Review on 📞 Obihai OBi1022PA VOIP Phone with Power Supply - Up to 10 Lines - Google Voice and SIP-Based Services Supported - Google Voice Device by Crystal Drake

The build quality of the phone is good, mostly comparable to other Polycom products but not on par with the Cisco VoIP phone line. Voice quality is also pretty much on par with other Polycom phones I've used, but once again falls short of Cisco. I bought the phone specifically to use with Google Voice. However, the initial setup was complicated by having to go to the Obihai infrastructure first, where the DNS server seems to play a role. Initially, my DHCP server provided one of the Google servers (e.g. 8.8.8.8) but the phone simply refused to talk. The Obihaya website suggested a different DNS server (e.g. 4.2.2.2) which actually works. I have yet to find out who owns this server. I'm worried about it. After the phone was able to talk to Obihai and showed up on their web portal, Google couldn't set it up by trying to talk to an IP address that had nothing on that address. A firmware update fixed this issue and the phone worked with Google Voice. At this point I tried to get the BlueTooth headset to work with the phone. Vain. Tried Bose and a few other headsets where the headsets are paired and when the phone is off hook you can hear background hiss. But during a call there is no sound in the headset. This issue is well documented on Obihai's own forum and has apparently been known for many months based on the firmware released by the manufacturer. On the forum, users decided to downgrade the firmware to an older version in which BlueTooth works. I can confirm that downgrading the firmware has allowed my headsets to work with the phone. It is not clear what they refuse with the old firmware. The phone also offers the ability to connect traditional analog phone headsets from Poly and others. Think of something used in a call center. There's also a 3.5mm jack, but when testing this port, the phone's background noise was very distracting. In short, the electronic noise of the phone's processor mixes with the 3.5mm jack audio to a point where it's difficult to handle day in and day out. So the 3.5mm jack is pretty much useless. Finally, the phone theoretically supports a USB-based headset, but I haven't tested this feature yet. I contacted Polycom about a Bluetooth issue. Their response from the International Response Center was to use their company analog headsets, either wired or wireless (not BlueTooth). In other words, they didn't address the Bluetooth not working issue and advised me to buy one of their non-Bluetooth headsets. Perhaps with Polycom's acquisition of Obihai, a corporate decision was made to force users to use an RJ9 headset jack in hopes of selling Polycom headsets. . Even sitting a few steps away from the phone you can hear packet loss over the BlueTooth connection, where the audio is best defined as thin, in contrast to using a BlueTooth headset with cell phones like Samsung or Apple. In fact, a user on the Obihai website commented that the best wireless experience is actually a non-Bluetooth wireless headset connected via an RJ9 connector. The thing is, if you buy a wireless headset like this and two (yes, two) adapter cables, the cost of the headset will most likely exceed the purchase price of the phone. Although basically it's no different than a traditional phone without Bluetooth. Obviously, one of the criteria for deciding to buy an Obihai 1062 phone was the ability to use a BlueTooth headset with the phone. Without the firmware downgrade I would have been forced to spend half or more of the cost of the phone to purchase a wired RJ9 headset. In that case I would return the phone for a refund. But with a firmware downgrade I have a way forward, but I'm concerned that the firmware downgrade path will backfire in the short term because something else changes and forces the use of a newer firmware that doesn't work with bluetooth . I received a reply from Poly (owner of the OBIHAI range) that Bluetooth is no longer supported on the 1062 phone. They directed me to their range of non-Bluetooth headsets.