[FOLLOWUP] Obihai OBi200 VoIP Telephone Adapter and a quick write-up of the OBi202 VoIP Telephone Adapter

Hi everyone,

Just a quick followup on the Obihai OBi200 VOIP box for use with Google Voice and a quick write-up of the OBi202, its more feature-filled sibling. So far, the OBi200 is working nicely at my parents house. They needed a fax line for infrequent use and it didn’t seem to make much sense for them to spend $8 or so per month to keep their dedicated line from Phonepower.com. Just not cost effective. Although Phonepower.com offered solid VOIP telephone service at a fair price, I decided the combo of the Obi box and Google Voice would do the job for them. It seemed like Google Voice combined with an Obihai box was a perfect solution. Cheap box. Free or ultra low cost calls. No monthly fees. And, so far, it’s been solid. Faxes are coming and going with minimal fuss. Same goes for voice calls on the line. My mom hasn’t made any international calls yet but I doubt she’ll have any problems with them.

I’ve been seriously considering dumping my Vonage line in favor of moving the number to Google Voice and using an Obihai box with it. I also want the option of a fax line or letting my wife use her Google Voice number with it. So, I felt the more appropriate Obi box for me was the OBi202. It’s the bigger sibling of the OBi200. One of the key differences between them is the OBi202 has two independent phone jacks. That means, it can be used with two independent VOIP services including two separate Google Voice lines. I like the idea quite a bit.

Thanks to MrNobody, I was able to get two of the OBi202 boxes at a nice discount. I bought one for myself and one to give as a gift. The recipient received his a couple of days ago and gave it to me to configure for him. He has a Google Voice voice line and a Google Voice line for faxes. He popped by my place and we configured the box for him. It was similar to getting the OBi200 working. Get your Google Voice account ready. Make sure the settings are correct. Get your Obitalk account. Configure the box for Google Voice. The key difference is you can tell the Obi box which jack to use for a given line. We got both lines configured in all of a few minutes.

Activating the first line was easy. We went through the process I used for the OBi200. Same goes for the second jack. However, for some reason, the box didn’t want to recognize the second jack was operational. The lights for both jacks kept flashing and one of them refused to operate. Very annoying. I started from scratch with the same result. Then I swapped telephone cables and the jack that had worked went kablooey and the non-functional jack started working properly. That got me to thinking… Maybe it isn’t the configuration or the Obi box. Maybe it was a cable. I was using the box with a two-line cordless telephone and one of the cables was on the older worse for wear side. I swapped it out for a newer cable and the issue vanished. Voice calls were pretty good, though my older brother said I sounded a touch on the muffled side. Considering these are Google Voice lines, my buddy and I felt it was acceptable.

Faxing was a touch problematic at first. I swapped one of the voice cables for the line connected to my HP Officejet Pro 8600. The Obihai box gave me a “A phone is off the hook” error on one of the jacks. Annoying. I turned everything off an on again and it didn’t make a difference. Then I noticed the cable running to the all-in-one was on the older side. Since swapping out a cable seemed to solve the problem before, I tried it again. The problem went away after I replaced the cable. All but two of my test faxes was successful. I’m not sure why I got two failures but it could be for a slew of reasons. Bad connection. Just a flaky fax. Maybe even a possible compatibility problem. In the end, everything seemed to finally be working well and the bud was happy. He just has to take the box, connect it to his network, connect it to his phone and his all-in-one and it’ll be operational. Nice birthday gift, right?

I didn’t have any of these issues with the OBi200. Just the OBi202. So, therein lies the dilemma. If I need a box to use with Google Voice, should I get the basic OBi200 box or spend the bucks for the two-line model? On one hand, the basic box works well. One line. One box. Done. But, if I wanted two lines, I could get a second box. That’s kind of annoying. It means a second ac adapter, a second ethernet line. An extra jack used on the router. You get the idea. A single box with two jacks like the OBi202 is definitely more convenient. Still, I found getting the OBi202 operational more troublesome than working with the OBi200. I like to think the issues were due to the older phone cables but I can’t say that with 100% certainty. The Vonage box had no trouble at all with the older cables. The Obi202 box didn’t like them. So, it definitely comes across as a bit unusual to me.

Robert

You have the 202 in-hand. Try it. If it fails, return it.

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Saint Cloud, Minnesota, where the weather is wonderful even when it isn't.

Speedy,

Read my post again. It didn't fail. The problem appeared to be the cables, not the box.

Robert

Quote
Robert M
Speedy,

Read my post again. It didn't fail. The problem appeared to be the cables, not the box.

Robert

I was able to get two of the OBi202 boxes at a nice discount. I bought one for myself

Same advice.

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Saint Cloud, Minnesota, where the weather is wonderful even when it isn't.

Speedy,

I clearly must be missing something in your posts. What are you talking about? The OBi202 I setup for the person I gifted it to worked. No need to return it. I expect the one I bought for myself to work as well.

Robert



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/01/2015 01:12PM by Robert M.

Quote
Robert M
Speedy,

I clearly must be missing something in your posts. What are you talking about? The OBi202 I setup for the person I gifted it to worked. No need to return it. I expect the one I bought for myself to work as well.

Robert

So use the 202. Forget about the 200. Unless the 202 fails to work.

Or are you asking if you should buy a third 202?

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Saint Cloud, Minnesota, where the weather is wonderful even when it isn't.

Speedy,

I think I understand now. The question was never for me. It's for anyone in the market for an OBi box for use with Google Voice. Personally, I'm keeping the OBi202 I bought for myself. I'll be using it with a Google Voice number as a dedicated fax line. At some point, when I port my primary line to Google Voice, I'll use it with the OBi202, too.

Robert

Interesting! Thanks for posting.

We converted our old house line to google voice and are using cell phones as our only phones.

We might add this as a last step - only, our house has been so amazingly peaceful without solicitors calling, we may not be willing to go back!

Sekker,

Google Voice has the ability to send calls from known garbage callers to a spam box - lol! Or, so it claims.

Robert