Side by Side Comparison of: Obihai

An absolutely great device coupled with Google Voice. Just a little detour here and a note -- It's "free" telephony service from Google. It is FREE indeed but I use quotation marks because Google uses your "free" gmail, google drive and everything on it, including google voice related content for their advertising driven business (they have to make money and I get that). In this day and age if it's not Google using "your stuff", it's just about everyone else, including the G.O.V., listening to just about everything you say, post, yell and scream out there on the net or even in your living room.Speaking solely on Google Voice service, and features, coupled with this wonderful OBi202 (2 port) VoPi device, the combo is out of this world! Told my former VoIp company "good-bye", bought this thing, got two Google Voice local #'s (local to my area where I live) using two distinct Gmail addresses and in about five minute time, I had two lines, each one receiving and making phone calls on its respective Google Voice number (in other words, I now have two phone lines, two independent phone numbers, working independently and completely separate from each other). The set up is very easy. It looks or seems complicated but don't be intimidated by it -- look up a few YouTube how-to videos and you'll have this thing up and running in five minutes (make sure to also create an online account with ObiTalk which is free but necessary for a fast and painless setup of your device).The device itself can also be admin logged into directly (both LAN and WAN) and setup manually as well. But like I said, for the most straightforward, most simple and easiest setup, create an account with ObiTalk and follow the directions that come with the device, along with some YouTune video instruction should you need any. It's all very simple.Small foot print and very light. Been running strong for over a week now. Never had to restart it or do anything to it. Phones works flawlessly.Given that Google will keep maintaining its telephony service from now on and keep it as is -- "free" -- this device will amortize itself in a few months time. It's a deal, which at this present time, simply cannot be beat!

this thing is awesome. I am using it for 2 lines, one google voice and the other through PhonePower (discounted OBI plan $59.99/year).Faxing works perfectly for receiving but only 50% success rate at sending. Still tweaking it but it seems adding a few commas after the number (extra 6-10 seconds time to transmit signal) increases the success rate.Otherwise the voice quality is superb and the features of the PhonePower and ObiHai portals are great. No downtime unless power goes out (and if you have the router and Obi interfaces on a UPS it should not).A great investment that allowed me to reduce my monthly phone bill from $35 to $5 while adding a second line and all the modern amenities a VOIP line should have: free caller ID, voicemail and fax to e-mail, multiple call capability, ringing multiple phones and call forwarding, cloud voicemail, spam call blocking, anonymous call rejection, etc.There is no reason to keep paying ATT or your internet / cable provider for a landline in 2017 - and this device allows you to cut another cord, with perfect functionality.

Bought it in Nov but waited until today to hook it up. The process is quick and easy if you already have Gmail and google voice otherwise you'll be instructed to get it done during process. I had to ditch out the OO.. premium service that I had for few year. Got my wife and my GV numbers assigned to port 1 and 2, unfortunately Google voice can't port my old landline over because of unsupported area. Make sure you check your landline number can be porting over to GV first. I can setup to ring on these when there's a call along with my other cellphones. Obitalk support replied my emails very quickly.

Got it tonight and hooked it up right away. Used my existing Google Voice number and setup in a few minutes. Took more time to find my old wall mounted phone then to set it up. I am also using Hangouts app on my iPhone with the same Google Voice number. I was on a phone call using the OBi202 and my cell phone rang. It was my Hangouts app ringing. So someone else was calling me on the same Google Voice number. I answered and it allowed me to be on the same phone number with 2 different callers.When I hung up the OBi202 phone and stayed on my mobile using Hangouts, I tried to start a new call using the OBi202. It wouldn't give me a dial tone while I was still on the Hangouts call. Might be a limitation, but I think it was a phone hardware not initialization issue. Either way it is an interesting test to look into further. I think you make calls out of the different methods at the same time. Using the existing web page options, you can still have Google Voice ring you mobile or other home phone in addition to the OBi202. Not sure why you would but you could ring everything all at once.

This review is being submitted less than two hours after receiving the product. Thus it is subject to revision based on experience gained over the next several weeks.I have marginal cell reception where I live. I first attempted to use a $275 Verizon extender and after several hours with Verizon and Medicom technical support I gave up and sent it back. Then on various web pages I noted how good the ratings were for this device. So I decided it was worth the $60 to try and the $40 for a couple of phones. I set up a google voice account a couple of days before the product arrived (very impressed with Google). Then when this product arrived I logged onto the Obihai site and it had automatic setup for Google voice. I knew I was going to have to play the game with opening ports on my modem. But....no....I did not have to. In fact within 5 minutes I was up and running and calling other phones, calling back to this phone setup, etc. It all worked like a charm. My next task is to forward my other office phone (I have an office in GA and VA) to the google voice number to see if it is forwarded properly. So I can ignore my cell phone connectivity issues and use this phone with very little cost to me. Some have complained that Obihai will charge them $20 a year after the first year. $20 a YEAR...who cares! This product is outstanding....easy to use...easy to install....and solves my problem.

The Good:1. It works!2. Voice quality is great3. When paired with Google Voice, it's FREE. FREE. FREE to get and place calls in the US.4. Setup is simple (*)5. It's CHEAP compared to the alternatives. Especially, e.g. Ooma Telo Free Home Phone Service, Vonage, Xfinity. Even the outlay for the cost of the box is less than you'll pay for those services because they charge more outright (Ooma is $120), or require a one year contract.6. It has TRUE multi-line support. Ooma, for example, allows you to have "two lines" but they behave like one unless you purchase Ooma's handsets and their $10/month service. You need two (or more?) Google Voice numbers.7. You can probably port your EXISTING phone number to Google Voice - if you first port the number to a cell carrier (find any carrier with a Pay as you go plan and a low cost, e.g. T-Mobile). Google Voice will not port numbers from most landline or VoIP providers, but for $20 will port from nearly all cell carriers. Ooma, by contrast, charges $40 to port a number.8. Google Voice has voicemail to text, multiple ring, spam call reduction, call screening, text notifications and more. Want those services elsewhere they will cost you. E.g. with Ooma you'll be paying a minimum of $20/month ($10 service, $5 for the cheap voicemail transcription and about $5 month in taxes and fees).The Iffy:A. The obitalk website which is needed to configure your device is a little wonky. By wonky, I mean it may be a bit intimidating to anyone who is a first time VoIPer. But I had little problem connecting my two Google Voice accounts, connecting two cordless phone system bases, and having one phone ring for my "home" line and the other ring for my "hobby" line. See the attached shots for examples of the ObiTalk website.That's a small bit of "iffy" and a lot of Good.

I purchased the OBi200 to provide a dedicated phone for my home based office. I activated it with a Free Google Voice account and it works great.Once I linked up OBi to my Google account it took say 10 minutes to configure and allow me to make calls. It took a bit longer for the OBi to ring with incoming calls. I'm not sure if this was a Google or OBi issue. Regardless, within 30 minutes I was able to make and receive calls.The call quality is greatI do have a high speed 100+ Mbps download and 5+ Mbps upload internet connectionOBI allowed me to set a default area code to enable 7 digit dialing. This is great since Google Voice did not have a local number and I had to use a number from another state. By setting the area code to my local area code, I can dial just like calling from my cell phone or home phone. I'm starting to think I should have purchased the dual port OBi and eliminated my home phone.This unit does have a warning that it does not support emergency calls. I knew this when purchasing and is not a concern I have as I'm not using it as my main phone phone. I'm not sure if it supports 911 calls and just not capable of supporting location which makes sense with Google Voice as I live in one state and have an area code from another.Notes on using Google Voice:I do recommend turning off the pre-screen caller in Google voice to make it more transparent to the user that they are just calling a normal phone number.The voice mail to email works greatI'm still trying to configure voice mail to a text message in Google Voice, not an OBi issue

I was getting tired of paying $40+ per month to AT&T for a "landline" (which was really a VoIP) so I tried to cancel my landline and let my mother use a cell phone. Man, what a mistake!! My mother is NOT tech savvy. She wanted her landline back, but the cell phone was only $10 per month on a family plan and I thought should be more convenient for her.Finally, after a month of trying to get her to use her cell phone, I gave up, but instead of ordering a landline from AT&T, I got the OBi200 and a free Google Voice number. I first set up the OBi200 on her Google Voice number and tested it--it worked fine! Then I ported her landline number from the cell phone to the Google Voice number (one time charge from Google of $20) and after about a day, the OBi200 was working exactly like a landline--my mother does not know the difference. She is using her landline phone on the OBi200 and getting and making calls on her landline number for free.I should have done this a long time ago!I don't recommend this for people who are not tech savvy--you have to know how to apply for a Google number, how to request a port (transfer), and how to plug this device into your Internet gateway/router. If you don't know how, get someone who does, but once it is set up, it works fine! My mother has not complained to me about anything and she thinks she is using a real landline telephone.

This is 100% the best product I've bought, recently. As a young couple, my fiance and I don't have a lot of extra cash at our disposal. We don't have a cable subscription and recently our cell-phone service has been shotty in our condo. Instead of getting a landline through our cable company, we opted for this product and it was not a mistake! The service is super easy to set up, through Google Voice, and the sound quality is crystal clear. All of our family and friends can't believe we don't have a phone through a normal provider. The setup is extremely easy and well-described in the instructions as well as on the Obihai website. It walks you through the process of creating a phone number through Google Voice and then linking your account to your Obihai device. Because this device hooks right into your modem, you have no need to keep your computer on, like some competing products. I love it!

My new house had terrible signal for TMo and some part was completely dead zone. We were looking into options for landline as we thought we might need it as my first kid goes school soon. All the carrier services are expensive and I did not want to hooked up with any of their services and headaches I uses have with them. I looked in to VoIP and found this solution. Since I did not have any previous land line to port it was much easier to me to just get new phone number from Google Voice and set it up. I purchased Obi 200 and VTech CS6719-2 DECT 6.0 Phone with Caller ID/Call Waiting, Silver/Black with 2 Cordless Handsets and got it Same day. Complete set up starting from creating Google Voice number to actually make first call took around 45 mins. Setting and configuration was very straight forward and tutorial was very easy to follow. After all set up completed I actually had bit of issue to make the phone works as it could not make calls or receive calls for some time even there is no issue on both GV setting and OBItalk configuration. I tried to trouble shoot but after 10 min it started work without any changes and all worked fine ever since. My wife and mother in law loves it and call quality is beyond my expectation. I recommend this to anyone wants to get free from outrageous landline bills. Just keep in mind that You will need to know what you are doing when it comes to setup and it would be hard to port your old landline numbers.

Received this a day early on a Sunday. Plugged into one of my Airport extremes and the other end into my wireless phone system's base. The Obtalk200 immediately and automatically prompted for the dedicated google voice account i had set up for this purpose) asking permission to allow it to be linked Obtitalk. The Obitalk basically then configured itself. It did ask me the local area code so I could do 7 digit dialing for my area code, so I did.I canceled my existing landline service from Verizon Fios which has gotten stupid expensive. Should have done this a long time ago.*** Make sure your buying a 200 series Obitalk I see Amazon is still selling the discontinued 100 series Obitalk these should not be purchased as their no longer supported or getting firmware updates. The reviewed obi 200 and the 202 are the current models. The 200 model supports multiple VOIP provider configurations and 1 Phone line while the 202 supports 2 Lines (regular pricing around $49 and around $69). Note the 200 model is tiny, only a 2.5 inches square, the 202 is around 4.5 inches square (both around an inch high).Note some of have complained that Obi tries to sell you an 2nd year extended warranty and or priority customer service $20 also additional phone features you may or may not need. At this juncture I did not bother with either. Google voice has all the features I need: Clear calls and the option of blocking inbound calls and many other features. That is all I need. I only use my land line phone for making conference calls when I work from home and when I need a clearer call then I can get from cell phone. ** I will say I have no problem with Obi offering extended warranty or additional functionality. They are providing a great device that works well without... Some will want or need these services and they help keep the company be around to support the hardware, develop new hardware, provide firmware updates and be around to support their products.I did scour the market as I always want the best options for my use case. This is really the best out there. Virtually every other product out there Ooma, Vonage, etc. not only costs more, but is locked into a single provider themselves for VOIP. Many of the others play games as well offering a low price on their monthly services only to raise it significantly after a month or year. Some other providers I read on line even make it almost impossible to cancel or modify service, Ooma in particular had many reviewers complaining about that Obi talk works with many providers including the completely free Google Voice. If you carefully read reviews and average star ratings there is no better option from a quality, reliability and price prospective.** This device has always paid for itself in 1 Month as I was paying over $40 a month extra to Verizon Fios **Tech Note:The only thing I was not automatically promoted to do was change the default Obitalk password. Changing default passwords on all internet connected devices is always good idea both for you and the world.You can find out your Obitalk IP address from dialing ***1 on your handstand of a connected phone. Then Enter the IP address in your Web browser which will allow you to configure the admin password which is admin,. You should change that.

I work from home few days a week and I also need to attend a conference calls on a daily basis. Sometimes these are really long hours calls. In such situation traditional land line becomes much more convenient than a smart phone. So I needed a land line at home for sure but for that I was paying few extra bucks to a service provider for their service. Not anymore, thanks to Google voice + OBihai combination, that we never have to pay a single penny for using the landline at home.I did a lot of research on internet on how to ditch your landline and I found google voice + Obihai is the way to go. I bought OBi200 under $50 which I think is good for normal user who just need a landline. If you are planning to get an additional phone line or using second line as Fax line then OBi202 is a good choice for some additional cost.Setup of Obihai is very easy and gets done in few minutes. You need to have google voice account in place (if not, you can sign up using your gmail account). You also need to sign up for the Obihai account and register your device and a step by step wizard will integrate your google voice account with your obihai device. Once the setup is done, you are ready to make your free calls. You can download ObiOn app (available on iOS and Android) on your smartphone and you can make or receive your calls through Obihai endpoint.Do remember to turn off the call screening feature in Google voice, otherwise person calling you will hear an announcement to announce his/her name after the beep sound.

I have a landline service provided by local cable company. I needed an additional line at home. I thought of getting Vonage, then came across this. I wanted to give it a shot and I am glad that I did. It works great with the right phones. Initially, I tried with AT&T cordless phone and had some issues. The calls won't disconnect and I have to reset the device every time. I called customer service, they acknowledged the issue with AT&T cordless phones, but blamed the AT&T phones for the issue. I tried the same AT&T lines with timewarner land line and vonage and it worked great.I tried Panasonic that I used for landline and it worked fine. The customer service suggested that I get the VTech phones, I was reluctant but I got them from a local store. They are working flawlessly so far, with Google voice. I have not tried the second line yet.

Good voice quality device, easy to set up and operate. down sides, it does not work with standard fax machine, you can not send or receive fax. I have tried to connect OBi202 to small office phone system it also did not work. It is good to use with standard phone or answering machine. You can not transfer your lan line phone number to Google voice so you are better of to use Google assigned number or transfer you cell number.

Pros;1. Full menu access (I was use to using a older Sipura with Broadvoice),2. Indicator lights (but see below),3. Two lines & USB port,4. Runs fairly cool,5. This was specifically for Google Voice, but works with many other VoIP providers.Cons,1. Indicator light excessively bright. I had to cut a piece of electrical tape to block off 3/4 of each indicator,2. External PS which I rarely like3. It could be larger, the rear panel is crowdedI choose PhonePower (Broadvoice residential) for my main provider.

Excellent, high-quality device with full Google Voice support. Relatively easy to setup and configure. I took one star off because I have learned from multiple forums and reviews that after 1 year, Obihai will charge you a 'support fee' if you wish to change your configuration - others have referred to this charge as a hidden and undisclosed 'Ransomeware'. Time will tell, I'm hoping this is not the case and/or Obihai will have changed their policy...

I decide to purchase this item to port my Nettalk phone number to Obihai. In other review, I explain how bad Nettalk support is. Moreover, Nettalk is unreliable device with very limited features (call forwarding is horrible).I have MJ and Obihai hook on the same Ubiquiti router and I never experience any issue, it is not the case with Nettlak. That being said, have this device setup with GV was a breeze (10 minutes). After a week of continuous talking (incoming or outgoing free call), I'm impress by the quality of the communication with OBI. After a week of trial, I'm impress. Will I port my Nettalk number to PhonePower for 59$/year, 10$ more than Nettalk for more service, 3000 more minutes and more features CERTAINLY not, After more than 14 day trial of PHONE POWER, service is worst than NETTALK. I decide to park my phone number and wait till MagicJack offer porting for canadian number. In the mean time, I continue to use OBI with Google Voice and I'm impress, free is better.UPDATE: August 21, 2014Google voice is great, work flawlessly. I now cancel PHONE POWER for good, worst service there is, customer service is jul.

First of all, i tend to dislike VOIP because, if the connection is strained, it gets to be bad quality.However, after hearing about this, i decided to try it. The sound quality is great and i've held LONG phone calls with it with no problems at all. It has a dedicated website, software center, and allows for a LOT of flexibility.But there is one problem, there is no Mac or Linux support for the software. Even worse, their online chat "techs" are completely IGNORANT of anything. I called and asked, "Will there be support for Mac OSX 10.6.x or higher?" and the answer i got was, "You mean the IOS for iphone?" This tells me one thing, these are what i've deemed as 'flash-card' techs. They read stuff off flash-cards and or documents set in front of them and know NOTHING beyond that and, if i ever get into a real jam....it's a problem.I've worked as a computer tech for 28 years, worked for an ISP (i was there Jan 1, year 2000 during the BS Y2K scare) and i know all the insanity that people can bring when they get freaked out when something they pay for doesn't work, the paranoia is beyond a tech's wildest nightmares and you HAVE TO KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT.....ANY tech (who's been on the front line) will tell you it's true.So, as far as this goes, if you stick to all the documentation, have some knowledge of VOIP software/hardware and have some general computer knowledge, you can get this thing up and running in about 20-30 mins and it's STABLE. Once i got it established, i've never had a problem out of it.With this, if something fails, it's generally because you have done something wrong or your internet is having an issue. This is a SOLID piece of hardware and works INCREDIBLY well with Google Voice. I run my office with it and it even sends about-to-be-missed calls to my cell phone.This thing is the best i've tested and i've tested lots of items that came before it. Most of the predecessors were shaky %50 of the time.I would venture to say that if people give this product a bad review, it's because they didn't know what they were doing from the jump.

Great google voice phone adapter!After doing some research online i stumbled on this google voice converter. I gave the device 4 stars because the OBI software is not that great and the website was a little bit annoying and this converter forced you to go to their website to link your google voice account. But the steps are easy to follow and the directions are clear for setting up this phone with google voice. I have not tried the OBI products, and instead have soley used this for google voice. I was able to place and receive calls to my NY cell phone. We bought this product to replace the phone in our summer/weekend place where a full phone service is not necessary. for that purpose this product is great.Does not include phone, but does include ethernet and power cable which is nice.I definitely recommend this for anyone looking to ditch a cable company landline.

Excellent VoIP device. After my Obi100 started dying, I decided to upgrade. The 200 is pretty similar in most ways. I have it set up with Phonepower and Google to provide a true home phone + E911 AND to get unlimited free outbound calls. Setup is easy, since Obihai, by default, configures it remotely, with everything easily configured through their website.In theory, you can disable automatic provisioning and configure it manually to do whatever you want. I've also heard that Obihai like to try to upsell you on their services, but they are expensive and seem mostly useless.

I came from the OBi100 and it has been three days now since I swapped it out for the OBi200. I was having quite a few calls dropped (I could hear the person I was talking to, but they could not hear me) with the OBi100, but not so with the OBi200. Also, the dial tone broke up for the first 30 or so seconds with the OBi100. However, I have not noticed that at all with the OBi200. Overall, I am very pleased with the OBi200 so far.I gave it only four stars because I think the cost of the extended warranty after the one year is up (included with the device) is a ripoff.

Despite the negative reviews I have read regarding the lack of public knowledge on the annual subscription fee, I am still giving this product a 4-star review. I did notice the $20 annual fee which it seems I will need to pay in 1 year, but IMO this is a small price to pay given the alternatives. Just as an example, the Vonage product carries with it a $10 monthly fee, or in other words $120 annually. That is 6x+ more expensive than the annual fee required by Obihai! Sure, the initial investment is a bit pricier with the Obihai; ~$50 compared with ~$10 for the Vonage, but of course this is a one-time fee and not a monthly reoccurring cost.I've also seen reviews stating that the product has a limited life span, i.e. MTBF, of approximately 1 year or less. It is of course impossible for me to comment on this so early in the product's life, and I sincerely hope that this is not the "norm", however I will say that even if I only get 1 year of life out of this product, I would still be coming out ahead financially when comparing this solution to others (again I reference Vonage, which at $120 annually would be over 2x the price for 1 year of service, even when factoring in the initial investment for the device(s)).To speak to the functionality of the product, it works exactly as I expected. Google voice is an amazing solution for a "home phone"; I've been using it for my mobile for many years, so I am quite pleased to be able to use it in this capacity. This of course speaks to the strength of Google's product more than anything, but any device that allows me to leverage Google Voice in this capacity is a great investment from my perspective.The one and only weak point that I observed was the Android app which is advertised to be used with this product. While it works fine, it looks like it was written 10 years ago; the design is quite dated and I suspect that either it was in fact written ~10 years ago, or the developers placed such a low priority on front-end design that the resulting app looks horrible. This is a very minor qualm; I would likely never use the app even if it looked amazing, but I thought it was worth mentioning.Overall, I am happy with my purchase.

After 6 months of usage combined with google voice, this product is now a 3 1/2 star.My wife will call me sometimes saying "its not working again". What she meant she tries to call it & it will just ring continuously but in reality the phone is not ringing. I have to unplug it to restart .Old review below been more than a month now, so far im happy with its performance.Several months before buying this device, we've decided to cancel our landline ($35/mt) & ported our number to Google Voice. While waiting for Magicjack to go on sale, i saw an ad for this Obi200. We bought it & installed it. Were 99% satisfied. The 1% is bcos we noticed some very minor delay or voice cutting off but not a big deal.Im happy bcos theres no monthly bill & weve attached our old home number to this device. We told our friends & family they can call us using our old number.

(See update at the bottom of this review)I love the idea. I love the tech. And this would be a five star product but for one major issue, that issue being that when there is a problem, support and warranty assistance and service are basically non-existent.I purchased this device in June of 2015 and had good service using Google Voice right up until January 2nd of 2016. On that day, the 'phone LED' went from the green "yep, you have service" state to just off. The ObiTalk dashboard shows the device "offline" also.I went through every troubleshooting step. I factory reset the device. I tried deleting the device from ObiTalk so that it could be re-added (per advice in the Obi forums where this delete and re-add procedure had fixed an "offline" issue for other Obi users.) No joy. The Obi dashboard can't even find the device to add it back. Not only that, but the **9 222-222-222 test also fails. Other checks included my firewall (which had not been changed and was not the issue), rebooting router and modem, swapping ethernet cables and on and on.So when there's a problem with an under warranty device, I do what I do and try to contact the maker. No joy there either. A help request submitted online goes unanswered. Calling the support number for Obihai resulted in an hour and a half (!!) on hold and never reaching an actual person. Email has gone unacknowleged and unanswered.Really loved this device paired with Google Voice while it all worked. And if I could get some service and get the issue with the Obi200 fixed, this would, as I said, be a five star review. (I don't downrate a product for an occasional failure. Everything can break and does. I do downrate when something breaks and the warranty doesn't seem to be worth the paper on which is written.)If Obi can step up and solve this, I will adjust my rating. But between the aggravating perma-hold on the phone and the other ignored attempts to contact Obi, all I can think right now is "Buyer beware."Update: A comment to my review has a workaround for updating the firmware on out of warranty Obi devices. The workaround worked perfectly and my Obi is updated and working as it should. Back to four stars!

I thought the extra features are part of the unit. But, the extra features are subscription. I will just continue to set up my RaspPBX instead and have all the features such as smart attendance, voice mail box, music on hold, etc...

This replaced a flaky Cisco SPA-2102 and so far is working fine and runs cooler the the Cisco box.At first we were getting calls every 15 minutes with a caller ID of "1", this caused a fair amount of grief and I finally had to get on the Obitalk forums to get the answer:If you are using a service like voip.ms or Vitelity make sure to put a checkmark on:Voice Services > SPx > X_AcceptSipFromRegistrarOnly or you might have the same problem.I think this should be enabled by default to keep the bot sip probes away... -2 stars.After enabling X_AcceptSipFromRegistrarOnly, all is well.

The Obi202 can't be used to listen to voicemail on your connected Google Voice account. This is very surprising deficiency and I could not find it mentioned anywhere in the description or reviews on Amazon. I verified this limitation with tech support at Obihai.I won't say anything else about the device since it is very well covered by other reviewers.

I bought the device almost a year go so that I could connect my fax machine to it and hopefully reduce my total phone bill. I went with Obi202 because it supports faxing protocol T38. In theory, at least. In practice, not so much. What I didn't realize when I bought the device is that you also have to have a service provider account configured to work with the device. The most popular is Google Voice, and it works great as a phone service. But, Google Voice doesn't support faxing or T38 protocol. Big problem.After finding this out and going over forums on Obihai site, it seemed that there are two main providers that people were using that work with Obi and support T38, and CallCentric was the more popular one. It's not free, so you have to pay to try it out, but I wanted to get the fax working, so I signed up. After hours and hours of fiddling with fields, values, options, and settings on Obi and my fax machine, the best I could get was receiving faxes by email through CallCentrics fax service, but not on my fax machine and not after multiple attempts each. At best, it's hit or miss. I was able to send one fax out, but since receiving of faxes is unreliable, being able to send faxes is not going to help me. I've reviewed Obi forums again and found a message where someone was asking if anyone could make Obi202 work with a fax machine with any provider at all, and .... other people replied saying they have the same problem, well, except for one guy. I spent a lot of time reconfiguring my device and fax machine like he suggested, but it didn't help me. I've followed Obi's and CallCentric tech supports' directions exactly, and it's still a no go. I give up. Callcentric support agreed to give me my money back, thank you, guys!I have to add that faxing worked fine with Vonage and Verizon FIOS Digital Voice. I still have one Verizon FIOS line, and when I plug it now into my fax machine, it works fine. Based on this, it's neither my fax machine nor connection nor router that cause the problem with faxing.The phone service with Google Voice works fine though. And, Obi's support was great when in the beginning they replaced my defective unit; hence three stars instead of one. But, I wanted fax specifically, otherwise, I would've gone with a cheaper model of Obi. I wish I had known about the problem with fax support by providers at the time of the purchase. So, the fact that Obi202 supports T38 protocol is not enough without availability of reliable and stable support from providers that Obi202 device is compatible with. Until there is one, Obi202 is not a fax solution. Right now, it's a like a car without gas in it. It can't go anywhere.

For the price of this (and it's baby brothers) it's almost an impulse-buy for Google Voice users such as myself. However, I have yet to get incoming calls to actually ring! I can make outbound calls just fine, but for the life of me, I can't receive them.Also, it's very frustrating that you have to set up an account with the manufacturer to use this. There is no reason for that. I don't have to do that with any of my software-based solutions, and this device should be able to be configured directly, but the manufacturer chose to do the configuration on their site, then push it down to your unit. Not really a fan of that.Also, while I had planned on using this as a voice router (i.e. putting it at the very front, connecting between my modem and regular router so I could prioritize voice traffic--one of the reasons I bought this over the other units--that too I was unable to get to work. So for now, it's just sitting on my desk, unplugged, as I try to get this straightened out with Obihai directly.Speaking of, they do seem very friendly and helpful. They just haven't yet figured out what's going on with my unit.

I honestly don't like this product after about a year of usage. It regularly gives just a busy signal for no reason to outside callers. Having to restart the device once a month was a real pain since it's in a remote location. I'm was still able to place outbound calls from the inside, and even view the status as green from the webpage. The only way to fix the issue is to power cycle my Obi device.Updated: I eventually just changed SIP providers because it completely stopped working with VOIP.ms after a firmware update. I was always able to communicate with the device and even call it using the built in obi network so I know the physical equipment wasn't bad. It was something with the integration to VoIP.ms that was buggy. I switched to Anveo as my SIP provider and have not had any issues like with VoIP.ms. I raised my review rating one star since it was probably an issue on VoIP.ms' side but honestly the problems still wasted a lot of my time. The product listed compatibility for voip.ms services and I expected that. Days of troubleshooting, forum posting, and debugging eventually just lead me to another provider. If it weren't for the product's issues with VoIP.ms I would consider it a 5 star purchase now. No issues this month after switching.

great free phone service. I needed a second line for faxing purposes and it works half/half with google voice, probably better with other service.The only complaint that I notice that the telephones in the house with mechanical bells inside of them, the unit doesn't give enough power to them ring them, so they might not ring or make a faint clicking sound, so an external ringer is required for those type of telephones. I've notice however a whole lot of VOIP phone boxes and wireless home phone boxes are like this. This should be addressed and changed.

Bought this to replace the EOL Obi100. Seems unnecessary as it offers no benefits over the old unit. Still has some of the same problems. 75% of the time, I have to pick up the phone, get a "phone off the hook" tone, hang up, then pick it up again in order to make a call. Long delay between dialing and actually making a connection and starting to ring.Still, with all of these draw backs, it's worth it over the price of local phone service.

This product works...the reason I gave it three starts is that tech support is really bad. They don't answer your emails for help.There is no one so actually speak with on the phone as there are some pretty impactful glitches that only they can fix, when they decide to. You can't rely on this for consistent phone service. Very poor in that department. Also there have been disconnects, probably with google voice, that tech support doesn't respond to for help.

Once working, the product is great. Tech support didn't pick up the phone and rings forever. No notice of phone support hours on site. Spent 2.5 hours after updating firmware to get the website to recognize that I was all updated(it kept looping me, saying that I still needed firmware, but my product was offline. An email to tech support had them fix the problem on their end, and then it worked. 3.5/5 stars from me. Rough around the edges, but eventually works well!

3 stars because it was so difficult to setup with Google voice and hard to contact support, no response from support. After many attempts to set up Google voice, I logged into the web interface for the device and did a factory reset, that did the trick!! I recommend trying the factory reset from the web admin if you are having problems getting it to work with google voice, after factory reset go back to the obitalk website and complete the Google talk setup. As for quality, voice quality is excellent, this is the best voice quality VOIP adapter I've used. Much better than MagicJack.

The box itself is good and once we got it working, sound quality was great. Took off 2 stars because the support is non-existent and you are on your own to figure out your issues. We could not get it to work with Google Voice. Ended up paying $40 to Anveo for phone service since I could not expend any more time trying to get it to work with Google Voice. Now having a phone number porting issue and again, Obihai tech support is unhelpful and nearly non-existent. You can only contact them by email and they manage to not understand my problem every time and give me a response that essentially says it's not their problem.

Great idea, lousy product.I really want to like this thing, but it just won't work right, even after an exchange, and has poor customer support. The problem may be in the OBiLine adapter, but I need the whole package to work for the way I am using this. Problems:- Occasional blasts of dial tone (DTMF) while in a call.- Does not recognize the CallerID about 5% of the time, although other phones on the line do.- Message Waiting Light goes on for a few hours, off for a few hours so it is easy to miss a message.- Fails to dial outgoing calls about 5% of the time.- Poor customer support, they don't respond to email or online forms; said to "look in the forums" when they were stumped.This thing is for people who don't need reliable phone service. Maybe the next generation will work better, whenever that comes out. If another similar product will meet your needs, get that.

I'm having trouble configuring the OBi202 device with my (4) phone lines. I've contacted OBi customer support via their website and email. They take days to respond and didn't give a full explanation on how to correctly set up the device with 4 different phone numbers. Their suggestion was to put the OBi in the DMZ setting in my router's configuration so the router won't block any incoming/outgoing traffic from VoIP, which I did. The device still doesn't seem to support (4) phone lines as the description claims. I've emailed Obihai technical support again on March 1st, and have yet to receive a response.Any help configuring the Obi device with (4) different phone numbers to a (4) line phone would be greatly appreciated.

Voice quality, Caller ID, and connection problems that couldn't be resolved. Sent it back and purchased a Cisco VOIP unit, which is working flawlessly. Big waste of my time and effort, but they did refund my purchase price, which was appreciated.

My biggest beef with this program is that the software had to be updated constantly and the service would stop working because it wasn't updated. We wouldn't know until a customer would get in touch with us by some other means and let us know that they called and called and couldn't' get in touch with us. It was very aggravating. It would be so much better if the software would auto update, but it didn't and so we had several times where we wouldn't get our phone calls.

I purchased the product in April and in October it seemed to have quit working. I can make calls through the OBI device, but it will no longer ring the phone when a call comes in. The google voice works well on the cell phone and the other house phone, so it does not appear to be a google voice problem, the only issue is the signal coming through the ObI (OBI202).I am finding getting service from OBI difficult, as it is only though the web, no phone number is provided.I found the initial setup was difficult and the line 2 did not work. It took a total reset of the device to finally get it set up correctly. It worked well from April to October, then stopped ringing.

After reading all the positive reviews, I expended quite a bit of dough on this unit a few months ago as well as the WiFi USB link for an additional $25 and even as a non-critical backup line the results have been mostly disappointing. I was hoping to save money on my main phone's calling plan during lengthy work conference calls but the sound quality has been so spotty and the reliability itself so problematic, that I can not even use it for that purpose. I have very reliable high-capacity internet service so its very unlikely that connectivity is the root cause; though I suspect the Obihai device or configuration I am running is simply very, very vulnerable to short glitches in that service perhaps. Maybe if I give up the WiFi USB link? If anyone has any ideas, I am open to solutions - I simply don't have any more time to expend on more FAQs, emails, calls and more detective work to resolve this.

After further review this apparatus is terrible its one of those items you have to use a couple of months before you know what it does and indeed this obi looses calls and breaks up too much so I'm returning it and going back to net talk and upgrade my cell.

Worked great for about the first 3 weeks then it just slowly get's worse. It doesn't receive calls anymore. I can still make them though, so I see someone called and then have to call them right back. A little annoying. Don't know if I need to factory reset it and try setting up again maybe that will help, can't say it won't be back to this in another 3 weeks though. Could have been a little happier with this purchase.Will update the review if I find anything out to make it work better.

I purchased this one late March 2016, it had been working for a few month; but recently it started dropping line after a few minutes call and my device was upgraded with firmware twice but it still dropped my call. I am using xfinite with 240mbps service which made me think only obi200 dropping my calls.also did follow this help : [...] but it did not work.

Failed after having been in service only a short time. Company has replaced it with no hassle. Will see what the next one does.

it seems pretty stable for incoming calls but about a third of the time I seem to have a problem making outgoing calls. I sent email to technical support and made it clear that I am able to make outgoing calls some times, yet their recommendation is to configure/enable ports on my network router. That advice is ridiculous because if the appropriate ports were not allowed, I'd NEVER be able to make ANY outgoing calls AT ALL. Trying to figure how to get a replacement unit.

This is my 6th Obihai box which I have purchased. I have had spotty luck at best. First I had an obi100, that went just past the 1 year warranty, then died. Troubleshot, had to be replaced, so I bought another. This one again lasted more than a year and died. This time I saw an option to add an extended warranty plan to cover the device. So I bought it for both devices thinking I could get them fixed. Well that didn't apply to these as they had been replaced by the company with a newer model. They refunded me the extended warranty payment at least. Then I got an obi200, this has lasted less than a year (yay! warranty this time!!!), and now ill have to have it replaced. Hopefully, their support will honor the warranty. All the others that I own are not yet a year old and are being used by family members. I like the product, when it works... but my experience is that they break way too often and they might only last you a year. Still a good deal with google voice, but just a pain to be without a telephone waiting for replacements. Might be worth buying 2... just to have one while waiting for a replacement.

Poor product, horrible warranty. Product died within 8 months, contacted support and I have to pay to return the faulty unit! And there is no guarantee that it will resolve the issue.

My OBi202 has stopped working with a message "No Service Configured". I can't find a way to fix it. The instructions don't work and are complicate technical jargon for geeks only (maybe?) and there is no technical support. You can pay for it but I can't even figiure out how to do that. Their website is inscrutable. Maybe the company is out of business. I can't find any help. Guess I will have to buy an Ooma. Buyer Beware!!!

Item arrived early. But just used it a little and its already very faulty. When I call another party on a cellphone or land line, i can hear what the other party is saying but the other party cant hear what i am saying at all. And i hear my voice echo when i try to speak to other party. its a total shame

I bought this as a cost-effective VoIP replacement for a regular telephone landline. The setup was rather frustrating but I eventually got it to work. I used this in conjunction with a Google Voice account. Overall, this solution proved to be absolutely unreliable. When calling from some numbers the device rang the phone attached to it. However, when calling from some other numbers, the calls go directly to voice mail even though the phone is not in use. Overall, this may be suitable as a secondary phone line, maybe for a teenager in a household that already has some other line(s). However, this is not reliable enough to be used as a main phone line, nor for any type of business use when you really want to be able to be reached by your current or potential customers.

spent 3+ hours but still not connecting, defective products as MAC address and series number didn't match what's printed on the item. A friend bought exact same item without any issue with connection and he is not able to connect my unit. The worst thing was return window is too short plus no way to contact seller at all. If the seller willing to replace the item I will consider change my review rating. Thanks.

I have used the Obi 202 for 2 years and had no major problems in that 2 years... mostly dropped calls. I use the box with Google Voice. Google recently forced me to change my password, no problem. Went to use the phone and it would not work. The automated message said I needed to log in to Obi to update my password. Ok, figured no problem. I log in, and Obi won't let me put in the new password WITHOUT paying for one year of tech support because my device is out of warranty. I don't want tech support, I just want to put in my password. Total B.S.

Right out of the box this thing did not work. I followed the instruction exactly, Wasted two hours with troubleshooting procedures on their website and still no results. The phone port is dead, I sent it back

This does not work with fax. It works great for calls, but not as fax. Tried contacting support, but they were notvery responsive.

If you live in the 48 contiguous states, I'm sure this OBi/Google voice works great.BUT OBi should prominently disclose to people who live in Hawaii and Alaska that they will NOT be able to use Google Voice, since Google "doesn't support Hawaii and Alaska area codes," which means that you can NOT even port your existing number, which is insane. I spent a long time researching the best voip device and then paid for overnight shipping, only to learn this by searching the message boards. Once again another company (Google) that only cares about money and not about their customer's time, business, or experience. I will be returning the OBi Google Voice device and switching all my business (email, cloud drive, calendar, voice, etc.) to another company.

Claimed to work with Skype. Spent two evenings, cannot make it work. Returned the product.

stop working after less than a month.. no option to return??!

Not sure how to return but this is the 3rd OBI200 device I've setup and this is the only one that goes offline. Would like to request a return ASAP. I would say 2 times a day I have to power off and power it back on to get it to work.I have 2 others and they work great.Once I can return this one and get a new one I will change it back to a 5 star as its a great product when working.