Like pretty much everyone these days, I’ve had a cell phone for decades at this point. But I’ve never gotten in the habit of carrying it with me around the house. Sometimes it’s in the same room as I am, sometimes it’s not. So I will get texts and even calls, and not be aware of them for hours.
We still have a land line, maybe not for very much longer since we don’t use it that much. But the one big advantage a land line has, is that it has receivers at several locations around the house. If someone calls me on the land line, I will hear it and can answer the call wherever I might be in the house.
So is there a way to have a cell phone line do the same thing? IOW, have several devices around the house that would ring if my cell phone rings, and that I could pick up and answer on if someone calls me on my cell? And maybe even beep at me or something if I’ve gotten a text message, but that wouldn’t be a deal-breaker.
It wouldn’t be necessary for these devices to be able to do anything else a cell phone does: wouldn’t need to initiate calls, send texts, surf the Web. (If they do any of those things too, then great, but not needed. I just need one device - IOW, my cell phone - to be able to do those things.) Just be able to hear the ring and pick up the call, wherever I might be in the house, even if the cell phone is two floors away.
If there’s a way to do this with a cell phone, I’d be ready to ditch the land line.
As far as I know, on Android phones this would be a feature of your phone carrier through their call forwarding options. Some used to offer simultaneous calling options. I don’t know if any currently do.
A smart watch, like an Apple Watch will ring and let you answer the phone, but of course you need to be wearing the watch all the time. You can also read messages and email, and access a subset of apps you regularly use.
Yes, I will second the Apple Watch idea. Provided, of course, that when you put it on you enter the code. If it’s not gotten the code, it won’t ring with your phone. And the Dick Tracy thing - trying to have a conversation with your wrist - is not ideal. Maybe Apple could make a shoe phone, like Get Smart.
But seriously, also wearing one Airpod will supposed work within Bluetooth distance of your phone, which should be anywhere in the house. Dorkiness is just a side effect.
Is a smart watch (Apple or otherwise) tethered to the phone via Bluetooth, or can it also tether via Wi-Fi? Or at least shared hotspot Wi-Fi?
The reason I ask is that I suspect the OP’s house is big enough that his phone next to e.g. his bedside will be out of Bluetooth range from his watch on his wrist in the basement.
I live in a 1300sf two bedroom apartment. I can walk out of BT headset range of my phone when it’s in one corner of the apartment and I’m in the opposite room with only a couple of drywall walls and 30 feet of air between us.
We had a Panasonic cordless phone system where our cell phones would pair with the base station and you could answer or make cell calls from any of the Corless handsets.
I asked this same question here a decade or more ago, and the answer is no. By their very design, cell phone lines match a phone (or SIM), one to one. You can’t get multiple phones to ring on a single number like you could with landlines in the old days.
On the other hand, you can get apps or services to forward phone calls from your cell to your landline (or another cell). In that case it’s technically a separate phone call, but it should do the trick of allowing you to answer your home phone when someone calls your cell.
Are you looking for a way to use your cell phone service on your home phone? If so, you might be interested in Cell2Jack, a device that connects your cell phone to your landline phone using Bluetooth technology.
Do you often miss important calls on your cell phone when you are at home? Do you wish you could hear your cell phone ring in every room of your house? If so, you need Cell2Jack, a device that connects your cell phone to your home phone.
Cell2Jack allows you to make and receive cell phone calls on any home phone extension, while still using your cell phone calling plan.
Yeah, something along this line sounds like what I’m looking for. That gives me enough info to get started, I think. I’m sure I’ll find out one way or the other, but my WAG is that it wouldn’t matter whether you actually had landline service, just so long as you had a compatible base station and cordless phones that were charged up.
The Apple Watch sounds like a great idea for people who wear a watch. I didn’t like wearing a watch back in the days before cell phones, so I think I’d better take a pass on that. But thanks for the suggestion!
Is it so hard to turn the ring/notification volume to an annoying level?
I have one notification I watch for continuously. I made it a simple click. But I have it at the loudest volume. I can hear it across most of the lower floor. Even from the shower.
I don’t know what the OP’s house is like, but my cell phone is on the desk in my office in the basement when I’m home. It would have to be roughly the volume of a car horn for me to be able to hear it upstairs. Even if you crank the volume to max annoyance level, there’s no way I’ll hear it. They don’t make cell phones that loud.
Our land line has 3 cordless handsets that all communicate to one base. We have one handset in the kitchen, one in the bedroom, and one downstairs in my office. We also use them as intercoms.
I have a similar gateway device, though not that specific one. It’s an idea that’s been around for a while. I got it when I was thinking of getting rid of my landline, but ultimately decided to keep the landline. But I tried it out and it does work.
The one I have has two connection modes. In one mode, you just pair it with your cell phone over Bluetooth and then plug a landline phone into it, which is mainly useful if said landline phone is a cordless base station with multiple handsets. In the other mode, you can plug it into any phone jack and it operates all the wired phones in the house. I understand that in the latter mode it’s important to physically disconnect the phone wiring from the incoming line because voltage may be present on the line even when you don’t have service which could damage the device.
It occurs to me that if you had “smart bulbs” or whatever you call the WiFI controlled LED bulbs that I’ve seen but never bought, you probably could set up something to blink or change the brightness or color of your lights when you get a call or some other notification. Some quick googling shows that it seems to be possible to go down that route.
Yeah, this is the sort of thing I’m seeing on Amazon, now that (thanks to y’all!) I know what to look for: a set of cordless phones with a base station, where you connect it to your cell phone via Bluetooth. (I can get something like this for ~$100 on Amazon.) Cordless phones are what we have anyway, and the set we have is old and showing signs it might be time to replace it, so I’m thinking just get one of this kind of cordless phone set, pair the cell phones to it via Bluetooth, and that should do it.
Not just that, but assuming the devices are on the same wifi network, when I get a call, my phone and watch ring, but also my Macbook and my iPad. It’s inescapable.
I have a Fitbit that solves this problem quite nicely at a fraction of the cost of an Apple watch. Plus it monitors my sleep, heart rate, steps and many other things.
Honestly not being a dick, but why not just keep it in a pocket? Problem solved.
I know there are probably good reasons to have a land line but it’s probably been decades since I had one.
I’m not sure if this is what you’re looking for, but if you get a Google Voice number, you can set it up to ring on your phone and any computer where you are logged on with your Google account. Also text messages, and the connection on your computer is completely independent of your phone. I have all the 2FA that insists on using text messages set up via Google voice, the text just pops up on my computer even if I left my phone somewhere else.
If you go this route but don’t want to change your number, I believe you can port your current cell number to Google and get a new cell number (that you wouldn’t use). But I’d suggest that before you make that commitment to the service you try it out with a new Google voice number.
Another advantage of Google Voice is that on the phone you can set it up to use either carrier voice minutes or to go through the data connection on your phone - whether WiFi or wireless data. If set to the latter, it will still work seamlessly to make or receive voice calls and texts on the same Google Voice number if you are abroad and change the SIM card on your phone, provided either WiFi your local SIM card gives you a data connection.