Ooma Core VoIP Phone System Reviews
Ooma Core VoIP Phone System
- Includes both an Ooma Hub and an Ooma Scout
- Free calling to any number in the US
- All the features you’ve come to depend on, like caller-ID, call-waiting, and voicemail
- Voicemail notifications to your email and mobile phone; the flexibility to hear your voicemail and control preferences online in the Ooma Lounge
- The freedom to talk on your existing corded or cordless phones with no PC or headset required
In a volatile economy, there’s one utility you can save with the aid of VOIP technology – your phone service costs. Smart and stylish, the ooma Hub and ooma Scout partner with your high-speed Internet and your existing home phones to deliver free home phone service. Your one-time purchase eliminates monthly bills for U.S. calling and delivers extremely low rates for international calls. Your one-time purchase of an award-winning ooma Hub device frees your phone service. Call anyone, at any numbe
List Price: $ 249.99
Price: $ 299.99
JBuds J3 Micro Atomic In-Ear Earphones with Travel Case (Titanium Silver)
- Ships in Certified Frustration-Free Packaging
- Aluminum housing and balanced full spectrum micro drivers deliver a stunning new level of acoustic performance.
- Rich, dynamic soundstage with crystal clear highs, deep, full mids, and tight, punchy bass
- Includes 4 sizes of soft silicone ear buds for a super comfortable, noise isolating fit, and a sleek, designer travel case.
- Gold plated 3.5 mm audio jack for premium, no-loss sound connection to your audio device.
The Mothership has Landed! JBuds J3 Micro Atomic. Full metal housing and components, cold forged from solid aluminum core. Stunning anodized finish. Tactile L/R ID system. Revolutionized flex joints. Laser cut bassport. Laser etched logo details. Full spectrum, hyper balanced micro drivers. Legendary JBuds sound. The sleekest, sexiest profile ever. A perfect fit. The J3 Micro Atomic Earphones are the JBuds, redefined. Part of JLab’s futurist new design paradigm, the Atomic Wave. Building on JL
List Price: $ 79.95
Price: $ 17.83
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Comments (6)
Great for a former Vonage user!,
I have been a Vonage customer for three years and suffered through all of their growing pains. At $25 a month though for unlimited service I thought I would check to see what other options were available and decided on giving Ooma a try.
The Ooma hardware is well designed, with thoughtful touches like a built in speaker for listening to voicemail and a brightness control so that you can turn down the brightness of the unit in a bedroom. The hardware comes wonderfully packaged like a product from Apple and includes just about any of the cords you might need to get everything connected with your existing service.
Setup was quite easy. You have to get online and activate the Ooma Hub unit by entering the MAC address on the bottom of the unit and telling Ooma what kind of service setup you are doing, such as whether you will use Ooma with an existing line, get a new phone number, etc. They don’t even need your credit card and you are activated.
If you are getting a new phone number then you are essentially done at this point. You get a new phone number to use, and you connect the Ooma hub to your home network. Ooma recommends you put the Ooma hub between your Cable or DSL modem and your home router (if you have one). The reason for this is that it allows the Ooma unit to manage your outbound internet traffic and make sure your phone calls are optimized ahead of other traffic, so that phone calls always have priority, sound good and work properly.
If you have a more sophisticated home network router than can do traffic shaping, recognition of IP audio, etc (some of the top of the line D-Link models have these “QoS” features built in) then you can simply plug the Ooma hub into such a router and get good results.
After plugging in the Ooma to your home network you simply connect a home phone to the Ooma unit and you are pretty much ready to go. There is an “ooma music” dial tone you will hear when you make or receive a call. This is one of the ways Ooma lets you and others know you are using their system and is sort of a free advertising that lets people know you are using this service.
You can plug the Ooma hub back in to one of your home wall jacks and then connect the Ooma scout unit in to another jack in the house so that you can use a 2nd phone there. The scout can even be configured to only ring on a 2nd line, have it’s own voicemail, etc… this is possible because the Ooma hub has a built in DSL network system in it that allows it to communicate with the scout units over your home phone wiring. This is very sophisticated compared to other VoIP vendor offerings. You can add up to about 20 scouts on the system and keep adding lines, etc, but obviously there are bandwidth and practical limits that you might run into in such a scenario.
If you are porting a number things get a bit more complicated. After indicating I wanted to port my number I was informed on their website that I needed to call them to complete the porting process. The agent I reached was a bit confused and kept insisting I should just use my existing phone service with Ooma. About the 3rd time of telling him I just wanted to get my number ported he got the paperwork started up. They email you some forms a few days after activation that you need to fill out and fax in to get your number ported, which takes a few weeks. In the interim you are assigned a temporary number to use and you can plug your existing line into the Ooma hub and it will take your inbound calls and route them through the Ooma system. There is a $40 charge for porting your existing number but Ooma will waive this fee if you sign up for the $99 premier service that includes a 2nd phone number plus additional features. Ooma advertises that you can keep your original home service as a backup line, so that your phone works even if the Internet is down, but in my experience Internet service is at least as reliable as my old school home phone line. Anyways, it’s your choice.
In my case I elected to port my number, but didn’t connect my old line to the Ooma Hub (as the agent insisted I do), I simply forwarded the number to the temporary phone number that Ooma assigned to me during the porting process.
Ooma offers a full suite of software features such as “simulring” (ring a cell or 2nd line at the same time your Ooma phone is ringing), magical “2nd phone line” from another phone on the system when the 1st line is busy, etc. You can control your entire Ooma system from the “Ooma Lounge” which is basically a web page you can access from anywhere that lets you control your Ooma system, features, additional numbers, caller ID, etc. You can learn a lot more about these features on Ooma’s website so I won’t go into them in great detail since this review is long as it is.
Sound quality on the Ooma is very very good. My mom who is used…
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|8+ Months of use and Loving It. Details below,
01/20/2009
QUICK NOTE: Jason M. Page has a great review above my review…you should read it also.
UPDATED 12/17/2008
We dropped DSL and moved OOMA’s to Cable Modem Service…
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
Hello All,
I bought an OOMA about 8+ months ago with one scout (added a 2nd system later on). Here is our setup.
1. NO LANDLINE required.
2. Using with Cable Broadband on Comcast.
3. Two OOMA Hubs (personal and business) and 2 OOMA Scouts.
4. 2 x 2 Line Panasonic Cordless system to use dual line capabilities.
5. Wired into home wiring so as to avoid unsightly clutter of hardware.
FIRST SYSTEM (Personal Use):
The OOMA hub is plugged in to our Apple Extreme Basetation, out of sight out of mind. Gave the OOMA internet access through the router and voila…phone service is live. NO land line is required. I know OOMA says you can use your existing land line, but it is not a necessity to use this system. They will issue you a new number or port your number over if you do not have or want a land line.
We took line one of the OOMA hub (marked home) and wired it into our home wiring (line 1 – our home is wired for 2 lines)….again very easy and no problem – the phones in the house starting working at once.
Challenge – we have a 2line phone system – so how can you use OOMA with a two line system and use the 2 line features of OOMA.
Since line one was wired and working we needed to get line 2 wired. I took the line 2 out of the ooma hub (marked WALL), wired into home wiring (line 2 jack in the basement), and used the ooma scout to complete the phone line network this system creates.
Line one was already going into the panasonic, so the scout now allowed us to plug in line 2. Voila – 2 lines on a 2 line system with one scout and one telephone number. Its like call waiting on steroids.
NOTE: You can also get multiple numbers with different ring patterns to make this more effective.
The panasonic system has 4 handsets – so now no matter where we are we have a 2 line phone system without the need for more scouts.
The scout itself does everything the OOMA hub does in a small package….so its easy to put in the kitchen and or bedroom and have it look somewhat decent.
SECOND SYSTEM:
Simply used near a telephone in the basement/home office…no fancy setup…works great with a 2 line Panasonic System.
I hope this helps you in deciding to purchase this system. Please let it be known that I am a consumer…not affiliated with OOMA….I simply LOVE this product. I no longer have monthly bills and thus we have recovered the cost of this system already.
UPDATE 12/17/08
Still going strong. WE now have two ooma hubs and two scouts at home. One for personal use and one for business. Works great…no complaints yet. Our broadband is now all cable – about 10-12mbps down (comcast) and 1.5mbps up…sometimes more on down/up in burst mode.
OOMA has also added a bunch of new features for people on the premier plan…ie. community black lists. Basically a GREAT feature…..they have created a blacklist that is shared by all members so that we can all contribute to block useless telemarketing calls etc…..you send them directly to voicemail or block them all together. AWESOME!.
People have emailed me and asked if this system works for faxing….I dont know that I can answer that since I have not really tried sending/receiving faxes with it. Please do chime in and let us all know if it works.
I have also had questions about what I think of OOMA and the business model…while I do not know the specifics, I am not afraid of using it as there seems to be enough people contacting me about purchasing it…I feel that it will be around long enough for everyone to recover the cost of the system.
If you have specific questions, feel free to ask me via email at tchachra@yahoo.com. I will try and help….and just to be clear..I am not affiliated with OOMA at all….just a consumer via AMAZON!
QUICK NOTE: (THANKS DAVE)
It is important to understand that you should disconnect the wiring from the local telephone company coming into your house before you wire any VOIP device into your home wiring. Basically the phone company wiring carries current into your house and OOMA also outputs some level of current to your phone lines….too much could cause an issue.
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|Great Features and Value, Easy to Set Up, Flawless Domestic Calling, Spotty International Service,
Background: I’ve been using numerous VoIP products for several years. These include Vonage, Skype, Yahoo! Messenger with Voice, VoIP Discount, and more. I feel very familiar with today’s VoIP offerings and have a thorough understanding of Ooma’s product. My current broadband setup is through a Comcast Cable modem. For the sake of comparison, I will use Skype and Yahoo! Messenger.
Setup: Ooma is extremely easy to install. A tech-savvy customer probably doesn’t even need the instructions to set up Ooma. For the uninitiated, the included instructions are very clear and all the ports are easily identifiable. I can’t imagine many people that would have a hard time physically setting up Ooma and activating the service on the company’s web site.
Features: In addition to unlimited domestic calling, Ooma offers great features like caller ID, call waiting, and voicemail. These all work as advertised. I particularly like the voicemail notification options. Ooma also has premium services; for my calling habits, they’re unnecessary, but I understand why some people would find them useful.
Domestic Calling: For me, this is where Ooma really shines. The call quality is fantastic — definitely as good or better than calls I made through Skype or Yahoo! Messenger. The calls are extremely clear and I never had any connection issues. Considering the current price of the system, Ooma will pay for itself in less than a year if you compare it to all-you-can-eat offerings from phone and cable companies.
International Calling: When it works, it’s very good. In terms of call quality, Ooma sounded significantly better than Yahoo! Messenger and on par with Skype. The Ooma rates are very competitive. For the countries that I frequently call, the rates were better than Skype (sometimes half the cost) and on par with Yahoo!’s. Unlike those services, you don’t need to have a PC on to dial internationally. This is a huge feature for my household, since I live with people that want to make international calls but are not PC savvy.
Now for the bad news — the international service has been spotty. I’ve been using Ooma service for more than a year. At times it works perfectly for international calls. At other times, it’s very difficult to connect. There have been extended periods (sometimes weeks) where I’ve had to redial a number numerous times in order to connect an international call. Ooma’s customer service was not helpful at all in these cases, offering advice like “dial the number slowly” and “don’t use speed dial”. I understand that this service is evolving and changes are made to it, but the main reason I’m taking a star off of this review is due to the inconsistent international service. While it has worked flawlessly for the last few months, I’m not comfortable relying on it without Yahoo! And Skype as backups.
Conclusion: Overall, Ooma is a great product and a fantastic value at its current pricing. It has served me perfectly for domestic calls. For international calls, the service is great when it works and frustrating when it doesn’t.
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|Second Look at the JBuds J3 Micro Atomic In-Ear Earphones,
In an earlier review, I mentioned that these high-quality JBuds J3s were too treble-heavy for my tastes, which too much sound in the upper register instead of a balanced sound. Of course, sound is subjective and many may find these $30 J3s worth the money.
I posted this review on Amazon and my blog and got an email from JLab Audio telling me that they were “surprised” by my criticism, that my critique contradicted focus groups and their “overwhelming conclusions.” The email also implored me to consider removing my review until I made a more thorough evaluation.
JLab Audio makes similar requests to Amazon reviewers who give their product less than sterling praise. Clearly, JLab cares about their customer feedback and wants evaluations to be both thorough and they also make it clear that the earbuds should go through a breaking-in process, playing the buds through the earphone jack for 24 hours straight.
I want to be fair so I deleted my Amazon review and want to give my evaluation as a “second look,” having allowed my J3s to go through the breaking-in process. I am comparing my $30 J3s to the $14 J2s, listening to them through a C.Crane CCR-2, a Sangean WR-2, and an iPod.
For me, the J2s, while not offering the same brightness and dynamic volume as the J3s, are for me the better deal. Simply put, I just find too much treble in the J3s at the expense of other sound range resulting in a less than balanced listening experience. On my CCR-2 radio, I turned the treble all the way down to mitigate the J3′s upper end effect. On the Sangean WR-2, the high-end was also too much for me. Same story with the iPod. Now I expect many will be happy with the bright sound in the upper register. It’s just too much for me. JLab makes a good product. I bought their original JBuds and still use them as my travel buds and I love them as they’re very comfortable. The J2s offer better fidelity than the originals. I use them for my bedside radio. The J3s for me offer too much treble but definitely bring a brightness that many will enjoy.
Update: JBuds contacted me and offered me to exchange my J3s for two pair of J2s. Kudos to JBuds for accommodating my preference for the J2s.
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|Amazing improvement even over the J2!,
I purchased the J2 earbuds before doing some serious flying beginning in mid-summer, and I was well pleased with the quality on them. My husband kept teasing me about the color–a lovely pink!–and it took some time to convince him to actually give them a listen. When he finally did, he was blown away, and caved on the idea of getting his own. Neither of us are huge audiophiles, but I’m a bit more picky about overall sound quality than he is. I still haven’t found a set of iPhone speakers that I’m satisfied with after 2 years of searching.
I came to Amazon to purchase a set of J2′s in white, and found that the J3 version had just been released. Reading up, I knew we needed to give these a try instead, and ordered the Titanium Silver for him.
As mentioned both in reviews and by JLab, you MUST allow these earbuds (and the J2 model) to burn in before you’re going to get the fullest range of sound. Even so, my husband was utterly stunned the first time he used his new pair. He raved about them so much, I stole them for an hour to compare to my now well-used J2′s, and I found improvements all the way around. Even with a fresh out of the box pair that had perhaps a few hours of burn in time, the trebles are incredibly clear, and the bass to my ear is both significantly deeper and clearer in tone. (I’m a bass girl, this was the most important thing for me.) The audible background “hiss” you can hear on older or poorer quality mp3s is even muted.
I bought a new Paparazzi Pink pair for myself that night, and my J2′s have been relegated to emergency backup status. With the release of the J3, J2 models are at an exceptional price, but these are so superior that they’re well worth the extra money.
Little things:
The new packaging is fabulous; I hope more companies start working with Amazon to switch over to this type of packing material.
The little case provided with the J3 model is a big plus. I have the larger case for travel and this one is way more convenient for daily use. It’s small enough to slip into a shirt or jacket pocket.
Four sizes of silicone ear buds will make it much easier to fit for some. I did transfer over mine from the J2 as the material from those feels a bit thinner and I preferred the old color My husband found he was most comfortable using different sizes for each ear, so having the wider variety of sizes worked well for him. His only complaint is that even with the best fitting pair, occasionally he finds the fit to be almost too tight to the point of pressure-induced discomfort. Most of the time, it’s not a problem. He did have ear issues as a child and I suspect this may be a factor, as I have had no trouble at all with either model.
For reference, both pair are being used with 1st gen iPhones for music and audiobooks. I use the EQ settings for the iPod function, he makes no adjustments.
Overall, one of the best products I’ve bought in any category this year!
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|The new J3s – great fit, stylish, & exceptional sound quality!,
I purchased this item after having the JBuds J2 earphones for a few months and I can say from personal experience that these earphones are extremely improved from its predecessor, the J2s. The new sleek and slim design fits comfortably into the ear and with four different size tips, one surely has to fit. The cord is very durable even though it is slightly slimmer than the previous model. Also, the four different colors JLab Audio offers helps personalize this product towards your individual preference. After “burning-in” the new J3s, I noticed an overall clear, high quality sound. I’ve tested this with a variety of music and have noticed improved highs and bass as well. Some people have commented that that there is too much treble but I haven’t really noticed this. After you do a “burn-in,” the sound quality should significantly improve. The sound is perfect for me but I am just your average music lover, not an audiophile. When listening to music with these earphones, I notice instruments I’ve never heard before on my standard iPod earphones.
These earphones are great for its price and I expected no less from JLab Audio. Although I am not a sound expert, these earphones should live up to your expectations. The J3′s deliver exceptionally on many attributes and are definitely superior to other earphones in its price range. The new and improved J3s are worthy of 5 stars for me. I have had no problems with this product so far and the 1 year warranty that JLab offers should hopefully suppress any worry you might have regarding its durability. The mini case these earphones come with is also a wonderful addition. It is convenient, small, and perfect for travel. Whether you are new to JLab products or a returning customer, you should be satisfied with the J3 earphones. I use them every day and just love this product! I am also impressed at the customer service JLab Audio provides. They really do care about their customer and making their products better. Thumbs up to JLab Audio and the new J3′s! This is one of the best purchases I have made this year!
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