This instructable is the final one in the series, leading up to the Voiceberry Pi!
I work from home as a computer consultant. I spend a good deal of time on conference calls, and needed a second line to handle these calls. I explored my options, and decided to go with Magic Jack. You know the adds. Phone service for just $19.99 a year. That's $1.70 a month. WIth Magic Jack.
The quality is good, and the product works. But, to cut down on costs, they don't let you dial toll numbers to conference calls (if they know about it). Many of my conference calls only have toll numbers, so I needed a way to around this limitation.
Enter Google Voice. At first I thought about using my USB headset to make calls using the VoIP features of Google Voice, but the quality wasn't that great, and people complained. But I found out that you can make Google Voice call your phone, then connect you with another phone, anywhere in the US, for free.
So, I started doing that. If I needed to call a toll conference call, I'd tell Google Voice to call it, but connect it to my Magic Jack number. My phone would ring, I'd pick up, and then I'd hear ringing on the other end. It was as though i called it directly, but Google Voice did it for me. Perfect.
Except it is a pain in the butt to log into Google Voice every time I need to make a call. Enter Voiceberry Pi.
Voiceberry Pi, when complete (it's in an alpha stage now, but worthy of an instructable all the same), will be a small appliance that sits on your desk, and is much like a phone. It will allow you to dial a phone number, like you would on a phone, and then it will tell Google to connect that call using your phone. Google Voice will call you, and you are connected to your line.
Other features for the future, and some gotchas will be detailed in the final step.
I work from home as a computer consultant. I spend a good deal of time on conference calls, and needed a second line to handle these calls. I explored my options, and decided to go with Magic Jack. You know the adds. Phone service for just $19.99 a year. That's $1.70 a month. WIth Magic Jack.
The quality is good, and the product works. But, to cut down on costs, they don't let you dial toll numbers to conference calls (if they know about it). Many of my conference calls only have toll numbers, so I needed a way to around this limitation.
Enter Google Voice. At first I thought about using my USB headset to make calls using the VoIP features of Google Voice, but the quality wasn't that great, and people complained. But I found out that you can make Google Voice call your phone, then connect you with another phone, anywhere in the US, for free.
So, I started doing that. If I needed to call a toll conference call, I'd tell Google Voice to call it, but connect it to my Magic Jack number. My phone would ring, I'd pick up, and then I'd hear ringing on the other end. It was as though i called it directly, but Google Voice did it for me. Perfect.
Except it is a pain in the butt to log into Google Voice every time I need to make a call. Enter Voiceberry Pi.
Voiceberry Pi, when complete (it's in an alpha stage now, but worthy of an instructable all the same), will be a small appliance that sits on your desk, and is much like a phone. It will allow you to dial a phone number, like you would on a phone, and then it will tell Google to connect that call using your phone. Google Voice will call you, and you are connected to your line.
Other features for the future, and some gotchas will be detailed in the final step.
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Signing UpStep 1: Hook up the Display Part 1: The Shift Register
The first step is to hook up a display so you can see what you're dialing and what you're doing. Before that can be done, because of a limited number of pins, I like to hook up a shift register to drive the display.
You can follow the steps in my other instructable on hooking up the shift register, then come back here.
You can follow the steps in my other instructable on hooking up the shift register, then come back here.
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I have been trying running google voice on RPI too.. But it keeps giving "googlevoice.util.LoginError" error. As I googled it I saw that It is a common problem but i couldn't solve it for raspberry pi.
Have you encouraged this problem? How did you solve it?
Thanks.
In settings.py set LOGIN to "https://accounts.google.com/ServiceLogin?service=grandcentral&passive=1209600&continue=https://www.google.com/voice&followup=https://www.google.com/voice<mpl=open"
Is the solution that worked for me, I think.
The only thing I could think of that'd also be cool is being able to use your Magic Jack with Linux on the Pi, but I highly doubt the project's built in any sort of Mono-compatible language you could run it under. Still a neat idea, too bad WINE isn't ARM-compatible!
I've thought about the SIP phone solution, and that's where I really would like to go. USB Headset and what not. I tried getting some stuff setup, but couldn't get it working so I settled on this.
I could include listening to voicemail via a speaker, I think. The pygooglevoice code allows for downloading voicemail as MP3s, so it shouldn't be that hard.