you move it - easy online!)
I pay for an unlisted number now. I'm not going to buy the premium package, will I be re-introduced to telemarketers? And my number is going to still remain private/unlisted because ooma doesn't have a directory right? (For people that are listed in the phone book, is your number still listed when you go to ooma?)
Great write -up and great comments.A reason I bought it is my trust in the community.
@wew There is satisfaction in the Ooma Premier package for victims of telemarketers: for those numbers you can tell Ooma to let it ring, send directly to VM, or even tell them the number is inactive (my fav). And you benefit from the Ooma community tagging telemarketers.
@RedOak I think Ooma charges too much for their premier service considering you can get most of those services from Google Voice for free. I've never had a telemarketer call my Ooma number or my Google Voice number. They would call my POTS line all the time -- so much that I turned off the ringer on that line. So I don't even know what my Ooma number is and I never give that out to anyone. Everyone gets my Google Voice number and that gets forwarded to both my Ooma and cell phone at the same time. For free, I can block any number through Google. If my Ooma rings but my cellphone doesn't, that is suspicious and it has always been a wrong number -- not a telemarketer.
We have a Magicjack Plus connected to our router and I don't see how this would be any better. We pay $40/yr and get voicemail forwarded as .wav files to mine and my wife's cell phones via email. We have caller ID and call forwarding and we NEVER get robocalls. The output from the magicjack plugs into the adjacent telephone wall jack and feeds all the phones in the house. We previously had the original Magicjack that required a PC to be on, which worked just as well, but it's nice to know be able to turn off our desktop and know that the phones will still work fine. I've heard good things about Ooma but there's no way I'd spend $120/year on the premium features when we get the same features for 1/3 the price already.
The only downside of the MJ is that it requires 10-digit dialing - always. Given that we have multiple area codes in our area, we're pretty much used to doing this anyway.
@kcmark no need to sign up for Premier on Ooma but it contains a lot more features than those you noted in your comment. Without Premier the cost for Ooma is similar to MJ but you also get the very handy control box so no need to use a phone to check VMs.
The competition between the two companies is great for us as consumers. Even tho MJ is much older, it had been forced to improve dramatically to keep up with Ooma quality/features.
@VeeDubTDI we rarely dial manually these days - if the number we are calling is not in our directory/favorites, we google it on our smartphones and click dial it from there.
same here, we do whitepagesdotcom, then click 'call' if necessary, then save. whitepages better than yp even for businesses, i find. (google is great too)
Has anyone that uses Ooma send/receive faxes with it? Does it work well? My wife sends faxes about twice a year (at most) yet this is a big deal for her to get rid of our landline which we overpay for.
@Kerig3@CraigDanger mentions above "And...faxes work. YES I'M OVER FORTY, SHUT UP. For the record I hate VM, but my family doesn't! So I have to listen to them, and playback on the box is awesome. And I only fax about once a month. And sure, I could do eFax (or some facsimile thereof (see what I did there)), but this is stone simple and works."
@JonT pressed-laddered-parrot Thanks and bought! I just checked my landline bill and those bastages just raised the cost on us...again. And at that outrageous price I pay for my landline, I die inside a little bit every time a telemarketer calls...and about 80% of the calls I receive are from stupid telemarketers! :-(
@Kerig3@johnt@nickm461 I use it for fax as well. It is a bit slower so it is probably connecting at a slightly lower baud rate than with a POTS line. Also, if you dial *99 before the rest of the number, it tells the Ooma system to optimize the connection for faxes.
@Kerig3@johnt@nickm461@cengland0 Fax via Ooma works for us as well. I recall reading they did something over the past year to make it more fax-friendly/aware too. Whenever we've had an issue, we've added "*96" in front of the phone number dialed and that worked (I think it slows down the speed).
@Kerig3 also, note Fax technology is analog-based and predates by decades, digital VoIP phone lines which break up the traffic into separate packets. So faxing does fit better with (analog) POTS lines. Thank goodness more and more govt entities are finally swearing off Fax.
My regular phone line comes into a junction box in the basement, then from there a line goes out to each phone jack in the house, basically a diagram like a starfish with the source in the center and a home phone at each tip.
If I plug the ooma into the center of the junction box as the source, which then is wired to the other phones in the house, will that work on all the phones? Or can you only plug ONE phone directly into the ooma box?
@mbimeh you have what is called "home run" wiring, pretty common for phone lines. You can hook up Ooma either way, in the center or at one of the 'tentacles' - the signal will back feed to the others as long as all those wiring runs are connected together at the center. To be clear (hopefully) - you can either plug a single phone into the Ooma box or you can connect it to one of your tentacles or to the center/junction box. But if you want to use your existing phone wiring you should disconnect the connection that goes from that junction box to the telephone company. One big caution: if you have AT&T UVerse or Any DSL for your Internet do NOT disconnect the "phone company feed to your junction box!
so... I am patiently waiting for this to come back around on Meh... But I see it on Woot... for a lot less.. ($69 + I have a $10 off coupon...+ shipping...damn no VMP) Anyway, I'm wondering how people like this. What do people think of it? I'm thinking for when we have a babysitter over(although who doesn't have a cell phone these days...) /fax line as we haven't had a land line in years... Please advise if you guys think it's worth it for under $70 shipped?
Specs
Condition - Refurbished
Warranty: 1 Year Ooma
Estimated Delivery: 1/19 - 1/21
Ships Via - FedEx SmartPost
What’s in the Box?
1x Ooma Telo
1x Bluetooth adapter
1x Ethernet cable
1x AC adapter
1x Quick Start Guide.
Pictures
Ooma Telo
What’s included
Oh no it’s that damn sock again
Price Check
$129.99 List, $109.99 at Amazon for the Telo (New)
$29.99 List, $29.95 at Amazon for the Bluetooth adapter
Warranty
90 days
@mediocrebot So is this one of those shady things that pretends to be a rural telco?
@mcanavino hmmm right now 9110 people have visited..and 10 have been sold. ...
I may have to revise my idiot factor from 125:4 to 911:1 ouch... I'll check back in the AM.... certainly can't be bad to a factor of 9
@mcanavino ever heard of magic jack? its like that except the audio quality is better. the idea is you pay $3 a month for 5000 mins of calling and you get to use a real normal phat phone. its for the people that want a home phone but dont want to pay verizon $40 for just local calling.
@unixrab Yet another ear speaker dock...
Goodnight meh! zzzzz....
You still have to pay $4 worth of regulatory fees each month.
@grammarsheriff Good to know, damn. Is it always expected to be free aside from the initial cost and taxes? Or does this use google voice protocols or something?
@grammarsheriff does anyone rememeber the good old ooma days when it was completely free
@grammarsheriff I will stick with my free obitalk
@communist Yes, it started out as free until the government wanted a piece of the action. Ooma still doesn't charge for their monthly services unless you get the premier/premium package. I don't use that because I also have google voice and it does everything that you pay for in the premium package.
@communist still on a free plan with an old gen model
@jsblair17 +1 obitalk. Speaking of which, I should test that for the "home phone" I never use.
I use Ooma now and it's great. Very cheap like $3.50/month in taxes and that's all.
@cengland0 - Same here. Got it refurbed from Woot several years ago. I like the musical tone when you push "talk".
Oomeh
Hmm. I'd get this but I already have and use one.
@andrewpatrick Same here... I've got the previous generation model, and have had it for 3 years or so.
lol what is this thing? The voice from "Her", the movie?
@xEBRONx its like a slightly more expensive magicjack, apparently the voice quality is better too
I actually love Ooma. I've been using them for several years. No complaints. Excellent quality. Wonderful features and flexibility.
@RandomQuark my sentiments exactly! I've confidently recommended Ooma to lots of people.
At least no ones going to complain about this one selling out too soon, so that's good.
I have the older version of this. I bought it at Woot about 3 years ago. I have never had any regrets about my purchase. Best $100 I spent that year.
They charge about $3.50 or so a month in taxes, but aside from that, it's free. I highly recommend anyone that's required to carry a landline for work to look into these.
The only downside is they won't work if your internet or power goes down (a true landline will).
@capguncowboy That's why we all have cell phones too. Set your ooma service to automatically forward to cell if no power. Downside eliminated.
@RandomQuark I only use my Ooma for work. I don't want to talk to those bastards anyway. I certainly don't plan to answer it if the power is out. No power = no work!
@RandomQuark said: "Set your ooma service to automatically forward to cell if no power." Why even have the Ooma? Use your cell phone and downside eliminated without the over $36 extra fees per year.
@Kyser_Soze This is for those that want/need a "land line". If you are happy with your cell, then this would be a waist for you. However, call quality is MUCH better with ooma then cell phone. For those of us with young kids, a landline is nearly a necessity.
@Kyser_Soze My wife uses ours to call her cell phone at home when she can't find it. I suppose she could also use Find My iPhone from the computer, but she's more likely to call me from the home phone and ask me to do it.
@Kyser_Soze You assume everyone has cell phone service. I live 20 miles outside of Boston and have no cell service from all carriers.
@RandomQuark "Why even have Ooma?" Plenty of good reasons listed in the thread. It's the best-sounding home VoIP I've used.
@Kyser_Soze $36 a year for Ooma allowed my wife and I cut our cell phone bills by well over $40 each month. We pay for fewer minutes and have better quality/reception at home now.
No Texas orange!
I love purple.
@Barney something something baby arms
@ic2283 That's my b... wait... that's not my boy
It's cool and all...but I don't want or need it, so meh.
@alacrity I love it
My house has had one for a couple years. Love the thing! No problems what so ever! 3 bucks a month for unlimited nationwide calling down from $25. I highly recommend this! I bought my refurn for like $120 so this is great!
I've had Ooma for 4 years or so. It's a great service. If you get Premier, you can even blacklist numbers you don't want to call you. The $10 a month is worth that feature alone.....
@dewaynelawson I'd say the Google Voice integration is the best part of the premium service.
@deafinoneear I've never used that, as I'm saving that extra # for a potential move.
Where's my speaker dock? It's Friday!
@somf69 blame the koreans, they bought like 10,000 of them last time they were on meh..
@somf69 There is a speaker inside of Ooma. It will play your voicemail messages from the console.
agh you disappoint Meh, I have thrown my money at tigerdirect for what I requested you have, not the rice cooker, I still need that if you wanna get on that too, also a really cheap mobile hotspot would be great that works good enough to game on sometimes thanks yours trully @sp3ar
like skype 10,000 minute limit, ooma apparently also has a limit of 5,000 mins on the "unlimited" with a $40 overage charge
from the third amazon review http://www.amazon.com/Ooma-Telo-Phone-Service-Device/dp/B00I4XMEYA/ref=lh_ni_t?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER
@communist That is for outbound calls only. It's on their FAQ page. http://www.ooma.com/company/faqs
@cengland0 And they "enforce it on a case-by-case basis in the event that a subscriber is clearly abusing the service". So I imagine most of us will probably be fine.
@communist It's for people that are running a business, but only want to pay residential rates.
@communist Dude! Thats over 2 hrs of talk time a day. No good communist would talk anywhere near that much.
@enoch I calculated it more like 83 hours a week. I've had Ooma for several years and didn't even know about that limit until today. Anyway, over 80 hours for 4 weeks would mean that I'd have to be on the phone for outbound calls for more than 50% of my day to hit that limit. With an average of 21 working days a month, that would be almost 4 hours a day and all those calls must be outgoing calls.
@enoch have you seen teenagers these days?
@communist Yes, they no longer know how to "talk" on the phone...text, picture messages, tweets...that's it.
What?! No! Meh...
I prefer obi with google voice. Similar features, and no fees at all.
@liammc 100% free is good. But Obi-Google Voice is for geeks (I'm one, so that is a term of endearment). Would not recommend it for folks who just want to plug stuff in and have it work.
@RedOak Obi might be a tiny bit harder to set up (not really) but once you set it up for non geek friends it just works. So therefore I WOULD recomment it for those folks if you are ok taking the 5 minutes to set it up for them.
@jdp okay I'll help. Heres the setup process for those who are not familiar. Worst case, they can use a video
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Obi+with+google+voice+setup
@liammc Me too. Didn't want to give up my home phone number, so transferred that to google voice. i my home phone also has blluetooth, so i have that connected to a spare cell phone. Make calls on either line from the same handset.
@liammc Dude. Wrong use of lmgtfy.
@cengland0 http://bit.ly/1AAr8tH
@Cinoclav Yes, you got it right.
I purchased an Ooma for my mom in 2011 from Woot. We were switching around various telecom services to save money, and being old-fashioned, she insisted on keeping a land line.
So now it's been going 4 years strong. I'm really impressed with it. Setup is easy as cake. Service is reliable. The online interface is really nice, and more importantly, it only costs two or three bucks a month (literally).
Probably the best internet-phone solution out there as far as I know. Can't comment on how good their customer service is, because I've never needed it. My mom claims to have had a few phone calls that have dropped out, but I've personally never had an issue. (Then again, she is a bit tech-illiterate and has been known to accidentally press the hangup button with her face.) Highly recommended.
Edit: We use Centurylink. It's not as fast as Comcast, but it's been far more stable than Comcast, at least in our area. We also use a third-party telephone set, not an Ooma-branded one.
I also have never been aware of any overage charges for using too many minutes, until someone mentioned it above. I don't believe we've ever been fined for it (I would have heard my mom freaking out about it if we did. She watches her bank statement like a hawk. Maybe it's a recent thing though.) My mom spends a lot of time on the phone though, so I'm guessing it must be somewhat forgiving. I also can't seem to find anyway of viewing monthly minutes usage on the Ooma website.
My wife and I have Ooma. And we bought their phone to use with it and the phone totally sucks. The battery constantly dies. Add to that comcast service that regularly konks out on us, and we have a very unreliable phone.
If you buy this, just make sure you have reliable internet and do not buy an Ooma phone to use with it!
@daveJay... You could always replace the battery? The do wear out, and occasionally there is just plain bad one.
@daveJay I use a regular phone line and regular VTech cordless phones. My internet does go out periodically but I cannot blame that on Ooma. The biggest problem that I have is the power plug is sort of loose so if you barely touch the plug, it falls out and it takes a long time to boot back up. I had a lightning strike and it got my first unit so I bought a second one that had the same loose power plug issue. I now store it in the wiring closet to prevent anyone from accidentally touching it.
Can I use this as a bluetooth rock speaker dock wireless headset?
@jjohns71 no wireless ip camera built in?
Been using Ooma for several years. Perfectly happy with it. It just works. And for only $3.70/month in taxes/fees (Gov't always gets its cut). $80 is a good price for the Ooma box.
Activate the Ooma service online. Plug the Ooma box into the Internet and plug your existing cordless phone into it. You're up and running.
You don't need their "Premier" extra feature package, but it is really handy and well worth considering.
MEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
I love my Ooma system, I didn't want to give up my landline number and miss calls from people who only have that one (accounts my dad had before he died, etc) so I just ported the number to Ooma and pay much less per month, even with Premier service (which recently added free calling to/from my cellphone, although I haven't tested that yet)
911 also works well from it, I have used that because it has my exact address unlike the cellular.
I have mine on the same UPS as my modem and router.
I recently moved and simply changed the service/911 address on the website. No calling a phone company and setting up move date, etc.
WTF kinda name is Ooma? And what kind of perversion would use Ooma with Bluetooth?
Ooma? Does that stand for something or is it the CEO's granddaughter's name? Curious minds wanna know.
Today's meh face:
@VeeDubTDI Too bad they don't ship to Canada. Sorry Terrance; sorry Philip.
@VeeDubTDI Don't call me buddy, guy!
@PocketBrain I'm not your guy, friend!
@PocketBrain Jazz, isn't he?
Ooma beats everything. One note of caution - Most of their slick features require that you use THEIR telephone. That's another $60 or so. If you want great sounding phone for $4/month, then buy it, and plug your phones into it. If you want other features that you see at ooma.com, make sure that you read up on which ones require "at least one Telo handset". Premier is not worth $10 unless you have an HD2, IMO. Also note, if you want your existing telco wall jacks to work like they do with your landline service, it requires a trip to the box on the side of your house for some snippy snip-snips. Should have >10 Mbits/sec internet, in my experience (I had 4 Mb/s long ago, and other people heard Klingon from my phone occasionally.).
@G1 I respectfully disagree that you need the Ooma handset to use "most of their slick features". We use ours with a Panasonic cordless phone system that pairs our mobile phones into it via Bluetooth. Also, depending on your needs, the Premier package could be very well worth it.
@RedOak I had Premier for almost a year, and I forget the small sub-set of features that it gave me, but it wasn't worth it TO ME. I'll admit, if I HAD an HD2, then the FULL Premier list is worth +$10/month, but I got a shitload of phones that I can use. I kinda miss that second number though... EDIT: Even with basic service, turn on that thing that texts you if someone from your home dials 911. Then hope you never get that text...
@G1 Yep, a personal choice. I use that second phone number that comes with the Premier package to support a side-business. But the list of other extra features is long and handy as well.
I have a cell phone; why would I need one of these?
@theco2, at least in my case, the sound quality is much better than a cell. Plus, you know you have a phone at home. Plus, you pay only $3-4 a month vs $50-100 a month for a cell. (Yes, you have pay for Internet too... but presumably virtually everyone here would have that already.)
@theco2 I have had their original model since 2009. I may get this. One simple reason I'll never give up the landlines : call quality. Personally, mobile to mobile conversations are a pox on humanity. "what, what was that?" "you dropped out" awkward starts and stops. Grr. This is the first I've heard about the monthly taxes, though.
@ronnyd I agree about cellular voice quality. Ooma really IS landline quality, IMO. Need good internet speeds.
@theco2 this basically. t-mobile offers free wifi calls and texts, so... womp.
@haydesigner @ronnyd @G1 I have never had a problem with call quality in a few years. Then again, I don't use Sprint or T-Mobile and I only pay $45/month for my phone, which includes unlimited calls and data. I haven't needed or wanted a home phone in many years, so there is no use going back to the 90s, now. I did have a VoIP phone, years ago; the internet went out a few different times and I was stuck without a phone, so there is that.
@theco2 who says you can't have both this and your mobile? I have both. I prefer to use the ooma when i am home, mostly when I am working from home. Personally, I prefer the clarity of the landline, and the ooma provides that without a phone bill. I win. However, YMMV.
@theco2 Oh, also, can I borrow your time machine (which much also be a dimensional transporter) so that I can travel back to this alternative 90's where VOIP devices were all the rage?
@ronnyd Ok, maybe it was early 00s, now that I think about it. Anyway, I still don't see a reason to use it. I don't even talk on my cell phone enough to justify having a 2nd phone. Most of my communication is via email, text and message forums/Facebook.
@theco2 you clearly will not get the same mileage from this device as I have and should stay away. :) But I will assume you've already made that decision. However, how about this? IF you find yourself wanting or needing a landline THEN please consider this device.
@ronnyd I definitely will, if it comes to that. Thanks!
This would imply anyone is going to call me. Come on meh, know your audience.
Magic Jack is as low as $2 a month. I've had them for 5 or so years now. The MJ-Go device will forward your calls to your cell phone. I don't have the go device, but have the app which is supposed to do the same thing. Can't say the app works like it says, but the MJ itself is great for landline replacement service. Cheaper than Ooma all around.
@katbyter we tried Magic Jack prior to settling on Ooma. While MJ works OK most of the time, we wouldn't go back to it. We also got really tired of that stupid late night infomercial video auto-running everytime you went to the Magic Jack site to log into your account..
@RedOak Why do you not like it? Other than the admittedly annoying infomercial... I'm finding myself using it more than my cell phone when I'm at home because it now gets better signal most of the time.
@katbyter I've heard Magic Jack quality is noticeably worse.
@katbyter From their website, a year is $35 which is $2.91 and then you have to pay tax on top of that. "here is a 7.8% fee added to your purchase and/or there may be other pass through taxes, fees or surcharges where applicable." Ooma just charges the taxes that are required for your area.
@katbyter our Magic Jack dislike: 1) Sound quality was inconsistent. 2) Needed to use their support several times - was not pretty. 3) No answering machine-like box. (just a dongle). 4) Took 3 tries to port our old number over vs one try for Ooma (and it was very clear Ooma was actively managing the transfer). 5) Ooma chat support if you have any questions is generally pretty good.
@RedOak We've had a MJ for about 6 years and a MJ Plus for the last 2+ years. The call quality is perfect now. There is no discernible difference between it, a cell phone and a land line anymore. We used to use our old home answering machine with it and just delayed the MJ voicemail pickup for 6 rings so our answering machine would pick up first but eventually we switched to the MJ voicemail since it forwarded every voicemail to my wife and I via email. Plus, we now had an archive of all of our voicemails. Haven't really had to use chat/tech support after our initial switch to MJ. 6+ years without needing tech support is pretty good.
@kcmark great that you like MJ. But since there are several of us in the house, we find being able to tap the voice mail button on the Ooma box handy for checking messages. Also easy for everyone in the room to hear messages that might apply to them.
Other handy features of the Ooma box: pre-screening calls as the message is left and do not disturb by holding down the VM button which sends all calls to VM. (Both Premier features.)
Being e-voice mail, the messages are archived just like MJ unless you delete them. Can even save them off to separate email-able sound files if you like. You need a separate paid service/app to do that on a cell phone.
I have one of these already for about a year now. Works great. It's about $4/month and I got to pick my phone number. Why pay more for a home phone?
I have a cell, but it's nice to have a second line for resumes, business calls etc. that I worry about fuzzy connections. It pairs well with a regular phone (I don't use their special phone or Premier.)
Ya got me - I kept missing this on Wo.. woo... well you know where. I did find it listed for about the same price on Ebay (w/o the bluetooth). I was always one of the 'landlines are always on so good to have when the power fails' but at this point we use our land line so seldom that it seems silly to pay all the extra fees for a long distance plan that we never use.
I used to have a very early majic jack and have a friend who loves hers but I have more confidence in Ooma based on what I have read over the last few months.
@ilovereality You can say Woot here. Regarding buying on eBay, be very very careful. If the phone has been registered to someone before, there is a $75 fee to transfer a device from one person's account to another. I almost went this route when I had a lightning strike destroy my first unit until I called Ooma and they advised me of that transfer fee.
@cengland0 I heard about that same $75 transfer/activation fee for a used Ooma box on one of the Woot sales last year. I asked Ooma at that time and they said that used to be the case, but no longer is.
I may be the cheapest guy on earth, I bought my ooma unit, the first white one, probably in 2009, have been using it since, its free because at that time there were no taxes so it was the best 200 bucks I ever spent
@rhedayi Actually, Ooma made an error when they did that and they are having to pay the taxes for you. They are taking a loss but they are honoring their commitment of not charging the customer. Once they discovered the government is making them collect the taxes, they do charge the customer at least that amount.
Here's a pretty good review about hidden cost you may encounter switching to Ooma. Spoiler: it is still worth it for most people.
@RandomQuark Not a bad video, but anyone who pays $180 for the box hasn't done any shopping. They are regularly availble for around $100. And that $40 keep your existing phone number fee is a good excuse to try the Premier package for a year since they waive the $40 that way.
List of Premier package features here: http://ooma.com/products/premier
Well I guess everyone will get a chance at this one...congrats all of America
@outlaw2006 what? won't be sold out?
@unixrab Not unless they're only selling about 20 of them.
@christinerenee so far 48 have sold... and 30000 people have visited... idiot ratio: 2563:4 yeeeouch
Pass! Meh!
@Stallion ......tha potatoes
mindboggling. Is there a bonus for products that produce the most disdain amongst us? Trying to find the angle here.
Above: visitor comes to meh.com, sees ooma, leaves.
@unixrab Above: skeptic expects disdain, finds it. Others rejoice below. (& here http://www.cnet.com/news/five-deal-friday-ooma-beats-gaffigan-and-more/)
@unixrab & here:
@snapster heh... well... this time i'm with the 52,221 skeptics..., not the 222 (17:08 EST) "rejoicers" ;-)
@unixrab I'd say at least a dozen of those 52,221 already own one, but then I guess they have rights to bitch just like you. Couldn't find anything to sell this weekend - everyone is gone at CES :(
@snapster I am one of those dozen who already has an Ooma. Silly @unixrab! I don't need another. ;)
@medz ... I sit corrected. 52,220. @snapster it wasn't so much 'bitching' as it was 'mild mocking' or perhaps a 'taunt' ?
@unixrab hmm, yes, leave it to you to be more pc than me too. I was going to say I won this one but now I've thrown it away.
@snapster buck up lil camper... there's always tonight!
@snapster you're a master of understatement. Since quite a few more than a dozen of the folks now on meh came from Woot, I'll bet there are several hundred (like me) who already have Ooma. When you're a cheapskate like us, you search out bargains like Ooma.
what is this 'landline' of which you speak... i've been rid such things since 2004
I wish I could convince my parents to switch to this. They pay a stupid amount of money for a landline that they've had for the last 30+ years and they don't even have caller ID. I think they might actually pay more to NOT have caller ID.
@christinerenee they pay more because they are on a legacy plan, call their phone company and threaten to switch, they might give you a better deal. i remember paying verizon $40 for only local calling.
@communist Good idea, thanks. Maybe if I can get my stepdad riled up about how he's getting cheated he'll make the call himself.
@christinerenee I'd be very surprised if threatening to leave would get you much, if any of a discount. The legacy phone companies are eager to dump the old fashioned POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service). It is more expensive for them to operate (vs. the VoIP telephone service in cable packages) and fewer and fewer folks are on it. Watch your parents' monthly cost go up every 6 months to 'encourage' them off of it.
@RedOak I had both Ooma and a POTS line until last month. I went to cancel my POTS line and AT&T was very eager to save me considering I had that line for over 20 years. They asked if they could check for better offers but at that time I was already upset about the $45/month I was paying for the most basic of local service (no call forwarding, no call waiting, no caller id, etc). I just canceled without seeing what offers were going to be available.
@cengland0 death to landlines! I salute you.
@cengland0 I'll bet they attempted to convert you to a U-Verse VoIP package - that's what they tried with us. ;-) ... BTW, AT&T filed with the FCC for relief from being required to offer POTS (requirement of their market dominence at one time) - didn't hear the result.
Lookie here, anybody that wants to make some comparison of a cheesy Magic Jack to Ooma, or complain about a $3 monthly fee, or make a statement like "my cellphone is just as good as a landline" or whatever other pathetic excuse for not buying this Meh deal qualifies for a knuckle sandwich from yours truly. I've been adding some mustard on them lately so they've been extra tasty. Hell yeah!
@SILINT ... my cellphone is better, I mean, just as good as a landline.
How do you solve the problem of the LAN line becoming obsolete? Make it more expensive and have it rely on other services!
@stoopkid Huh? The LAN line is far from being obsolete. Did you mean "Land line"? Those are nice if you want to fax something, have an alarm system, run a small business, want to use regular phones, etc. If you only have a cell phone, how many hours do you get before your battery is dead and how many minutes of free calling do you get for less than $4/month?
@cengland0 You CAN fax through a VOIP line like this, but it's not great. Other services allow you to scan and basically "email" a fax to some number. I can see the alarm system point...particularly if there is a power outage that would take out your router and stuff. Also, you can use regular phones with the Ooma. Maybe we're talking about different things though...
We had another VOIP service, and had issues with call quality when all the neighborhood kids got hone from school and sucked up the Internet. Switched to Ooma, which has QoS capabilities, and call quality returned to normal that day. I work from home often, so I put hours of free minutes on Ooma, and never an overage charge and perfect quality.
Why still a landline? Maybe I don't want to be accessible 24x7. The pharmacy autorefill calls, the "confirming your appointment", and business loyalty programs all get my Ooma number.
Is this factory refurbished ??
We went with the Premier service so we could keep our land-line phone number. We still save a ton of money over ATT basic monthly land-line cost. We have not had any issues and the email notification is very handy.
This is the best price I have seen and I'm tempted to buy one as a back-up. How much does Ooma charge for out-of-warranty equipment replacement?
No Georgia Red. . . for that alone, meh.
related. Parents have ooma. They love it and have no problems with it.
@jrwofuga That's my boy!
I love purple.
had this system when they first came out. was free now 3.50 a mo. works fine does all I need for a house phone. Verizon hates it.
I have an Ooma and love it. Used to have Cox home phone. When I cancelled that all I had to do was plug my ooma into my phone jack. Now all the jacks in my house are live and I can plug any corded phone into a jack.
It's worth it to have a 2nd phone to cell. Because who knows when you'll drop your cell phone in the toilet and otherwise be inaccessible.
I have Ooma. I buy the premier service. I use the 2nd line for my unified communications setup. Dial 1 number to reach me. The day and time determine which phones ring for me. I can give out my google number, that forwards calls through my Ooma's 2nd number giving my Google number Ooma's Community Blacklist, Anonymous Call Blocking, Personal blacklist.
My point is I rarely get call spammed.
I also get Voice Mail via email.
@caffeine_dude Help me out here. What is this ooma thingy? First I'm hearing of it. I hace at&t cell (mobile share 4 devices) and comcast internet & home phone. How would/could ooma be practical for me? thanks.
@YahSah15 ...I have...
I should mention I have 2 Google numbers.
Had an Ooma, but had to leave it behind when I moved out. Grabbed a NetTalk Duo. It SUCKED out loud. Terrible service to boot. I'm jumping at the chance today to get back on Team Ooma. Calls sound great, the old-school answering machine feel of VM playback is great. And...faxes work. YES I'M OVER FORTY, SHUT UP. For the record I hate VM, but my family doesn't! So I have to listen to them, and playback on the box is awesome. And I only fax about once a month. And sure, I could do eFax (or some facsimile thereof (see what I did there)), but this is stone simple and works.
If you don't mind learning how to set it up, you can get a generic 'Analog Telephone Adapter' (search for that phrase) which will work with any VoIP provider that uses the SIP protocol. This typically excludes providers that use custom hardware like Ooma, Vonage, MagicJack; but you can find a list of well-liked providers here (under VoIP): http://www.dslreports.com/gbu
They often have equivalent or better features for the same or lower prices, and the nice thing is you can switch providers (even port your number) at any time while keeping all the same hardware. But again, you have to be somewhat technically-minded and willing to learn how it works.
I have the original Ooma Telo, and it's pretty slick. It has a mobile app I can check my home voicemail from my iphone, and it works great as a "land line". I don't know anything about the bluetooth portion of it though.
Very excited for this. We're building a new vacation house and looking at all services (telco, cable, security) to determine what we need and don't need. Internet is a must but all other services look to be on the chopping block! Maybe I'll play with it in my current home and if it works well - then maybe I'll pick up a 2nd one in a MEH-OFF.
@Oharafamily a cool feature of Ooma (and Magic Jack) for vacation homes - you can simply unplug the home box and take it with you, plug it in at your vaction home. (Remember to update the 911 address each time you move it - easy online!)
@RedOak Thanks, will have to try that as well.
I pay for an unlisted number now. I'm not going to buy the premium package, will I be re-introduced to telemarketers? And my number is going to still remain private/unlisted because ooma doesn't have a directory right? (For people that are listed in the phone book, is your number still listed when you go to ooma?)
Great write -up and great comments.A reason I bought it is my trust in the community.
@wew never had a telemarketer with my ooma number
@wew There is satisfaction in the Ooma Premier package for victims of telemarketers: for those numbers you can tell Ooma to let it ring, send directly to VM, or even tell them the number is inactive (my fav). And you benefit from the Ooma community tagging telemarketers.
@RedOak I think Ooma charges too much for their premier service considering you can get most of those services from Google Voice for free. I've never had a telemarketer call my Ooma number or my Google Voice number. They would call my POTS line all the time -- so much that I turned off the ringer on that line. So I don't even know what my Ooma number is and I never give that out to anyone. Everyone gets my Google Voice number and that gets forwarded to both my Ooma and cell phone at the same time. For free, I can block any number through Google. If my Ooma rings but my cellphone doesn't, that is suspicious and it has always been a wrong number -- not a telemarketer.
Meh. Don't like talking to people, even if it's free.
ooma booma here, LOVE IT! bought refurbed from woot six or so years ago. wondering if i should pick up a "spare" here today.
We have a Magicjack Plus connected to our router and I don't see how this would be any better. We pay $40/yr and get voicemail forwarded as .wav files to mine and my wife's cell phones via email. We have caller ID and call forwarding and we NEVER get robocalls. The output from the magicjack plugs into the adjacent telephone wall jack and feeds all the phones in the house. We previously had the original Magicjack that required a PC to be on, which worked just as well, but it's nice to know be able to turn off our desktop and know that the phones will still work fine. I've heard good things about Ooma but there's no way I'd spend $120/year on the premium features when we get the same features for 1/3 the price already.
The only downside of the MJ is that it requires 10-digit dialing - always. Given that we have multiple area codes in our area, we're pretty much used to doing this anyway.
@kcmark no need to sign up for Premier on Ooma but it contains a lot more features than those you noted in your comment. Without Premier the cost for Ooma is similar to MJ but you also get the very handy control box so no need to use a phone to check VMs.
The competition between the two companies is great for us as consumers. Even tho MJ is much older, it had been forced to improve dramatically to keep up with Ooma quality/features.
Vonage has been left the dust.
We've been doing 10-digit dialing for fifteen years here (703/571 since 2000). I had forgotten that 7-digit dialing was still a thing!
@VeeDubTDI we rarely dial manually these days - if the number we are calling is not in our directory/favorites, we google it on our smartphones and click dial it from there.
same here, we do whitepagesdotcom, then click 'call' if necessary, then save. whitepages better than yp even for businesses, i find. (google is great too)
1999 called and they want their VoIP back.
Yeah I've been wanting one of these for years - finally pulling the trigger.
Has anyone that uses Ooma send/receive faxes with it? Does it work well? My wife sends faxes about twice a year (at most) yet this is a big deal for her to get rid of our landline which we overpay for.
@Kerig3 @CraigDanger mentions above "And...faxes work. YES I'M OVER FORTY, SHUT UP. For the record I hate VM, but my family doesn't! So I have to listen to them, and playback on the box is awesome. And I only fax about once a month. And sure, I could do eFax (or some facsimile thereof (see what I did there)), but this is stone simple and works."
@JonT pressed-laddered-parrot Thanks and bought! I just checked my landline bill and those bastages just raised the cost on us...again. And at that outrageous price I pay for my landline, I die inside a little bit every time a telemarketer calls...and about 80% of the calls I receive are from stupid telemarketers! :-(
@Kerig3 I use for faxes, too
@Kerig3 @johnt @nickm461 I use it for fax as well. It is a bit slower so it is probably connecting at a slightly lower baud rate than with a POTS line. Also, if you dial *99 before the rest of the number, it tells the Ooma system to optimize the connection for faxes.
@Kerig3 @johnt @nickm461 @cengland0 Fax via Ooma works for us as well. I recall reading they did something over the past year to make it more fax-friendly/aware too. Whenever we've had an issue, we've added "*96" in front of the phone number dialed and that worked (I think it slows down the speed).
@Kerig3 also, note Fax technology is analog-based and predates by decades, digital VoIP phone lines which break up the traffic into separate packets. So faxing does fit better with (analog) POTS lines. Thank goodness more and more govt entities are finally swearing off Fax.
My regular phone line comes into a junction box in the basement, then from there a line goes out to each phone jack in the house, basically a diagram like a starfish with the source in the center and a home phone at each tip.
If I plug the ooma into the center of the junction box as the source, which then is wired to the other phones in the house, will that work on all the phones? Or can you only plug ONE phone directly into the ooma box?
@mbimeh you have what is called "home run" wiring, pretty common for phone lines. You can hook up Ooma either way, in the center or at one of the 'tentacles' - the signal will back feed to the others as long as all those wiring runs are connected together at the center. To be clear (hopefully) - you can either plug a single phone into the Ooma box or you can connect it to one of your tentacles or to the center/junction box. But if you want to use your existing phone wiring you should disconnect the connection that goes from that junction box to the telephone company. One big caution: if you have AT&T UVerse or Any DSL for your Internet do NOT disconnect the "phone company feed to your junction box!
@RedOak ... that "phone company" connection very well be what provides your Internet connection!
why are the photos such meh quality???? oh wait....
so... I am patiently waiting for this to come back around on Meh... But I see it on Woot... for a lot less.. ($69 + I have a $10 off coupon...+ shipping...damn no VMP) Anyway, I'm wondering how people like this. What do people think of it? I'm thinking for when we have a babysitter over(although who doesn't have a cell phone these days...) /fax line as we haven't had a land line in years... Please advise if you guys think it's worth it for under $70 shipped?