Amazon Echo

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Lavarock7:
Amazon announced that the Echo device can now make outbound calls for free to the US, Canada and Mexico. To receive calls from regular calls, you need to buy a $35 connect box.

Is that box an Obi product?

https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/9/29/16387398/amazon-echo-free-voice-calls-us-canada-mexico

SteveInWA:
That was a somewhat puzzling announcement, as I would think that the market for this is small and getting smaller.

The device is a modified Grandstream HT800 series ATA.  It looks like they're only using its FXO port to turn it into a landline gateway.  The concept is:  someone calls your landline number (e.g. POTS or some VoIP provider), and you've connected the box to that service via an RJ-11 cord.  The inbound call is then somehow bridged to your Echo device(s).  I guess it would be attractive to people who have landlines, and are too lazy to answer the call on a regular telephone handset or speakerphone, but it seems like a solution for a problem that doesn't need solving.

I successfully made a couple of calls to 10-digit numbers yesterday on one of my Echo Dots.  The call quality was quite good, although the Dot's tiny speaker is no comparison to a decent speakerphone.

Lavarock7:
The outbound calls worked fine for me on the orig echo and yes, it's a LOT like a speakerphone :-) However, a friend is buying a dot for a friend who is partially paralyzed and wants to maker calls out. Seems perfect for her.

My reason for mentioning this here was there was a mention of Google but I didn't read it carefully enough. I thought they implied it was using Google Voice.

jpw94:
Where does the Echo Connect go? In between the phone base and OBI or between the router and OBI?

SteveInWA:
It doesn't go between anything.   The easiest way to understand it, is if you think of it as a speakerphone, which can be controlled by your voice.   It has a standard RJ-11 phone jack on it.  You plug one end of a phone cord into it and you plug the other end into a RJ-11 duplex adapter (included), plug the adapter into the OBi's phone jack, and plug your existing phone cord (for whatever other phone you want to use) into the adapter.


Echo Connect<-----> |
                                |<---->OBi phone jack
Other phone(s)<---> |                       

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