Amplifying a cell phone ring at home

A couple of years ago we switched our landline to a cell phone, due to issues with our local phone service.

Usually I am good about keeping my phone with me when I move through the house, but sometimes don’t remember to untether it from the charger on weekend mornings, and it stays on the charger. Also sometimes the battery is low when I get home so I need to charge it.

Due to the combination of the layout of the house and the fact that I am a bit hard of hearing, I do not always hear the phone when it rings. This is a problem when I am on call.

I am trying to think of ways to amplify the phone ring / text message sounds. I have heard from various sources that devices like Dock-N-Talk don’t work well (it transfers the cell call to your wired phones in the house).

Any ideas? A guy at the T-mobile store suggested using a bluetooth speaker. How far away do bluetooth devices work? I’d need the speaker to be able to talk to the phone several rooms away and on another floor.

I was going to recommend bluetooth. It doesn’t have a far range, but you could get one with a really loud ringer, perhaps even a strobe effect.

You can also buy a phone that switches to be a bluetooth extension phone for your mobile. Here’s a random example that allows you to use the system with a mobile phone and then have multiple extensions around the house so you’ll hear it ring everywhere. (It also works as a conventional landline phone.)

Small anecdote. I have an HTC smartphone and a typical Plantronics Bluetooth headset. If I’m at home and I walk away from the phone while talking on the headset, the call quality fades after about 15 ft and becomes unusable after about 30 ft. It’s a wood frame house.

With that experience, If I had the OP’s need I would not expect a Bluetooth-based remote ringer to reliably work more than 1 or maaybe 2 rooms away from the phone. If I lived in a masonry structure I’d expect even less range.

Here are two solutions:

  1. I wanted my phone’s ring tone to go louder than it would–and I could tell that the speaker and amplifier of the phone could actually handle more volume. So I used sound file editing software to increase the amplitude of my chosen ringtone file. It’s pretty damn loud now.

  2. As for the Bluetooth, you don’t have to carry around the Bluetooth headset wherever you go around your house, and risk out-stepping the 30-foot range. Instead, you need to get a Bluetooth device like this one, and use a patch cable to plug it into an iHome or some other sound system that will serve as a loudspeaker and amplify the beeping that the Bluetooth generates when a call comes in. If you want, you can even play music on your phone (if it has that function), and the Bluetooth device will interrupt that music whenever a call comes in.

Of course, an even better solution is to just get another battery and an external charger, so you never have to tether your phone in the first place.

Not sure what the range is on this device, but maybe something like this Bluetooth watch?

Spam or not, it looks like a good solution to the OP. I was going to suggest putting a cheap mic near the phone charging stand, connected to a cheap PA & speaker located somewhere else, but TheCelly looks better.

I don’t think any direct cell phone to BT device solution is going to work, for all the reasons mentioned above. Making something within 20 feet of the phone obnoxiously loud doesn’t seem like a solution.

We have an AT&T cordless phone system that allows BT connection to cell phones. Just leave the cell phones near the base unit (put it wherever it’s convenient for charging, etc.) and then put a couple of wireless handsets in farther corners of the house. With things like DECT 6 wireless you can carry the handset all over a fairly large piece of property and still have access to the charging cell phone.

I’d also rather accidentally leave a $25 wireless handset somewhere out in the yard or garage, or bust it, than risk damaging my Note II while doing yard work or such.

Since this is an old thread revived by a spam post (removed), I’m closing it. If people want to discuss this further, feel free to open a new thread.

Colibri
General Questions Moderator