Google Chat Status always Away or "Voice Only"

[Crow550]

Tested this with someone who owns an Obi device and uses the Chat For Google extension for the Chrome browser.

Messages, Voice and Video work fine without issue. Set Status to Away then Online. Now says Online too.

Never an issue while using Talkatone or Groove IP on my phone either.

[aberson]

The issue is that if you go invisible on google chat (or if you sign off completely), other people will still see you as online due to the Obihai.  Those people may then send you messages, thinking you'll get them, but you likely never will see them.


This is the message you get in the google chat when you go invisible:

Oops! You are not invisible because you're logged into Google Talk from another client, device, or location that doesn't support invisibility.

As you've discovered, there's no problem if you go online in google chat.  The highest level of availability will always be displayed to your contacts... so if I'm "online" in gmail, but "away" on my phone, people will see me as online.

[Crow550]

You won't have to worry since Google Talk is now Google Hangouts and doesn't seem to show people online or offline. It's more like popping an SMS to your buddies.

I heard to find out who is online or not is based on if the contacts image is lit up or darkened? I can't tell myself.

Anyways it's unknown if they will be adding an option to show Online, Away, Offline and such. It really all depends on user feedback. I'm split if I like knowing or not as I can just send a message to someone and they will respond when they get it. Still don't know how exactly I feel about this.

Hangouts is new and will be getting Google Voice support like getting calls in and calling out as currently if you want to do this you have to use G-Talk in G-Mail (or used the Chat For Google extension for Chrome but now it's Hangouts.)

So they will be updating it with the rest of the features soon and merging it all like with the Google Plus Mobile app still having +Messenger included with it for now is already in the Hangouts app so it will be removed soon as well as merging SMS support (they will be integrating the Android Messaging app into Hangouts).

As Hangouts is taking all the separate Google chat methods and building them all in one which is fine.

You can get Google Hangouts on Android, iOS and as a Chrome browser extension for PC/Mac/Linux/ChromeOS.

[bananaslug79]

What about losing the ability to use the Obi as our Google Voice "home" phone service completely with the changeover to Hangouts?? Anyone else (besides me) concerned about this? I have my own service to worry about, plus other friends/family that I've converted over since the Obi and GV work so well together. I've sent feedback in Gmail and GV about this concern; any other thoughts?

[Crow550]

Google knows what neat tricks people have done with G-Talk calling beyond just PCs.

I wouldn't worry. They will be adding the calling feature in the new Hangouts. Should work the same.

Well just have to keep our eyes on it.

Found this bit of info from Nikhyl Singhal https://plus.google.com/106636280351174936240/posts :

Hangouts, phone calls and Google Voice

Thanks for all of your feedback on last week's Hangouts launch. I wanted to quickly talk about 1) making/receiving phone calls in Gmail, and 2) Google Voice support more generally.

1) Today's version of Hangouts doesn't yet support outbound calls on the web and in the Chrome extension, but we do support inbound calls to your Google Voice number. We're working hard on supporting both, and outbound/inbound calls will soon be available. In the meantime, you can continue using Google Talk in Gmail.

2) Hangouts is designed to be the future of Google Voice, and making/receiving phone calls is just the beginning. Future versions of Hangouts will integrate Google Voice more seamlessly.