News:

On Tuesday September 6th the forum will be down for maintenance from 9:30 PM to 11:59 PM PDT

Main Menu

Simon Telephonics Google Voice Gateway info

Started by billsimon, November 11, 2017, 08:41:58 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

billsimon

As there have been a number of Obi users recently signing up with our service, I thought I'd spend a little time here clarifying some questions I have received over the past week.

SteveInWA's guide at http://www.obitalk.com/forum/index.php?topic=13147.0 is the place to start. Thanks, Steve!

PayPal

The last day or so we have seen some delays from PayPal validating payments and sending us the web "ping" that activates accounts. Please be patient; I am not trying to steal your money.

GV authorization

After you go through the configuration, if you find you made a mistake such as entering the wrong GV number, you can use Deauthorize to clear your config and start over. Remember that if you use Deauthorize it will clear your SIP credentials, so you would have to set everything up again on the Obi.

If you revoke authorization on the Google side, eventually your account will log out and you will be notified by e-mail that it failed to log in.

Essentially this works the same way as it did with your Obi. If you revoked the Obi's authorization to Google Voice (actually "Google Chat" or "Google Talk") then it would stop working.

Lifetime of service

As was mentioned in another thread, our service costs $6 one-time setup fee to cover server costs. Thereafter the service is free and without any guarantees. I intend to operate the service as long as it remains technically possible, which is to say, as long as Google keeps allowing us and Obi devices to connect.

#Obihai Support: From the pov of the device, Simon Tel. services are based on SIP and are SIP UA brand agnostic.

Support

I will participate in this forum from time to time, as well as the forum at support.simonics.com. There's also a good community at dslreports.com/forum/voip where GVGW is sometimes discussed. Direct e-mails to me requesting configuration support will not be answered quickly if at all; please use the community resources and I'll participate when I can.

precht

Thanks for the helpful mini-FAQ, Bill.

May I ask how long you've been working on the GVGW? And how much of a challenge it was to set up?

Just wanted to get a sense of how difficult it will be to maintain GVGW if Google Voice makes future changes. I'd love to see my Obi 100 staying functional for years to come, but if GV updates pose significant technical changes, I can understand GVGW not being able to sustain.

Cheers

drgeoff

#2
Quote from: precht on November 13, 2017, 12:03:17 PM
Thanks for the helpful mini-FAQ, Bill.

May I ask how long you've been working on the GVGW? And how much of a challenge it was to set up?

Just wanted to get a sense of how difficult it will be to maintain GVGW if Google Voice makes future changes. I'd love to see my Obi 100 staying functional for years to come, but if GV updates pose significant technical changes, I can understand GVGW not being able to sustain.

Cheers
I leave Bill to answer your specific questions but I'll say that, based on the publicly available information, there was no insurmountable technical challenge which stopped your OBi100 working with GV.  Obihai exercised their right to choose not to release an updated firmware containing the necessary changes.  The speed with which Obihai was able to release new firmwares for their other products once the root cause was identified suggests to me that it did not require a lot of new code to be written.

TimAtHome

Quote from: drgeoff on November 13, 2017, 12:26:26 PM
Obihai exercised their right to choose not to release an updated firmware containing the necessary changes.

I hope this isn't true. I do admit that I'm disappointed in Obihai. I did a lot of research before I went with it, and I feel like it's the best box on the market, from a technical standpoint. But good tech is only part of the equation. It seems like Obihai is a company run by technicans who develop excellent, technical stuff, but they don't get anyone to help with UI or documentation or anything like that. But the worst is remembering when you bought what you thought was a technically superior device just a few years ago and now find that it's obsolete, unsupported, and one step away from the landfill. My Obi110 was running so great that I never even knew about the "End of Life" announcement until the other day, when it stopped working because of lack of firmware updates. I certainly didn't spend $79 or whatever it was that I did a few years ago on a piece of hardware that would reach its 'end of life' one year later -- that does not build trust in the Obihai brand.

mo832

Not sure if this is the most fitting thread but I had another question occur to me about GVGW.

Since GVGW adds the bonus feature of CNAM which native GV does not provide, is there also a way in GVGW to hide/block your outgoing caller id per call (like with the telco *67). Google Voice has no way to do this, but perhaps Mr. Simon has enabled it?

(or, if not..... could it be added in a future update?)

billsimon

Quote from: precht on November 13, 2017, 12:03:17 PM
May I ask how long you've been working on the GVGW? And how much of a challenge it was to set up?

I have been running GVGW since November 2011. In 2015 it was reworked to use the Oauth2 token system. I am no longer working on the gateway in terms of new features but it is and will continue to be actively maintained.

billsimon

Quote from: mo832 on November 13, 2017, 04:12:21 PM
is there also a way in GVGW to hide/block your outgoing caller id per call (like with the telco *67). Google Voice has no way to do this, but perhaps Mr. Simon has enabled it?

*67 is a feature that is not published but usually works.

GPz1100

Quote from: TimAtHome on November 13, 2017, 02:23:01 PM
I did a lot of research before I went with it, and I feel like it's the best box on the market, from a technical standpoint.

I do believe the obi box is the only one on the market that directly integrates with gv. I don't believe there's any other options besides a pbx and/or gv gateway combined with a generic ATA. We still have a traditional analog phone here, probably from the 80's.  It works too..  Never needed any software update either!

TimAtHome

Quote from: GPz1100 on November 13, 2017, 08:51:09 PM
Quote from: TimAtHome on November 13, 2017, 02:23:01 PM
I did a lot of research before I went with it, and I feel like it's the best box on the market, from a technical standpoint.

I do believe the obi box is the only one on the market that directly integrates with gv. I don't believe there's any other options besides a pbx and/or gv gateway combined with a generic ATA. We still have a traditional analog phone here, probably from the 80's.  It works too..  Never needed any software update either!

I collect old analog phones. What I love about the Obi is that I can use them again -- I backfeed my home wiring to the Obi, and have all my old phones on it. The rotary ones can't dial out, that's pretty much the only snag. I would love to get that to work.

billsimon

Quote from: TimAtHome on November 14, 2017, 09:39:41 AM
The rotary ones can't dial out, that's pretty much the only snag. I would love to get that to work.

The Grandstream HT502 ATA accepts rotary dialing. Someone's selling 2 for $12 on eBay right now; bring your own power supply (common 12V barrel plug).

jleybo

Thanks! I'm very happy to report that Simon Telephonics and your instructions got my "obsolete" Obi100 working inside of 5 minutes. I've had the unit for years and love it, but I was quite unhappy with no official notification of EOL from Obihai before the unit stopped. However, Obi did manage to find my email address in time to notify me of the current B&H Obi200 sale - just 3 days after my 100 quit. Coincidence? Hmmmm. :-\

nlurker

I have one Obi 110 with two GV numbers.  Would I pay one setup fee or two?

GPz1100

It's one fee per account.  Each account handles one google voice number.

nlurker


padraigian

Dear Simon,

Thank you for providing this fix for the Obi100. I found a third party post that explains how to do this and it has worked perfectly. I've been tearing my hair out dealing with the Obihai EOL tale. Have managed to dodge the bullet by various means until now. Thank you for giving my little Obi100 a new life! As a small business person I like what GV costs ... and your $6 is a small price to pay to retain that.

Rock on man!

Patrick Sheehy panowyoming.com | KG7JLG (ham radio)

drgeoff

Quote from: audioresearch on December 05, 2017, 03:12:02 PMexcept for when I had to download and install some firmware made available by a non-OBIHAI party  into my OBI100 to keep it working
What were you smoking?

audioresearch

It's been a while and my memory of this may be off, but what I remember is that OBI did not make a firmware update available publicly and that some private party posted a link to it which I used to get the firmware.

SteveInWA

Quote from: audioresearch on December 05, 2017, 03:23:29 PM
It's been a while and my memory of this may be off, but what I remember is that OBI did not make a firmware update available publicly and that some private party posted a link to it which I used to get the firmware.

audioresearch

Let me also add that I just signed up at the Simon Telephonics site and also got my OBI100 up and running again with Google Voice in just a few minutes using the step by step instruction and screenshots from the appropriate thread on the obi forums.




thunderstruck

I finally got bit by the change today, and found the solution here. I had to do a factory reset of my device to get the new configuration to work, but now it's registered again.  I was going to buy a 202 until I got to wondering if they'd EOL it like my 110. For $6 my 110 has a new lease on life.