Side by Side Comparison of: ooma vs Obihai

I absolutely love this product. I was very hesitant due to the price point but I recently became a cable cutter and as little as we use the home phone it is still necessary to have. So I decided to spend the money and give it a shot. I will say, it was easy to install and get working. My bill has been exactly what they said it was going to be and I have noticed no problems with the my VOIP phone service. I would recommend this product and service for someone looking for a good alternative for a phone service at a price that is affordable!

I ordered this Telo / Linx Combo on Friday for an elderly parent who is ready to unplug from AT&T after 50 years. I personally have had an Ooma Hub for 6 to 7 years (and it still works great).The new Telo / Linx combo was delivered today (Sunday) by Amazon, and I quickly installed it this afternoon. The entire set up took me about 30 minutes (e.g., going online and setting up an Ooma account, plugging the Ooma into the back of the router, establishing the initial phone connection, connecting the Linx wireless device to the Telo, going back and finally tweaking all the account settings). We anticipate a savings of about $800 per year.I was initially hesitant to add/purchase the Linx wireless extender after reading some negative reviews here. HOWEVER, my actual experience with it has been much different. It works perfectly. And ... it immediately allowed a phone to be placed downstairs (e.g., the router and Telo are upstairs). We have had no problems with the Linx. I first activated and linked it to the Ooma Telo (within minutes). I then moved the Linx downstairs, attached a generic digital phone (a VTech), and the signal and voice quality were immediately clear. It is about 30 feet (with a thick sub-floor and several walls in-between) from the Ooma Telo.Everything works great (on the 1st time).

LOVE this product and what they have to offer. I have recommended it to others. See pros and cons for details.I love the commerce diversity it encourages since so many of the ISP and TV content/ cable providers have tried to drive competition out of business with bundles that include a VoIP phone. They then jack the rates and charge disconnect fees (in microscopic contract print) to keep you after the teaser rates. They then have you over a barrel when your service is having problems because you are under contract. I choose this product and this service for this reason above and beyond the supeior product they provide. I choose to encourage competition with this fantastic option.----- Pros -------+ Includes nationwide calling, voicemail, caller-ID, call-waiting, 911 calling that I have access to with Basic... though I believe other things too that I am not using. See website for other details.+ Cost effective and super inexpensive [Basic is free and the Premium option is only $9.99 a month] NOTE: Basic you only pay taxes and fees, service is free. Example: I pay $4.22 a month for FCC taxes and fees. NOTE: see Ooma website for detailed features list for Basic and for Premium.+ Clear voice quality and consistent which was not my experience with my Cable provider nor my Landline.NOTE: Cable VoIP had issues I haven't seen in the 5 months I have had Ooma as my house phone line. The landline was constantly staticy and I battled AT&T for several years over the dropping out of the landline which I primarily used for my ADT system. It constantly failed to send signal back to ADT and then I would pick up the extension and no dial tone... and I paid almost $48 a month for that crap with no long distance.+ Works with any existing telephone you may already have. NOTE: If you have a built in answering device, you won't use that as the Telo functions as your answering machine, too.+ There is an option for setup that allows all phones in traditional phone jacks to work if you set the Telo up that way. It eliminates the need for a Linx if you have multiple phones in your house already hooked up to household phone jacks.+ Website provides lists of all missed calls and all calls with their details. Website has other information that is super helpful for a multitude of purposes (digresses from purpose of this review)+ customer service is responsive and helpful+ setup and dialtone on a temporary Ooma number was roughly 7 minutes after registering online. I had a temporary Ooma phone number while waiting for the porting of my house phone number. However, I could have just kept the new number and not ported the number.+ Has multiple other features I am not using that allows for use with other wireless technology, second phone number, etc. See their ad and other reviews for detailed feedback on those.----- Cons -------- ????????????????????????????Crystal-clear nationwide calling for free and low international rates. Pay only applicable taxes and fees.#1 rated home phone service for overall satisfaction and value by a leading consumer research publication.Ooma interacts with your favorite smart products to make your home safer and more convenient than ever before.Includes Ooma Linx remote phone jack to wirelessly connect telephony devices to your Telo, or access a second line.Includes nationwide calling, voicemail, caller-ID, call-waiting, 911 calling and text alerts.Compare with similar items

When it comes to internet based products (especially new routers), the experience of trying to get connected to the net through my ISP is usually one that produces a lot of frustration. Many, many products I have purchased to attach to the net through my ISP promise easy installation and deliver just the opposite when the product is actually attached to a router or the new router to my ISP.I was using a cell-based receiver from Verizon as my home phone for 2+ years. They promised good sound quality after checking their live coverage map when I signed the 2 year contract. My home experience was 2 years of calls that sounded terrible through a fairly good cordless phone set. No matter where in my home I placed the receiver, the home phone clarity was awful. Previous to Verizon, I had Vonage--expensive and call clarity was also not so great.I heard about Ooma VOIP through Mashable. Since Ooma's basic service was free excluding gov't taxes ($4.36/month) and their premier service is only $10 + taxes/month, I thought I would give it a try.After the package arrived from Amazon with the Ooma Telo and Linx, I was very pleased to see the set up process was extremely easy. After following the 4 step quick start process, the phone was up and running. I configured a home phone number (decided on new number because my previous number was getting WAY too many telemarketers!) and used the Linx wireless modem to attach home fax to with a separate number. The whole process took about 20-25 minutes including using the Android App and Chrome browser Ooma website on laptop. Very versatile software and easy to understand. Chatted with a service rep about a few things. Only took 35 seconds to speak with rep via chat. He answered my questions succinctly and resolved my issue in short order.The call quality is very clear--almost too clear as I and my wife can hear lots of background sounds through the mid-level Panasonic cordless handsets we have. This product is marvelous and, for the first time in quite a while, very easy to install and get up and running. Voice mails are easily retrieved through phone app or website. Very well organized. Will soon purchase Ooma handset for my wife to use while she works from home.Also, am happy we have 911 call features. Only drawback: if you are not connected to internet (say a power outage or ISP outage), you will not have 911 coverage. Am going to get a UPS to take care of any power issues.I really can't emphasize enough what a pleasure it is not to have to fight and struggle and call a customer service line to get internet hardware interfaced with my home router and peripherals. Plus great sound quality for 1/2 of what I was paying Verizon and 1/3 what I was paying Vonage. Did I mention the great call clarity? For once, the marketing claims matched the actual product performance! No--I don't own stock in Ooma, although I might check and see if they are publicly traded.

I've been using my Ooma service for a couple weeks now. I am SO PLEASED with this device. Here's why:1. The only cost I pay monthly is $3 for government taxes required to use 911 emergency services. I have no problem with that!2. The call quality is excellent.3. You get caller ID, call waiting, and voicemail all for free.4. The device itself looks pretty slick.5. You get to choose from a list of available local phone numbers (I think you can even use your current number instead, if you prefer).6. Came in secure packaging with easy to follow instructions.7. The lighted design on the top lets you know at a glance if your service is connected by shining an electric blue color. The small "play" button lights up orange when you have voicemail so you can easily see if you have new messages.I've tried several other VoIP's including Vonage (which is good, but costs $10-$25/month while Ooma is ONLY $3/month), and a few other apps on my iPad mini that let me make/receive calls in my iPad when I'm connected to the Internet (Talkatone, Google Voice, Voxofon, and WeTalk). For me, Ooma is the most convenient, because it works with any regular corded OR cordless house phone. So happy with my Ooma!

After I decided to buy my own cable modem (without telephony) instead of renting one from Comcast, I lost the ability to use VOIP with Comcast, so had to find an alternative. Following the recommendation of a family member, I bought this unit and set it up. So far it has worked very well. The instructions are quite good. It seemed to have a bit of trouble getting an IP address from my router initially, but within 10 minutes after I cycled the unit, the logo turned solid blue on the top and the phone worked fine. I am opting for basic ooma service, so I had to pay $40 to port my landline number from Comcast, but it was worth it to me versus keeping the free number I selected through the ooma website. The website indicates that the transfer will take 3-4 weeks, which is lengthy for something that should be simple by now, but maybe that estimate is way on the cautious side- time will tell.Some considerations:-If you want transfer your phone number, don't disconnect your phone service with the current provider until after the transfer occurs. If you cancel phone service with your current provider, you will not be able to transfer your number- it's out of your control and back in the number pool of your current provider.-ooma won't work with an Ackerman security system, so keep in mind you might have to go with a cell phone-based upgrade to your security system. It's much safer anyway, but it does decrease the monthly savings when switching to ooma. The cell service option will cost $10/month more, but I am still money ahead.Cost comparison:+$10.00 for cell phone upgrade to security system+$ 3.85 for monthly ooma taxes and fees-$ 7.00, no more monthly comcast modem rental charges-$ 32.00, no more Comcast phone serviceNet savings is about $25 per month; I spent $160 on the ooma and $150 on Netgear modem plus $40 on the port ($350), so I will break even in about 14 months. That's OK with me, and worth it to break away from having to use a substandard Comcast modem while getting an upgrade to our security system at the same time.Update- as soon as the phone number ported to Ooma, Comcast automatically raised my monthly subscription rate to internet and cable to $200, so I had to call them and go through the process of getting the monthly rate down. Comcast subscribers- be prepared.AUGUST 25 2014 update- No problems with the phone except when I continually lost my internet connection. Off topic, but we just switched to ATT Uverse service and at least in my locale the internet stability has been much better (no drops whatsoever in more than a week). The final straw was when I was charged $60 for a Comcast service visit when the tech could not find anything wrong with the signal strength, so he informed me he had to indicate that my equipment was to blame. I didn't understand that meant a $60 charge. I know other people have the exact opposite experience, but if you are dissatisfied with your current Comcast service, it's worth a look at ATT Uverse.OCTOBER 2014 update. Ooma box has worked flawlessly, but discovered that the company automatically signs you up for a higher tier of features that you get free for a month, but then your credit card begins to be charged at a higher rate. Just be aware that you will have to call and stop higher tier service if you don't want those features.MAY 2015: I haven't had any problems with the unit except very rare internet connection drops. BTW, it took me 6 months to get the $90 Comcast owed me back from them- after three calls and hours on the phone, plus a FAX to their "Consumer Service VP" or whatever their title is, I finally got the check. I have to say that Comcast's very poor customer service reputation is well deserved in my personal experience.

My Obi 110 has been working flawlessly since 2011. That's zero problems, not one and that includes the shadowy times when Google stopped supporting the protocol for a few months. Everytime my router reboots the Obi pops up and works. I attached, via RG11 phone wire, a VTech cordless phone base and have several phones throughout the house on this Obi box.Here's the kicker. As soon as I got it working I called my cable company whose name I won't say (Time Warner) and when I went to cancel the phone portion of my triple play they said my monthly bill would go up. So I have my TWC landline and this Obi box.I'm considering dropping down to only data from TWC and going with this Obi 110 for phone and a ChannelMaster OTA DVR for TV. Laziness and my Sports addiction is stopping me.Presently I've returned to my Obi notes to figure out something that's been on my mind: what is to prevent me from unhooking my Obi 110 and taking it south to Florida with me for the winter? SIP protocol works on ethernet - if I hook it up to any router in Florida what's to stop it from working? Could be the perfect SnowBird appliance for those of us who don't llive off their cellphone or like a landline for talking long.Anyway, it's a great device and don't forget - it's a one time purchase with no monthly bills for calls, service, updates, etc. You might be intimidated during the setup but there is more help on line than ever. Obi service was great back in 2011 and I haven't used them since then so I can't speak to their present service. But getting this box working is worth it.

I purchased this awhile ago and was at first hesitant to do a complete switch from my "traditional" Roadrunner phone service. With all the talk about ISPs throttling traffic or routing it in ways that make realtime services not work so well I was afraid I would be stuck with poor quality.When AT&T U-Verse came into the area I decided when I switched over it was finally time to drop the phone bill and give this a real honest try. I had it setup with Google Voice awhile ago, so all I had to do was unplug the phone cord from the cable modem and plug in the OBi instead.I have been pleasantly surprised about how well this actually works. Calls are very clear, in fact even better than my previous VOIP service. I haven't had any issues with inbound or outbound calls, and there is no latency either. The options Google Voice has is also nice including routing calls to multiple numbers, free voicemail, setting times not to ring the phone at all (great for when you have young kids and that 9pm telemarketer decides to ruin your evening).Overall I don't really need the additional features of the OBi110 over the 100 (extra phone input to connect to a second service), but it was nice to have for a few days as I vetted out the new service. The benefit of this was I could connect my old service to the back of this adapter and use the OBi for outbound calls, and inbound calls from both my old and new service would still ring the phone.

I have a MJ+ that has been giving me lots of annoying "beep" problems that sound like some one is dialing so I bought an OBi110 to replace it and hopefully get rid of the beeps. Unfortunately, the beeps remain but have lessened after a long troubleshooting chat session with the nice folks from MJ+. However, had I known about the OBi110 before I went the MJ+ route, I may have gotten the OBi110 instead, because it seems to be totally free (although MJ+ lets you port your old home phone number which is a nice feature). In summary, the quality is very good on both the OBi110 and the MJ+ but I still get some beeps that ruin the perfect experience.I currently have both the OBi110 and the MJ+ installed at the same time. We have the OBi110 hooked up to only one phone via an ethernet cable and the MJ+ is hooked up to a satellite system with an AT&T dect 6 system. A few beeps still cause annoyance but overall the VOIP is way more affordable than the old phone system and adding VOIP to an increasingly expensive cable internet service makes the internet cost seem more justified - I get home phone and internet service for just the cost of the internet.Another thing to be aware of is that it appears one cannot port their old number to the OBi110. That is why we still have the MJ+ in service but I noticed when somebody calls us on the MJ+ number, the OBi110 also rings and works just like the MJ+ phones. Yet, when installing the OBi110, you are assigned a unique phone number through google? that can't be changed as far as I know. I've only called that number once to see if it would go to the OBi110 phone, and it does. I think the OBi110 phone number is linked to my MJ+ number and therefore both systems ring. We're still experimenting and maybe I'll get back to this post if I can figure out how to completely get rid of the "beeps".

Ive had my Obi110 for almost a year and I use it as a landline bridge to Google Voice. The biggest difference between the Obi110 and 100 is that the 110 has an extra LINE port for integration with a regular "POTS" telephone line, which I dont have. The price difference between the two was negligible, so I got the 110.Integration with Google Voice was easy. There is a tutorial on Obi's website that explains the process. I had my Google line connected within minutes.There is absolutely no difference in sound quality between using a phone through this device as using a traditional land line. You can actually use multiple phones in your home through this device if you physically disconnect the wires from your house to the line coming in from the outside of your house. All you need to do is find where the main phone line comes into your home, and disconnect the 4 external wires. This will allow the Obi to use all of the existing wiring in your home so that when someone calls you, every phone in the house will ring.You dont even need a physical telephone, you can actually use this device with a "soft phone" connected to your computer by using the computers speakers and a microphone.Another cool feature with Google Voice is that you can schedule at which times you want your line to ring or go straight to voicemail. I share my Google Voice number between the Obi and my cell phone. I can make or receive a phone call on my cell phone, then transfer the call to the Obi and resume the call using my house phone.The ONLY limitation that I have found is that the Obi does not work with rotary phones, you have to use a Pulse to Tone converter. I believe this to be true of ANY VOIP adapter, so in no way do I feel as though this should be held against the Obi. You might even ask me why I even know this. The answer is that I am a collector of vintage electronics and I currently own a 1960s era Western Electric rotary telephone and I have it connected to a Pulse to Tone converter which is then connected to the Obi. So basically, I can make an internet VOIP telephone call using a 50+ year old telephone!There are a lot of different customization options that the Obi allows you to do. You access the Obi's built in website by typing in the IP address of your Obi into a browser on your network. This allows you to fine tune the device to your needs, but to be honest, most of those options are way more advanced for the average user and aren't necessary.One last thing I should mention which has nothing to do with the Obi, is that Google Voice does not support calls to 911. If you plan on using the Obi with Google Voice as your land line solution, you will have to sign up for a 911 provider. This is possible because the Obi supports integration with two simultaneous VOIP services. I use Callcentric and pay something like $1.50 a month for access to 911. When I dial 911 through my Obi, it routes the call to Callcentric. Every other phone number goes through Google.

I am a relatively savvy techie, but my expertise is more computers/networking and not VOIP. I have been looking for a box that can replace my landline and that I can use to call the USA for free from a wifi-connected iPhone when I am outside the USA. I have tried MagicJack and Nettalk before the Obi110. MagicJack had terrible voice quality, and having the pop-up softphone on my laptop was very annoying. Nettalk was excellent for a while, but I could not get my SIP credentials to use with my iPhone and it often dropped calls after 10 minutes. I also use Talkatone on the iPhone with my Google Voice number, but quality was inconsistent. Enter the Obi110. This unit was a snap to set up and so easy to set up with Google Voice, anybody who can follow very simple directions can do it. Call quality so far is indistinguishable from the landline (which I haven't cancelled yet because I am still testing the Obi110). It also has an iphone app that allows calls over GV from outside the country, although there is a battery drain issue with the app right now. There is an amazingly thorough forum as well. The Obi110 is incredibly flexible. It has a simple set-up portal, but when you start reading the forum posts, you begin to see just how customizable this unit is through the "expert configuration" option. You can use two GV numbers, allow others to call the unit and make USA calls for free, line rollover if you have more than a one line phone, set it to ring various numbers, use your cell phone data plan to make and receive all of your phonecalls and not use minutes . . . it is mind-boggling. I really have no idea just how to squeeze all of the performance features of this unit yet . . . it's a learning process. I have only had it set up for a couple of days, so I can't speak to reliability, but so far, it's very impressive and sophisticated.

I configured the OBi110 to use Google Voice, and it completely replaced my home telephone service. With free long distance within the US, the device will pay for itself in savings in a couple of months.Configuring the device was easy. The online documentation was decent, and I found a few other blogs with tutorials as well. I recommend using the obitalk web site for ease of configuration. The only problem is that it stores your Gmail username and password, so there's a certain expectation of trust that OBi will not misuse that information. Personally, I created a second Gmail / Google Voice account just for this product. Thanks Google!Note: this product does NOT provide access to 911. If this is needed, it is available through several Internet phone service providers. I used CallCentric, which provides enhanced 911 for $1.50 per month. The OBi online wizard provides easy setup for CallCentric and other Internet phone services, and configuring the device to place 911 calls through this service was fairly easy.Also, the call quality has been excellent. I cannot tell a difference in sound quality between the OBi / Google Voice and my previous PSTN service. I have not had any problems with dropped calls either.Overall, this is a solid product and a great way to save some money by dropping the telephone company.

Have been using the Ooma for just over two years and it works very well for us. We had our landline/voip number ported to Ooma, so we did not have to notify everyone of a new number. We travel back and forth between two homes in other states and just bring the Ooma with us. Just have to change address, so emergency vehicles are not sent to the wrong address if 911 is dialed. Only gripe I have is if we are connected to someone who has a landline (few left) there is an echo on the line. None of noted fixes have worked for this. We were paying over $30 for VOIP through AT&T and Ooma costs between $4 and $5 per month for local tax. Found their customer service to be very responsive when we did the number porting. We use Ooma Premier and have barely scratched the surface of it's capabilities. We do forward calls to cell, when out of town for a couple of days using it. Very happy with Ooma!

Purchased to replace our basic (no caller-id, no call waiting, no long distance, etc) land-line $32/month phone service - now our monthly phone charge is $4.32 . . . which includes caller-id, call-waiting, and long distance! Simple installation, too. However, though the phone quality is acceptable (given the monthly charge difference), there are a couple things that could be improved.1) There is a definite delay in the conversation. Appears to be about 1/2-second or so delay, sometimes resulting in you being able to actually hear an 'echo' of the last thing you said on phone. Happens on both direct-connected old-school push-button handset, and on cordless phone. Not an internet speed issue (50 Mbps). This occurs whether handset is connected directly to the Ooma device, or as we have it installed as list in 3) below2) This same delay sometimes is heard by the person on the other end of the call. Especially noticeable during quick back-and-forth conversations, to the point that conversation 'cuts-out' and choppy.3) We have Ooma unit installed in 'electronics' closet with modem/router, with RJ11 cable running from Ooma to pre-installed phone wall jack. This makes all phone wall-outlets able to connect to single Ooma. We also have a cordless phone w/answering. If a call comes in and no one answers, cordless phone answering will record message. If call comes in while we are on phone, call waiting will activate, then call will forward to Ooma device, which will record message. Only way to retrieve that message is to go into 'electronics' closet and push amber blinking light, listening to message.

Never thought I would like an internet based phone, but this system works very well. Purchased a bundle with one of their HD handsets and the calls are crystal clear. Set-up was fairly straight forward, but needs to be done on a computer. The basic service is free but you have to pay for the premium service. Can get 2 phone numbers, even a separate number for a fax. But that's part of the premium service.I took away one star for the quality of the speaker in the Ooma base, just not up to snuff. Distorts too easily, good to be used but you can that it's a cheap speaker. For the size, should be much better.Also, some of the instructions included in the box was old and not relevant to the new system. For example, in the box, the instructions states that to use with a fax you need to dial *99 first, well for the first 2 days I could not get the fax to work. Called customer support, very good by the way, and they told me that the newer systems do not need the *99 prior to the number dialed for faxing out....well that's not what the info in the instructions say...someone forgot to update the instructions, but problem solved and working well now.

Overall I am very please with Ooma. The call quality is pretty decent and I love the ability to have a traditional home line that will also ring on my cell phone. As VOIP is pretty well vetted technology, there is not much more that I can say to the positive on this. For less than $4 a month ongoing (local and federal taxes that they have to charge), this pays for itself in just a few months.There are two negatives.1. As I am on conference calls a lot, I have to dial meeting numbers quite often. Unfortunately, I have noticed that you have to type the meeting numbers very deliberately so that they register. It is really a pain when you have the same number repeated as the Ooma service will quite often miss the repeating number tone. Not a huge issue, but annoying enough that I have to retype my conference numbers many times.2. You would think that since this is a computer based phone system, that a 'soft phone' through the computer would be possible. Some sort of app on the computer so that you can take the Ooma with you and have it work through your computer would be great. Unfortunately, it doesn't support this. Minor annoyance but a feature I have grown to like on other services such as skype for business.Overall, I am quite pleased and would definitely recommend this service to a friend.

I just received this unit yesterday and I am sure I have acquired a few more gray hairs trying to figure it all out, and I consider myself technically inclined or maybe one of my off days. You will need to pack your patience because it does take a while for that blue solid light to show, but it is worth the wait. I had to call Customer Service several times and they were all very nice and helpful. I decided not to get the premier package, so I called Customer Service and asked them to opt me out now so there was no chance of being billed after the 60 days were over. I would suggest you follow-up to make sure it was done. I also requested for my number from A** to be ported, very easy to do from the website. This is not a landline phone, but is a very good substitute. I have gotten good feed-back about the voice clarity. So far I am pleased , will do update if anything changes.

I have used VOIP telephony services before and always went back to a land-line because of call quality issues. So I was skeptical when I saw the Ooma Telo, but based on the reviews and what I was reading about the audio quality features, I decided to give it a try. Who wouldn't love to get rid of their telephone bill?Installation was really quite easy, it turned out, as long as you follow the instructions. After registering the device online as instructed, I attached it to the LAN side of my broadband router and powered it on for the first time. It blinked red for a bit, then turned purple as it downloaded its updated software. After a few minutes, the light turned blue, and I got a dial tone on my phone.So then I placed a call to check out the audio experience. As I expected, like all VOIP products I've tried, there was a slight delay in the audio, which can be annoying - especially since the actual delay gets doubled in two-way communications. The actual delay one-way is slightly less than one second (which is slightly better than other VOIP products I've used). So one second after I say something the other person hears it. Then they respond which I hear that one second after that. The net result is that I hear almost two extra seconds of silence between my speaking and my hearing the other person's response. It's annoying, but expected. So I withheld a star for that.I like the voicemail and caller-id features that come with the free subscription (which the phone company charged me an extra $10 per month for), but I was disappointed to discover that my current phone number could not be ported, and the available selection of phone numbers in my chosen area code gave me about 50 number to choose from, so not a lot of options. Supposedly they can port many people's phone numbers, but not mine, and not for free either. If my number had been eligible for porting, it would have cost me $40, and would have entailed filling out a paper form, mailing it in, and waiting a few weeks for the transfer to take place. I take another star away for that.But today I'm giving one star back for the audio quality. Even though there is the slight delay, the audio has been crystal clear for me. I'm having a problem with my broadband provider today (which they're sending a technician out to repair... next week...seriously?!?!) I'm only able to get a little less than half a megabit download speed at the moment, even though I paying for 10. So I thought, "This is my chance to test how my Ooma performs when the Internet is dead slow." I've placed several calls now through the Ooma Telo while surfing and testing download speeds. Chrome loads the pages painfully slowly, and I continue to see anemic download speeds, but my phone call is crystal clear. I hear absolutely no degradation in call quality compared to when the Internet was running at full speed.So, goodbye phone bill! And to all of my friends out there, please program my new phone number into your address books, and feel free to believe that I'm giving extra thought to what you've said before I respond... Ooma is here to stay.

What's not to love about an Obi box unit.I have a few of these now and i will not look back to going with traditional overpriced landlines.Sound quality is crystal clear and service is reliable. OBiHAI have done a good job at making the device relatively easy to use. When you get the OBi110 you need to connect it up to your home network with the supplied Ethernet cable. You also need to connect your OBi110 to a mains supply using the 3 pin UK power adaptor and also attach an analogue phone using the US Plug (RJ11) to BT Socket (BTS) Adaptor as mentioned above. Connecting the OBi110 to a landline is optional and if connected, the landline could then be used to route calls through if desired.The user interface has a lot features and just about setting you can think of can be found. the unit boots up still without any problems after running 24/7 days a week for over a month.If you have an Android or iOS device you can also download the free OBiHAI app and log in with your username and password you just created. When doing so, you then see the device added to your configuration page and can then call any OBi device free of charge (data rates for mobile services may apply), or even use the OBi110 as a bridge to route the call.Pros and ConsIit’s small and easy to connect up to a home or office network using the RJ45 cable that needs to plug in to a switch or router. Configuration is easy as the web service guides you through the majority of the basics. I also found that the Android app was easy to use, as was the tablet app. The calls made from either were clear and calls made over other services were also clear. I like that the OBi110 also has a built in IVR just like the Cisco/Linksys hardware which you can access by dialling '* * *' where you can then navigate through the menu system and find out stuff such as what IP address your local network assigned to it. All this adds up to a very well polished device. The price is also very reasonable.The oldest of the three of these units i have is well over 4 years old and is still working despite being plugged in and online 24/7. pretty impressive that it is still working like new.

SUDDENLY... My faithful Obi Hai 110 and 100 are BRICK. After years of service and WITH NO WARNING, they are gone. As an expert in VoIP for network phones I went through hoops to set it up in 2011. Now they want $10 for firmware. Maybe I will roll the dice and try the $10. I pity the poor Google Voice person that tries to set this up. Please DO YOUR HOMEWORK with this product. If you have free phone service with your cable package, maybe that is the answer.But I PAID the $10, and my very old model 100 upgraded its firmware, and all is good.Plus I can now also hit my internal (RFC1918) IPv4 address.If you like broadcasting you Google Voice caller ID by simply dialing a number, this is for you. Plus you can embed your area code and just dial SEVEN digits for local calls.

Excellent product, although confusing to setup at first but after a lot of google searches was able to setup my traditional POTS and Google Voice (December 2014) in my Obi. I came from the older SPA3102, and voice clarity is better with the Obi. Setup is actually much more confusing with the Obi at first, maybe that's just me. The available ObiON android app was a hit and miss, when it worked it was cool, when it does not it's frustrating. In my experience using the ObiON app on my Galaxy Tab and S3, I was more successful using my Mobile data instead of Wifi.I deduct 1/2 star because of the 4 unit limit, I needed 8 units and had to use my wife's Amazon to purchase to complete the 8 units I needed. I don't know how to purchase additional, maybe somewhere else.I deduct 1/2 star because of the poor documentation for beginners and quick setup guide apart from the plug this and plug that which was obvious anyway. Add the no response from my support ticket I sent Obihai. I was able to resolve my issue after much searching.I have only used 1 Obi110 for my house, the rest I will use with a FreePBX install.I would recommend this 100% for it's versatility.Update (2015-01-05): The ObiON Android App is officially dead to me. It would not work, and Obihai will not officially help out and from what I gather has not updated nor touched it since 2011, so if you are looking to it as the selling point then don't count on it. Having said that, there is still a solution (a workaround) available if you want Android connectivity via the Android app CSIPSimple and Sip2Sip. The great folks at the forum helped out a lot in getting a solution done, no thanks to Obihai. So if you decide to have an Android solution, don't bother with the ObiON app and just go straight to forums and look for the CSIPSimple solution.Obihai should stop using the ObiON Apps as a marketing tool until they fix it, it is very misleading and frustrating to a lot of people. I should deduct 1 more star for this but all said the hardware was good and it is the hardware I bought and not the apps.

I waited a year before writing this review, as I didn't want the initial enthusiasm to influence my opinion.Pros:------ - versatility, ability to use multiple VoIP providers - Google Voice (while it still works) - excellent voice quality (most of the time - but then again, it's VoIP so it's not expected to be perfect, nor is it wasy to determine who's at fault...the server, the client or the network) - Can be kept simple to configure via canned Obitalk settingsCons:------- - a few unexpected cases where I could not communicate with the device, despite the calls staying up. Had to do a hard reboot (4-5 times in 14 months) - when getting down to the nuts and bolts of configuration, it WILL be overwhelming and confusing to understand settings when changing defaults - I really like that Obihai has tried to provide an alternative to GV, but it's NOT free - I'm sure this was a big selling point for a lot of customers - I miss the ability to do a SIP call trace - poor communication from Obihai in forums or otherwise in terms of software changes and bug fixes/feature requests - impossible to downgrade, even when having the previous version saved on a PC. Put me in a pickle more than once.Overall I'm more than satisfied with the product and have since recommended to co-workers and friends. If Obihai would improve their customer communication (or at least man the forums) a lot of the configuration issues would not turn into nightmares.

Please note: The Obi100/110/etc. devices will continue to serve you well after Google Voice stops working on them on or after 5/15/14. You just need to select one (or two) good VOIP provider(s) that is (are) compatible with the "SIP" standard/protocol.What I like about my Obi110:- Reliable, good voice quality (almost as good as a traditional (POTS) landline- Not locked to any particular service provider. In fact, the Obi110 can be setup to be used with up to three different providers (two internally, and a third (a regular POTS landline or another VOIP device such as MagicJack, Nettalk, etc. plugged into the the LINE port). You can setup your Obi110 to use one provider for incoming calls (e.g., Callcentric or voip.ms) and another (e.g., CallWithUs, Localphone, Vestalink or another) for outgoing calls.- Provides service to the phones you have now, even those that aren't AC powered. Just make sure that the total REN (Ringer Equivalence Number) of all the phones is 5.0 or less. The Obi devices can provide service to all the phone jacks in your home... just be sure to disconnect from your landline provider at the "NID" box outside your home before plugging in the Obi.- You don't necessarily have to get rid of your traditional landline if you don't want to. You can plug it into the LINE port of the Obi110 and use an inexpensive provider (e.g., CallWithUs, Localphone) for your outgoing non-911 calls and drop your landline down to a limited (e.g., 30 outgoing calls/month) or measured-rate calling plan. The Obi devices have a built-in Auto Attendant feature than can be setup to block telemarketing calls- you can set it up to require all callers to press 1 to ring your phones (stops almost all robocalls dead in their tracks).- Starts up quickly after a rebootSome things I don't quite like about my Obi110:- Using the full "coolness" of the Obi devices requires some technical ability and some time reading and studying stuff on the ObiTalk and DSLReports VOIP Tech Chat forums. The advanced settings web interface is cryptic, not very self-explanatory and requires lots of searching on the ObiTalk forums to find out what a particular setting does.- Not quite as "plug and play" as MagicJack, NetTalk, Ooma, BasicTalk or VOIPo (if you don't do BYOD with VOIPo). You will need to do some research to find the best SIP-compatible provider(s) for your anticipated usage to hook your Obi up to and will need to figure out how to hook up the Obi to these provider(s) yourself.- VOIP service in general is not quite as reliable and trouble-free as a traditional landline. If your internet goes out, so does your home phone. Keep a working cell phone handy!- Must be plugged into a battery backup (UPS device) to keep your non-AC powered corded phones working for a while if your home loses power. This is true with any VOIP device, not just the Obi's (unless the VOIP device has its own built-in battery backup).I currently have mine setup to use Callcentric for unlimited incoming calls and free outgoing toll-free calls for $7.45 a month and Vestalink for 2000 outgoing non-toll-free minutes/month for $39.99/year ($3.33/month), total $10.78/month (including all fees). My traditional AT&T landline was about $28.50 or so a month total with long distance charges.If you're thinking about dumping your overpriced home phone service from landline or cable provider, go for this! Just be sure to keep a cell phone handy and charged (can be on just a cheap pay-by-the minute plan) so you have 911 service in case your internet goes out and/or your battery backup your Obi is plugged into

I have Google voice number which used to work well with my Ooma Core subscription until Ooma introduced Google Voice as a Premier Telo Only feature. Calls forwarded by Google Voice to my home phone would ring but on picking up Ooma would send it to voice mail. Very annoying in deed. Since I did not need Ooma Premier I decided to stop forwarding calls from my Google voice number to my home phone. By the way I have been using ooma Hub - VoIP Phone Device with No Monthly Phone Service Bills since late 2008 and the service has been terrific.I stumbled on the Obi110 adapter while searching for something else on amazon. I have never heard of ObiHai nor their products before. What really caught my attention was the OBi110 uncanny resemblance to Ooma Scout (to use with Ooma Hub VoIP Phone Device). After reading about the OBi110 I decided to give it a try. The first unit I received from amazon was DOA. It would not connect and kept blinking red. I returned it for exchange but amazon did not have any more in stock so I ordered a new unit directly from the manufacturer via amazon marketplace. It initially had hard time connecting but when it finally did everything worked as advertised. It even found a new firmware and updated itself. Google voice works pretty well with this device. I can now make calls with my Google voice number showing on the caller ID. Very neat.One caveat though is that it has rebooted itself a few times compared to my Ooma hub which has only lost connection twice since 2008 owing to Ooma global Server downtime issues. The OBi110 also need power reboot each time telephone cord is disconnected for any reason. Ooma Hub stays connected so long as the router cable is in place. May be not a fair comparison since Ooma Hub is home phone replacement while OBi110 is more like a soft phone device? Anyhow, this is a great little device if you need an easy home solution for your Google Voice number.

As our kids reach the age of being able to stay home by themselves we wanted to reinstate a land line service for our home in the event of emergencies and/or serve as a backup communication option. The device set up was fairly straightforward, so no issue there.As a VOIP service, the device works well for the first 45 minutes of a call. As calls continue longer, we've experienced connectivity issues and people have trouble hearing us. When the connection is terminated and reestablished, we have a clear communication channel again. I have not called tech support to troubleshoot as 99% of the calls are less than 10 minutes.My other disappointment is that the base station died after six months. It's under warranty, so we'll get it replaced, but six months is a very short period of time to have a simple electronic device die.We also purchased the wireless handset to pair with the basestation. It's a simple, basic phone. No complaints.

I really like the idea Ooma represents. It has allowed me to save money on calls. I purchased Ooma about nine months ago. Here are some things to consider:GOOD:1. $$$-Save money! I pay about $4.50 per month.2. Forwarding-I can track calls while away with my cell.3. Features-Lots of features although they costs.4. Free-National calling for free.5. Picture ID-I really like the idea of seeing a picture of who is calling on the handset.BAD:1. Handset-The handset stopped working so I called customer service (using my cell) and they replaced the handset. The handset is cheaply constructed and feels like it could crack or break apart at any time.2. Screening calls-I like to hear who is calling on the answer machine before I pick up, unfortunately this is an added feature and cost more.3. Phone number-Additional charge to keep old phone number.UGLY:1. Reliability-Phone service is "not reliable". Sometimes I cannot use the phone at all. Maybe because it relies on the internet. My internet is with Spectrum at 100mbs and works great.2. Other-I notice I use my cell phone more since I got Ooma. It is more reliable.3. Spouse- The wife doesn't like it, thank goodness she has a new iPhone.Summary: There are ways to use phone service with the internet and they are even cheaper or free. After buying the answer machine, Handset, Premiere upgrade, and old phone number it amounted to about $240.00. I will continue to use Ooma but I see a transition to just a cell phone in the future. Would I recommend Ooma, yes, but with caution.

The unit was easy to set up and the sound is fine. But one reason I chose this brand and model, is that I could use my original phone number. When I tried to port my old number I received an error message stating that I couldn't port my number. When I inquired about this Ooma told me that in some rural areas, and with certain carriers the porting was not possible. I don't live in a rural area, I live in a city of 35,000 just 40 miles from Peoria, Illinois. My advice to prospective purchasers who want to use their existing number, contact Ooma and verify that your number can be transferred before you make your purchase.

My first Ooma Telo has been working great for over three years, after I spent nearly a week getting it past the firewall in my Motorola SBG6580. I had to bypass a number of ports (UDP & TCP). Not for the IT Timid.My recently purchased Ooma Telo, second edition, worked great with for 5 days, until Ooma completed the porting of our existing home number to the Ooma Telo.. Then, all was fine, except the phone would not ring. I tried two different phones, plugged directly into the Ooma Telo unit. One, a wired handset, would chirp once. The other, a wireless speakerphone, made no indication of incoming calls.I was on the computer, first, and then the phone, for well over 2 hours that Friday. They couldn't resolve the issue; said to wait until tomorrow. They would call the next day around noon. I called them back about 1 PM. For an hour, the service rep tried resetting the unit, and whatever other tricks he had. He had me go into my speakerphone setup to change the volumne, even though I told him the problem was on two different phones. Finally, he decided to send another Ooma Telo, but it couldn't ship until Monday. Late Tuesday, I got the new unit, set it up, and all is well. Except that the return label doesn't appear to include home pickup, so I have to drive 20 minutes each way and drop it off at UPS. I emailed the service rep about this, but got no response.The Ooma Telo is well worth the cost; that I bought a second unit indicates that. But you may find the setup is a real chore. You may be without usable phone service for a few days if you have your current number ported. And, if you have to deal with their customer service, the "music" they blare out at you while on hold is the worst I have ever heard. I had to turn the volumne down on the speakerphone to have any chance of hearing the phone ring.

First, the call quality is wonderful. When I first installed this it was better than the Verizon copper wire landline. The ability to forward calls and get messages remotely makes this a no brainer for replacing a traditional landline. The second line phone they sell is OK (much better than the first generation). The best use of this is to tie the base to something like a Panasonic base with 4 or 5 other wireless phones. The caller ID transfers to the Panasonic phones without a problem.I would give this 5 stars if they lasted longer. My first unit lasted several years before going out. I ordered a replacement in 7/14 and by 12/15 the unit is dropping calls. I ordered another one because at this point I don't think there is a better unit on the market.

Update 5/11/2015 - I just lowered it a star. While the device performs, I rate things on customer service as well as hardware. Even though I paid for a year of updated features I still have to pay government taxes. Well my credit card got copied and was replaced. I updated their web page for my payment information. Now I get emails that they can not charge me (new or old card # idk) So I called.. they want the original temporary number to look up the account.. who remembers a temp. # after 6 months. Even with other details and finally finding the original temp number still no help. Worse service experience ever, the guy said to call back, he had no clue how to help.---------------------------------------------------------------Still looking for a better land line. Ever since the days Ma Bell got broken up land lines have gone through change. Telco's say the monthly cost of $45 is to recover the installation. Well if it cost them $100,000 to provide 1 line, and the bundle it with 100 more, then 22 years later its paid for. However they have been charging this for 75 years..until VoIP and cell phones. I had Vonage, but the quality sucked, then I went to Wireless home phone.. ok but scattered features and service. Ooma is my last attempt to keep my land line. It has lots of features, I pay a year in advance for what I want, and so far so good. Sometimes the call quality is not what I expect, mainly because I have about 10 internet devices trying to use 1mb upload. So quality is probable to my bad. I like it is the bottom line.

Despite spending more than two days trying to work with different settings on the OBI110, I couldn't get it to work at all with any VOIP providers other than Google Voice. I followed the instructions meticulously, was able to adjust port settings per the instructions, and when those settings didn't work, go back and revert the box to factory default settings. Finally gave up and just use it for Google Voice. Definitely not a 'plug & play' option if you want to setup VOIP as a landline.

To begin with, I have problems with my Ooma after 3yrs. Until, recently it started with breaking up, hearing funny noises during call. So Bought Obi110 and set up was a breeze I had everything go in less than 10mins. Only thing that took time was my device identification. It took about 3 attempts and after that 4th attempt it was registered. I hooked up with my GV and all set to go. Now, I make a call the darn thing has issues. Constantly, I cannot hear voice on the other side. I paid $40 bucks and all i have is another stupid plastic component sitting in my home. Not sure if the problem is OBI or GV or my network or phone. Ultimately, I'm back at square one.Update 09-27-2013 09:30 PM MOVING UP TO 3 STARS FOR NOW -- So, I removed everything and shut down my router, switch , phone and Obi110 and started replugging everything one by one. Then registered again the device. Voila. Now my voice service is up and running. But , lot of people have complained about the life of the device. So, for now I will keep my rating at 3 stars and will wait and see how it's going to function. I know E911 is not there. But in all my life I have dialed twice 911 and more over its not daily critical functionality. So, my cell does that job.

I really can't say anything bad about SIP part - it works well and free.Some features (like having 99 speed dials) are really nice, as well as free VIOP service and GoogleTalk integration + 2 another SIP accounts possible.However the device itself have a MAJOR design flow.Unlike Cisco SPA3102 for example - if you cut (disconnect) the power it does not fall back to PSTN, this is really major design flow.The other thing I did not liked is PSTN line call waiting.Here I guess it all depends on usage scenario , if you use your VOIP line as main and PSTN "just in case" then I guess it's OK, but if you (like me) want to use VOIP just for international calls, leaving PSTN line "as it is" - you are out of luck:- First , when you get "call waiting" signal over PSTN line (when talking over PSTN) - the device somehow "blocks" caller ID (not so on SPA3102), the other problem is that to switch to this PSTN call waiting call you need to make "double flash" (press "flash" twice) and to say the truth - never managed this to get to work at all (same problem with SPA3102) - the device just either does nothing or switches to VOIP dial tone.- The other thing is "star codes" (had the same problem with SPA3102) - they can't be configured to be passed to PSTN line by dialing rules at all, even if you disable device's internal star codes processing. This can be easily overcome by dialing "#" before star code, but I needed to support some very conservative people of advanced age :) and they are not really in learning to do things differently.In general it's a good device, in many ways better then SPA3102 (99 speed dials compared to 8, more convenient **1/**2/**8/**9 "destination" selection when dialing etc). But buttom line - I couldn't use it for the most basic thing I needed - make my line PSTN+VOIP, so it "fail" for me, the device is more "good VOIP + limited PSTN features", and of course not being able to call PSTN when no power is a killer, even my ancient USB SkypeBox did this.

I took the time to see how it works before writing the review. The item arrived in about a week from the date of ordering. It works as I expect. Upon opening the box, I read the included set up guide and followed the instructions. After testing with Obihai server, I proceeded to set up. At first I used the instructions on the website of my voip service provider. It works without a hitch. I was able to make and receive phone calls, using my cell phone as the other end. A few days later, I registered and logged on to Obihai website to set up the device using its portal. The portal makes it easier to get the device on line with less steps and technical skills. After setting it up using Obihai portal, I noticed that my caller ID has become "unknown" to the called party. ID was visible when I set up using the voip provider's instructions. Not a big deal for now, but I have the intention to fix it at a later time. Incoming caller ID still works as normal. I also noticed that on both out-going and incoming calls, there is a 1 to 2 seconds delays before 2 parties can hear each other. There were times I had to hang up because I could not hear the other party. I would have to find out more if it was the Obihai device or my voip service. Sound quality is good. We can hear and talk as normal, old fashioned telco phone service. I disconnected the main telco line at the panel and connect the Obihai to my house wiring. It provide good ringing to 2 cordless stations and one old rotary phone with no problem. Over all, I give it 3 stars for now. I will come back for an update after working out the problems.

I purchased this product last year and have been pretty satisfied with it thus far. I was looking for a home phone replacement and saw the option of Google Voice with this device. I figured, why not?The setup was fairy simple and because our phone was already disconnected from an external dial tone, I was able to connect it into the existing house phone wiring via a nearby phone jack. The signal gets to all of the jacks in the house, although, we only really use one with a cordless phone setup.The first glitch was that I had to make an adjustment in my Google Voice account to ensure that the calls went to Google Talk. If this option is not checked, the phone won't ring.The other issue I occasionally have is calls not coming through. Usually this happens due to an available firmware update and I simply log into my ObiTalk account and update it. There have been a few occasions where I have had to do a hard reboot but, these have been rare.The firmware updates tend to be fairly frequent, which I like. It demonstrates that even with a device that is a year old, the company still cares about the users with that product.Overall I would recommend this product. It works well about 85-95% of the time and requires only minimal tweaks and/or maintenance.

I've been using vonage for more than 4 years. Service has been pretty good but in the recent years I've been using home phone less and less and using the cell phone more and more. A few months back, I brought a obihai 110 for my parents because they just moved to a new place, but has internet service but no phone. So this is perfrect for them. Sometimes, the voice quality is not there. At least that it is better than nothing.I had an activation kit from t-mobile so I proceeded to port my phone # from vonage to t-mobile. It took 4 days, but was 2 days too late because my bill cycle period just began. My fault because I procrastinated until the last minute. It took one day to port my phone # from t-mobile to Google Voice. Google voice has alot of advantages like forwarding your phone # to another one, and ability to block a phone # you want and block marketing calls. But the bad thing, it does not have 911 or 311 service. I've also had an issue with my google voice account where I could not add credits to my account, and had to contact google voice for that issue.Once when you have your google phone # ported and set up, setting up the Obihai device should be pretty straight forward. There are a few downsides. One is that it takes up more network traffic than my vonage device. I noticed that it always try to contact google's servers and regularly sends packets whereas my Vonage device rarely does that. You can configure dial strings to set up 311, 411 and 911 calls, but managed to get 311 working, but not 411 for some reason. I wish Obihai can just let you map these commonly used phone numbers without using dial strings. The call quality is not as good compared to vonage. Last night I made a phone call and I can hear crackling sound from the other side. This morning I tried to make an international call, but got disconnected when trying to make a phone call, but was able to do it on the 2nd try. I've never had QOS (quality of service) or disconnect issues when I was with vonage. Perhaps google's servers are oversubscribed, especially in the evenings?I think that if you talk alot in your home phone, your current voip company is pretty reliable and quality of service is important to you, you should stick to your voip company. Otherwise, obihai with google voice is perfect with everyone else.Edit: 3/24/12 Used it for 2 weeks and I noticed that sometimes that I have a dropped calls or 2. Another thing that I noticed is that when people call, you no longer see their names, but you see the phone #.Edit 3/28/12 My wife made a few calls Hong Kong and the voice quality is not audible. Calls within the US is fine. Ironic that I get better phone service with free phone calls than paying for international calls. Can't blame on Obihai for this either, used my android phone to call and I get the same crappy quality. Right now, I am going to switch to another phone provider.

I purchased an Ooma Telo box as part of my cord cutting attempts. It worked OK. Voice quality was good but not great. Service was good. But then I ended up back on a triple play plan with phone service with one of the major telecom companies, and I tried to cancel the Ooma service. That is when it got interesting. There is no place on their website to cancel payment, no place on their website to try and cancel service, you cannot remove your credit card from their records. You have to call them to cancel service, and they try really hard to get you to not cancel. After they tell you that you are cancelled, you still get billed. Ugh. I had to call the credit card company to get them to block this vendor. Ooma was not so bad until I went through this.

I used to use OOMA to dial a calling card, then dial an international number. Recently I found the calling card no longer can be used. I can dial to the calling card access number, but when I continue dialing the international number it will be disconnected. If I use cell phone, everything works.This is my online conversation with OOMA customer support. Buyer should be aware that using calling card to call international number is NOT guaranteed! You: what happened was I can dial to the calling card company. You: after I dial the international number it will get disconnected You: but when i dial from my cell phone everything works. H..a: Ooma has an international call plan and for international numbers, it is not a guarantee that will work with Ooma.

Ooma worked fine for 30 days. Then I didn't get any calls for a week - the week immediately after cancelling their premium service.When you port a number into Ooma they set it up as a secondary number without telling you. On myooma.com, your login changes to the ported number making it appear the ported number is the primary number like anyone would expect.The second you cancel ooma premiere, your ported number will stop working with no notification and no explanation, and your myooma.com login will no longer work either -- unless you happen to remember the temporary ooma number assigned when you originally got the service.Why does this happen? Ooma sets up your ported number (the one you want) as a secondary number instead of primary without telling you. The 'secondary number' is a feature of ooma premier, so it stops working when ooma premiere is cancelled. Therefore anyone with a ported number who cancels premiere will have their service disrupted.It is simple to get it turned back on thankfully. A chat with tech support will fix it in about 10 min, if you can get into myooma.com by remembering the temporary number. I'm not sure what I would have done without that number.At best this is a mistake on ooma's part that causes unnecessary disruptions to phone service for users with ported numbers.At worst they are doing this on purpose to get confused users to turn the premium service back on (and pay for it) to get their ported number working again.Ooma's web site says: "Once your number has been successfully ported to Ooma, it will replace your temporary number as the default phone number for your Ooma account. Your temporary number will be released back into the pool of available numbers." This is simply not true, as the temp number was not released and the ported number was not made primary.I did like the service, but going without calls for a week brought me from a 5 to 2. We'll see how the next few months go.

The Telo is very confusing to set up if you're not a geek. Once it is set up, you have to wait several weeks for the phone number to be "ported", then you have to rewire everything again. The directions are inadequate for including a fax/copier/printer in the set up. While the printer would photocopy, it would not print out an email document or a typed document. I spent many hours trying various wiring combinations to get my printer working again and finally gave up. The next day while I was playing FreeCell, the printer magically started spitting out sheets I'd tried to print the day before.The Telo does reduce my phone bill, but I have a phone/internet package. Without the package, Frontier increased my internet charge leaving my bill not much less than originally. My computer is also running more slowly now.

Aside from an echo, which Ooma acknowledges as an item in the survey, voice quality is the same as a landline. I can't call it HD. Maybe if you called another VOIP customer you would notice better call quality. I have to rate it as "acceptable".The premium features, most notably, blacklisting is great. The other features like mp3 in email from voice mail are nice also. Everything else is roughly par for a VOIP service offering.Where they REALLY fall short is on porting. It worries me that many people will give up and not spend almost 14 hours and 10 days with moving the number NOT TO OOMA - to Bandwidth, their third-party carrier. I had no idea that this was farmed out. On one particular 3 way call, Ooma engaged Bandwidth to see how the ticket for the port had gotten lost in the shuffle. It was quite alarming as a customer to see the klunky inner workings. Ultimately the number was ported. My local telco told me they had never had an issue like this with any other company and that most port requests were handled inside of 1-2 days!If you are moving your number, I would use Google Voice and utilize the forwarding.

Well, it works but not very well. Basically, if you live in a big city and have top of the line internet and the money to buy an expensive handset, this might save you money. But in my rural area, sound quality was poor - tinny - with different good phones. Then if we used internet at the same time as talking on phone - forget it. Customer service at Ooma is nonexistent. They tell you what they can, same thing over and over. I'm very competent at setting up networks and tried all the options. No go.So for $130 this is a ripoff. In order to give it a fair trial and try all the options...I missed the return/exchange period. Awful.

OBi devices are the only product (that I know of) that can directly connect to Google Voice and let you make GV phone calls from your home phone without first dialing your GV number or initiating the GV call with a computer.The OBi110 provides two input ports: one network RJ-45 for your network and SIP/GV calls, and one RJ-11 for landline calls. I have my OBi set up to make GV calls from my home phone by adding a **1 prefix to any calls and then dialing the number I wish to call. Calls without the **1 go through telco so other users in my house don't have to do anything different to make calls.I already had a OBi202 device, which worked well with my previous multi-line phone: one of the phone's inputs would be the landline, and the other inputs would come from the OBi. When I switched to a single line phone I was forced to use the OBi110 so I could bridge the landline and GV into the phone's one input.I'm returning this device because:- It takes several seconds to place a call after dialing. If direct landline calls are normally immediate without the device, then why when using this device does it pause a long time before making a landline call? I expect GV calls to take a few seconds, but not landline.- Since using the device for a month there have been a noticeable amount of dropped landline calls. That's just unacceptable. Never had so many (if any) dropped landline calls before using the device.- I have call sound quality issues when using GV through this device. I find the other end doesn't always hear me.I really don't know what this device is doing during calls. It's doing some landline call processing, otherwise it should be a straight pass-through of telephone signals and too much funny business is going on as described above. It makes me not trust the security of the service.Unfortunately I'll have to settle to initiate my GV calls now through the web and use a call back to my landline. Not ideal, but this device's performance was unacceptable.

I have 3 Obi 110 devices installed, and they let me do some fancy stuff, including using Google Voice (that ability soon to be eliminated) and different call routing based on the number I call, so I can have different calls routed via my POTS/PSTN line, Google Voice, or other SIP provider automatically, based on the rules I set in the digit maps and dial plan.HOWEVER, this week out of the blue, incoming calls to my POTS line stopped being picked up by the Obi device, so I cannot pick-up incoming calls to this line! I changed nothing in the setup and this just happened.Dealing with support is HORRENDOUS! Only e-mail support. While my e-mail subject specifically said that the problem was with incoming calls, the response I got related to outgoing calls. Moreover, being that this is an attempt to troubleshoot, it is Totally impractical to do this over e-mail. I can't wait for hours (or overnight) for a response for a failed try based on the suggestions from support.This is extremely unfortunate, because other than the support (and maybe the problem that caused me to call support) I was extremely happy with the device.

Currently, Google Voice provides free calling across US and Canada. My mom wanted a way to save on her phone bill, so we got rid of her landline and replaced it with Google Voice. This device allows her normal phone (with answering machine) to be hooked up to Google Voice, so anyone calling her Google Voice # will still ring her normal phone as normal and can still leave a message on her answering machine as normal. Since her phone bill was in the neighborhood of $30/month, this is a savings of about $400 per year. Warning: You cannot dial 911 with this. (Perhaps Google Voice will come up with an answer for that. In the meantime, she has to depend on her cell phone for 911 service.)Downgraded to 2 stars: Beware. You may get hit with a $10 premium service fee in order to get the software updated to continue to work. I had not used my device in a few months, now decided to try to use it again, and it no longer works with Google Voice. Since warranty is over, now I have to pay to get an update to the software so it can use Google Voice.

I have used this device in conjunction with the android app over WiFi, 3g and 4g networks. Calls are almost always dropped and if they are not dropped the connection issues (like echo, excessive lag, etc). make the 'free' call unbearable. I got this to talk to my parents overseas, so maybe if its only in the US it works better.

I have this box for a while, while I was on ATT DSL or Uverse, It can't work well. Other sides have hard time to hear me well. On 3 party ISP of my community ISP, it's great, no issue at all. On TWC in LA downtown, it's clicking noise all over the place and other parties all complaint about it.It won't work with 4G Clearwire internet well, also other parties' complaints.

The OBi110 does more than I ever expected. I used the Obi with Google voice. Obi Dashboard makes the setup a breeze. I have never had a device that was so simple to setup. You can setup 2 Google Voice accounts, which is great for 2 people who wish to share a phone. The ring pattern is different for each account so you know who the call is for. My husband and I each ported our mobile phone to Google Voice accounts. Now when we get calls they forward to our offices, mobile phones and the Obi for home. I can make calls all over the US for free. It has allowed me to save money by dropping my mobile phone plan to a cheaper package. When I am home I use the Obi and it saves me from having to use minutes on my cell phone. It also means I only give out one number and I never have to worry about changing numbers. If a number changes, a simple update to Google Voice and my calls are coming in. I was so pleased with the Obi, that I purchased my parents one. I gave them the same setup that my husband and I have. They are not tech people at all and have never had a problem with the OBi. They did try magicjack, but it gave them many problems. Both OBi devices have been amazingly stable. I cannot think of a time when any of us have phone issues. With the OBi Dashboard I am able to monitor and change settings on my OBi devices from anywhere I go. I can also change anything that my parents need in minutes. This is one of the best purchases I have made.UPDATE 11/2016Both Obihai devices worked perfectly and then mysteriously stopped working. I logged into my device to see what the problem was. I was faced with a notice that I must pay a $10 yearly premium support fee to perform a firmware upgrade. This happened on both devices and I had to pay $10 for each of them. I had no previous notification that a yearly fee would be required. I do not have a problem with a company that wants to charge a yearly fee, but this was never advertised and changed years after my purchase. They should plainly advertise this is a yearly fee and not a fee for support. I paid a $10 "premium support fee" for the privlidge to upgrade firmware and configure my own device.

Physically, technically this is a great product. Setup could not be easier, just a few clicks and plugs and your making calls. Voice quality was good, features (for premium) is really nice. The issue come when you want to cancel your service. Ooma will not answer the 'billing dept' phone, literally ever (I sat on speakerphone 2 hours jamming the hold music). I think its a critical part of signing up for a service like this, support. So far Ooma is an epic fail on that side. So let the buyer beware

I liked it until I didn't have use for it. I planned on re-selling this product, and they wouldn't allow me to cancel my account. Instead, they only gave me an option of suspending charges for 3 months while I looked for a buyer. Suspending the account meant I wouldn't be able to sell it as they would void any activation on it. It's my property and I should be able to sell it without you having to hold my payment information hostage!!!

We purchased the Ooma Telo and HD2 Headset with the hopes of reducing our Time Warner cable bill. We are running 30mbs internet, significantly more than the required service.Out of the box, setup was very easy and took less than an hour total. That is where the ease of use ended. Initially, we had decent call quality but noticed a slight delay on the sound from the person called. This proved challenging (constant talking over of each other) but something we felt we could live with. Over time, the call quality degraded to the point where incoming and outgoing calls were unrecognizable. At one point, everyone sounded like robots out of star wars, funny once, irritating after that.The HD2 Headset left a lot to be desired. The call quality was horrendous. It was nearly impossible to hear anything on the handset and every call seemed muffled and amplified the delay. Very quickly we went back to our conventional cordless phone.We recently deactivated our account and went back to Time Warner cable phone service. A call to the Ooma customer service department reaffirmed our decision, Call quality into their tech center was terrible as well. Overall very disappointed in the device and would not recommend the service.

The audio drops out for five to ten seconds multiple time during most phone calls. Ooma blames my Internet service provider and my internet service provider blames Ooma, I think that it's the Ooma since my last phone was also a VOIP system through my IPS and it worked fine.

Terrible service from Ooma. For over 2 months, several chat and phone sessions I was never able to make outgoing calls from ported number. Online chat said they would send replacement unit, phone said no. Switched back to Vonage and it was working in 3 days. Now I have to file a claim with my credit card company against Ooma for services charged and not delivered, and for Ooma device.

UPDATE - Nov 10 2015: I moved to downgrade service as I almost never use this line. I discovered that without paying $15/month for premium service, you don't even get caller ID. Other online services give this to you for free. Also, the downgrade process required a phone call (can't do it online) of more than ten minutes of back and forth that I did not want a special offer or any other deal. They really do not want you doing it. The phone rep actually had to "talk to my supervisor" before he could do it. I would give this five stars if you need and use all premium features. One star if you do not. As a result of this, I'm going to fully disconnect the lines.NOTE: If you want better pricing, call and threaten to cancel. They effectively were willing to give me a year of premium service for $40 instead of $120+ taxes.I have AT&T U-Verse and have had zero quality or performance issues. Easily ported my number in and started saving money.One note to new installers; when you first plug it in, give it a bit of time. Mine showed a red error light for a very long time before it finally switched to the all-is-working Blue indicator. I would say it was at least 15 minutes on red.One note regarding number porting from AT&T. If you plan to make multiple changes, do the number port LAST. I also wanted to cancel my cable subscription, but initiated the number port first. That took a number of days and during that time I could not make other adjustments to the account. AT&T reps assured me that my file had a note so that they could prorate the bill, but they didn't. It was about $8 and I couldn't justify the time fighting about it. Five stars for Ooma... one for AT&T.

After several year in good use. Now you have to pay money for updating firmware to use it. This sounds like I've been cheated. By by Obi!

What a dishonest company!I bought this in 2012, and used it for both google voice (for free US calls) and Callwithus (for extremely low international rates).Everything worked extremely well and I recommended this company to all my friends. However, suddenly I wasn't able to place any calls, not through google voice nor Callwithus. I went into the obi configuration account, and it showed me that my "premium help support" and expired and I need to buy an annual $10 premium tech support as obi rolled out a new critical software update which is required to continue service.Huh??? Why not just post on your website the link to this update? I tried looking online for a fix that would enable me to continue using this box, to no avail. All the online solutions that were offered by other enraged users didn't work for me. I tried sending an email to Obi asking for help, they refused to help unless I paid the $10 premium tech support.I see this as a SCAM. They can basically release new software updates every year, requiring you to keep maintaining their premium tech support. They could raise the price to whatever they want.It was a principle for me NOT to pay them the $10. I bought another adapter (Cisco SPA112 2 Port Phone Adapter Cisco SPA112 2 Port Phone Adapter). I just received it, and it works beautifully. True, I can no longer use Google Voice with them, but they do work with all service providers who have a SIP protocol, so I can still use Callwithus. I will continue using google voice through the computer. I am simply not willing to give any $$ to Obi, the fraudulent company who uses the bait and switch tactic.

ordered product on amazon. opend new box and tried activating on Feb 12th.Says i need to pay 10 dollars to activate because the hardware warranty has expired !!Hardware Warranty and Premium Technical SupportStart DateMar 2014End DateMar 2015StatusExpiredPremium Technical Support(For Out of Warranty Devices)Price$10.00Duration1 yearStatusAvailableDescription: Receive premium technical support via email and phone, from Obihai's Help Desk experts even when your OBi device is not covered by a hardware Warranty.

Tragic! I need a good product that does what this claims to do (and so do you). But Obihai hasn’t made it robust, and they probably dominate this market niche so that nobody else has either, so we’re stuck with something unreliable. Does anybody know an alternative?The concept is right on. You are anywhere in the world where you have WiFi access, and you have your smart phone but no local SIM card. You peck the OBi app icon (instead your telephone icon) and immediately dial any number in the US or Canada for free, just as if you were at home. To achieve this, OBi110 sits in your home, dials the number on your landline, and links you to it through the Internet. Quality should be as good as WhatsApp telephone calls, which are great but only go to other WhatsApp phones. No need to deal with Google, Microsoft (Skype) or other corporations, it’s all yours and utterly simple. Alas, here are the problems:1. The OBi110 makes the call, but then drops the voice-over-internet connection to my Android phone (even though it still keeps the land-line off-hook until I hang up the Android). I think it is a combination of two problems: (a) my Comcast Internet (Xfinity) line appears to have short glitches in the Internet connectivity, despite its very high average speed; and (b) the OBi110 drops the voice connection at the slightest provocation. A few times I have gotten a good connection, occasionally it has been dropped after a while, but usually I only hear the first ring from the landline. OBi could solve this with a bit of engineering, but they haven’t. (Xfinity may be partly culpable, but that doesn’t relieve Obihai.) Surely this won’t happen with everyone (depending on the nature of your Internet service), but it makes the device unusable for me.2. Obihai’s documentation was written by people who write “about” something but don’t seem to know whether they have actually told you, concisely and unambiguously, what it does or how to use it. This wastes a lot of time.3. A support person actually did answer my first request for help, but my subsequent e-mail (a week ago), with more detail, was never answered.If Obihai would like some help fixing their product or making their documentation more useful, they should contact me. I would be glad to help, and to revise this review. For now, after MUCH wasted time, I have to return the product.

Update 2016. Dropping my rating to 1 star. having it stop working at random and being told I need to pay ten dollars for it to start working is completely unacceptable.Update 5/2013. Over a year later and still going strong. Wonderful product.I've been using this for two months now with Google voice.First I assume you have set up a google voice account and are comfortable with their interface.Second, you are almost done. Plug the box in, follow the instructions on the one sheet instructions and the phone just works.There is one problem I have had and it was with Google voice not the OBI box. On occasion I would get at voice-over on my call "This call is being recorded". This happens when some-one's speech sounds like a touch tone to google voice (it is more complicated than that, but you don't care. I am an electrical engineer). If this happens, just press 4 on your phone handset. You will hear "recording stopped". Again, this is not the OBI device but it spooked me when it happened the first time.I have also had the problem where the call connects but one party can't hear another. This happens about 2 calls in a hundred. It happened with my cable-company phone about one call in a hundred. I can live with it.I have unlimited cell minutes, so a home line was a luxury because I like my handsets better than I like my mobile phone for long calls. I have two of them, so I can switch when batteries are low and they have great speaker phones. There is also one place in my house where my cell phone will drop.I am very happy with this device and will be buying another to provide my child with a phone line.

Update 4/7/2015 The phone number I gave on the last Update no longer is answered so I do not use it anymore. I do not trust the security of it with my Google passwords as whenever it has them my Google account gets opened and then the passwords to both are changed and Obi is not available to talk about it anymore either. I got sick of endless password recovery and ditched the Obi.I would rather use a mic off my computer anyways as I hated holding a phone while on a long hold and I can hear better too on a 500 watts 5.1 THX certified surround sound.UPDATE 11/17/2012: I spent endless hours again trying to fix the problem again when I sent off another email to the same address and OBI replied to it this time. I got their tech support number and it eventually got fixed. With their permission here is the tech support number: 408.634.5904.The tech guy was very nice and helpful. He could not believe what the Obi110 was doing but we reset everything all over again a few times and it eventually worked.Consequently I put the 5 stars rating back up because the one star rating was for not replying to my emails or having a working tech support line, both of which have been remedied. All I was out was a few months phone use and that can be forgiven. *******************************************************************************************************************************UPDATE 11/11/2012: My Obi110 worked great once set up last year until last month. I think the problem is google voice. It sure is not my router or my internet. I can call the test numbers just fine but it does not work with google voice either to send or receive but my google voice does send and prints and records incoming calls that do not work on the Obi110.When the Obi110 suddenly stopped working last month I noticed it needed a firmware update. After the update and it listed as online like it is supposed to on the obi site I looked at google voice. My google voice was having server issues at the time where it would not make calls sometimes. However google voice has worked fine for several weeks yet the Obi110 still does not work.I wrote several emails to Obi110 customer service with no replies. Thus I am about to abandon my Obi110 and changed my 5 star review to 1 star. I decided to see what was said on the issue here in the reviews first in case somebody could help me. Help!********************************************************************************************************************************All the reviews said it was plug and play easy but I found their support pretty frustrating. The problem was you must make not just a Google Voice account (GV) but also run the GV from a gmail account as well.I made my GV from another email service which caused their instructions not to work by failing to give the correct options listed in the directions. Then after trying every possibility I gave up trying and just went to trouble shooting to start exploring the return option. The trouble shooting then eventually said somewhere in piles of possible malfunctions that you had to use gmail to set up and use GV with it.Maybe it was just me but they should have written the directions clearer. They should have written that IF a certain option was not available to make sure they set up their GV from a gmail as you can have GV without gmail and not get this to work no matter what you do.Once set up the Obi110 works good. The phone does not ring as loud however. The sound quality is better than the phone company's but lags a little. I like having my area code auto filled in for making calls so I only have to dial 7 numbers in my area code even if it is long distance.My biggest concern was getting a local number but I had no problem with that.If you have router room to plug another ethernet in then it is great and I recommend it if for no other reason than to get a second phone for long distance. I got mine for $50 but it was $45 on sale recently.GV has great options for free just make sure you have a cell phone or land line to call your isp if your internet goes down. I tried using the wall land line option using the old phone company line but that did not work.I do much prefer an normal house phone than cell or Skype type voip so I am very happy with the device. I will save $250 next year instead of paying $25 a month to a phone company that has a hard time correcting billing errors and broken promises without using the BBB. After my third win at the BBB and I cancelled my land line and went shopping.I found this to be the best voip option despite the seemingly bad directions for those with GV and no gmail.