I was helping someone get started with Google Voice in a thread, and thought a little tutorial might help people out, so I wrote one. I'd like input if you guys think I got something wrong, or left something out. I hope this can help someone.
The pdf has been updated as of 2/16/2010 with more info:
http://i0v.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Google-Voice-for-Noobs.pdf
But I figured some people might like plain text, so I'll paste it too.
I probably won't update the plain text here because it will just be getting longer and longer
(that is, unless someone requests it)
Google Voice for Noobs
Transitioning to Google Voice, on a Sprint HTC Hero
First Revision 2/14/10
What Is Google Voice?
First off, I think it helps to think of Google Voice like a switch box of some sort. You can feed telephone calls in and feed them back out, in whatever direction you’d like. The original intended functionality of GV was to allow you give people one number (your GV number) and then it would ring all of your phones when someone calls that number.
Now this might be helpful for some people, but I know the majority of people here probably don’t have more than one phone. But this setup can still be useful for people who want to use their Google Voice number as the number they give out to people. This setup is really the easiest, because once you’ve entered your cell phone in Google Voice under Settings > Phones, you’re pretty much done. The other advantage to this route is that you can have GV ask callers for their name before it rings your phone (call screening), and some other cool features. If you still want to use your Sprint phone number and just use GV for voicemail, see the next section.
Note: Now when you now first set up Google Voice, it asks if you want to set it up as strictly voicemail and then steps you through steps similar to the following section. It then gives you a more limited feature set for just the options that apply to when you’re using it as voicemail. If that’s all you want to do, then that might be the route to go. If at some point, you want to use a scenario similar to the one above Go to Settings >’Phones’ tab > Get a Google number (thanks to Jon at Hebb Networks for clarifying this)
Google Voice as Voicemail
(This is basically an explanation of what Google walks you through when you go to Settings > “Activate Google voicemail for this phone” on the GV website)
Note that sometime around November 2009, Sprint decided to make CONDITIONAL call forwarding free, so we’re going to configure it like this:
In this situation what you’ll do is dial *285555555555 (replace the 5’s with your GV number) and then press talk. You should hear some beeps to let you know everything is working alright. Then you can hang up. (To undo this feature dial *38)
Next, you want to let GV know that these calls that are being forwarded should go to voicemail. You can do this by going into your settings page in Google Voice on your computer, and clicking “Activate Google voicemail for this phone”
Another thing to note, is that there is a big difference between CONDITIONAL and UNCONDITIONAL call forwarding. CONDITIONAL forwards a call after some (you guessed it) conditions are met - i.e. Busy, or no answer. You can read more about CONDITIONAL call forwarding here: http://bit.ly/9KvT2L
On the other hand, UNCONDITIONAL call forwarding takes all calls to your sprint number, and forwards them ALL to a different number without ever ringing your cell phone. This is not typically an option that anyone would want to use, and Sprint still charges 20 cents/minute for every call that uses this. Read more here: http://bit.ly/apyfAs
Accessing Google Voice from your Hero
Now on your CDMA Hero, you’re definitely going to want to download the Google Voice app from the Market. This will currently do two functions.
1. Allow you to see and play all of your voicemail.
2. Route your outgoing calls back through Google Voice, if you want to. (This makes more sense, I think, if you’re giving out your Google Voice number to people, because then your calls will be all forwarded through GV, both incoming and outgoing. I don’t give out my GV number, so I have mine set to only make outgoing calls through GV for international calls.)
Another option is to call Google Voice from your cell phone, just like the old days with Sprint Voicemail. Be sure to go Settings > Call Settings > Voicemail and then type in your GV number. Then when you hold 1 from the dial pad, you’ll call GV and be able to access it that way too.
Yet another option is to just visit the Google Voice Mobile Page in the browser.
Notification Options
With a fresh setup of Google Voice Voicemail, you’ll probably quickly notice that you’ll bombarded with email and SMS notifications about a new message. You can turn these off, and if you’re using the Android app, you’ll probably want to. On the Google Voice site, visit Settings > Voicemail & SMS > Voicemail Notifications to turn these on or off.
I have one question about using GV. I have free mobile to mobile calling. When someone calls my GV number, which is then forwarded to my cell phone, is this still a mobile to mobile call, or will I be charged?
wjtrawick said:
I have one question about using GV. I have free mobile to mobile calling. When someone calls my GV number, which is then forwarded to my cell phone, is this still a mobile to mobile call, or will I be charged?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I just did a reverse telephone lookup, and it lists my google voice number type as a landline. So, no, I don't believe it counts as a mobile number.
Edit: Just checked my Sprint bill. I've got Any Mobile, Anytime. It is charged as a land line.
(On a side note, we just switched to the free mobile to mobile a few months ago, damn I love it: "Your account used 9,346 minutes of Any Mobile, Anytime(sm) calling last month.")
According to GV surport forum. If somebody(cellphone) calls ur GV number and transfer to ur sprint number. It should be counted as Mobile to Mobile. However, if you called somebody else through ur GV number, it will be conted as you call a landline.
link is here.
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/voice/thread?tid=75630cc990ea5c98&hl=en
laufine said:
According to GV surport forum. If somebody(cellphone) calls ur GV number and transfer to ur sprint number. It should be counted as Mobile to Mobile. However, if you called somebody else through ur GV number, it will be conted as you call a landline.
link is here.
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/voice/thread?tid=75630cc990ea5c98&hl=en
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yupp, thats how it is, I have the bills to prove it. Also, for the person calling you it counts as a landline call for them, so if they are on Sprint it is not using mobile2mobile.
If there was a way to convince google to have gvoice lines as mobile lines it would be set....to bad...
Interestingly, the Voice app for Android doesn't do push notifications of new VMs. I get my email notifications long before the Voice app picks the VMs up. (I think it's set to check every 5 minutes?)
Any ideas on that one?
Is_907 said:
Interestingly, the Voice app for Android doesn't do push notifications of new VMs. I get my email notifications long before the Voice app picks the VMs up. (I think it's set to check every 5 minutes?)
Any ideas on that one?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I go to settings > refresh and notification > refresh inbox,, and there are options there for refresh rate. 5 minutes is the lowest setting. I heard somewhere that there is a 3rd party app that checks more frequently, but I haven't tried it. I wouldn't want to drain my battery with an interval shorter than 5 minutes. Maybe you'd be better off making a gmail label to sort the notifications if the delay is a problem.
I've just been setting GV to send me SMS notifications, and then when I have a VM, I just hit refresh, and look at it. I don't want it constantly refreshing because I hardly get VM's.
Is_907 said:
Interestingly, the Voice app for Android doesn't do push notifications of new VMs. I get my email notifications long before the Voice app picks the VMs up. (I think it's set to check every 5 minutes?)
Any ideas on that one?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's the one thing that keeps me from becoming a heavy Google Voice user. I read on the Google support forums that they're working on push notifications but they said it was difficult and didn't have an ETA.
I don't know how it would be more difficult than Gmail.
Hey, thanks a lot for this guide! I've had "setting up google voicemail" on my to-do list for a while now, and your easy to understand guide motivated me to get it set up. Thanks a lot!
Just wanted to add a little something (feel free to put it in your guide if you want, to avoid questions in the forum later) for people who are on Cricket Wireless...
If you try to set this up for Cricket, the code you dial to activate Google Voicemail is slightly different.
For Cricket, dial *74xxxxxxx.
If you get an error after dialing it, something like "Cricket does not currently offer this service", then the problem isn't that Cricket doesn't offer it, but that your account does not have Call Forwarding enabled.
So, if you use Cricket and you get an error after dialing the code, go to your My Account on the Cricket Website and double check/add the Call Forwarding feature to your account. Once you do this, the code will work and GVoicemail can be activated.
Thanks again!
raynda said:
Hey, thanks a lot for this guide! I've had "setting up google voicemail" on my to-do list for a while now, and your easy to understand guide motivated me to get it set up. Thanks a lot!
Just wanted to add a little something (feel free to put it in your guide if you want, to avoid questions in the forum later) for people who are on Cricket Wireless...
If you try to set this up for Cricket, the code you dial to activate Google Voicemail is slightly different.
For Cricket, dial *74xxxxxxx.
If you get an error after dialing it, something like "Cricket does not currently offer this service", then the problem isn't that Cricket doesn't offer it, but that your account does not have Call Forwarding enabled.
So, if you use Cricket and you get an error after dialing the code, go to your My Account on the Cricket Website and double check/add the Call Forwarding feature to your account. Once you do this, the code will work and GVoicemail can be activated.
Thanks again!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Excellent, and thanks; I'm glad this is being helpful to some people. I will definitely add that to at least the PDF guide today after I finish some school work. I look at this guide as a work in progress, and I'd like to eventually make it a fairly comprehensive users-guide to GV.
My one comment is:
*28 on Sprint forwards BOTH busy line, and no answer. From reading the cricket site, it seems that you'd both need to do *73 and *74 codes, so that when you're busy, it also sends calls to GV. On sprint you can do this too, as it would be the same as doing *28. Actually when I first activated mine, I had to do it that way because the exchange I was using was having some problems with the *28. Basically *28 is just a shortcut (on sprint, not cricket) for forwarding both.
So I'll add this explanation to the guide too. (along with undo codes) I totally forgot I had that problem. But I'm pretty sure you want to also do *73.
--------------------
To the people with billing comments:
So basicially everyone is saying:
1) All GV calls out are charged as calls to a land line. (which I have experienced too)
2) All GV incoming calls are charged as if you were receiving the call directly. (i.e. [Mobile call -> GV -> your phone] is charged as mobile... OR ... [landline call -> GV -> your phone] is charged as landline]
Am I right here? If so, I'll add this in today, too.
what am i missing?
* I have google voice setup correctly
* I have the application from the market installed
* I am receiving notifications in the form of text, and through the notification bar in android.
What I cannot figure out is how to opened the darn program when i want to get back into google voice to look at the messages in the inbox. i can get in when a message icon is in the tray (i just click on it and google voice comes up), but later on when i think "what was that message again?" and I go to go back to the program I cannot find a way to get in.
* There is no program in the "all programs" page (accessed by the arrow)
* There is no widget (other than the one to change how i want google voice to make calls for me)
What am I missing? I cannot figure out how to get into the program.
I could go to the mobile site, but that just seems silly when i know that the program is on my phone. I just can't find an icon to access it.
Please tell me I'm blind, and missing something obvious.
-AndyS-
realmrealm said:
* I have google voice setup correctly
* I have the application from the market installed
* I am receiving notifications in the form of text, and through the notification bar in android.
What I cannot figure out is how to opened the darn program when i want to get back into google voice to look at the messages in the inbox. i can get in when a message icon is in the tray (i just click on it and google voice comes up), but later on when i think "what was that message again?" and I go to go back to the program I cannot find a way to get in.
* There is no program in the "all programs" page (accessed by the arrow)
* There is no widget (other than the one to change how i want google voice to make calls for me)
What am I missing? I cannot figure out how to get into the program.
I could go to the mobile site, but that just seems silly when i know that the program is on my phone. I just can't find an icon to access it.
Please tell me I'm blind, and missing something obvious.
-AndyS-
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I can only guess that you're looking for an icon that says "Google Voice" when actually the icon just says "Voice"
yikes!
@thematrixkid17 - see, I asked for something obvious and you gave it to me
I'm really pretty embarrassed considering the time that I was trying to figure this out, and that it was in front of me the whole time.
Thanks for the quick reply.
-AndyS-
laufine said:
According to GV surport forum. If somebody(cellphone) calls ur GV number and transfer to ur sprint number. It should be counted as Mobile to Mobile. However, if you called somebody else through ur GV number, it will be conted as you call a landline.
link is here.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Sprint has a feature called "Sprint to Home" for $5 /month. If you add that to your plan ALL calls going to and from google voice are free. I use my phone ALL the time and only manage to rack up a 20-30 minutes a month .
realmrealm said:
@thematrixkid17 - see, I asked for something obvious and you gave it to me
I'm really pretty embarrassed considering the time that I was trying to figure this out, and that it was in front of me the whole time.
Thanks for the quick reply.
-AndyS-
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No problem. I knew that was probably your problem, because I had to do a double-take the first time I installed it too. Voice sounds really generic and has a pretty generic looking icon, so its not hard to overlook. I should add a picture of the icon to my guide
biggoan said:
Sprint has a feature called "Sprint to Home" for $5 /month. If you add that to your plan ALL calls going to and from google voice are free. I use my phone ALL the time and only manage to rack up a 20-30 minutes a month .
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've heard about that. So you use google voice to dial to everybody? Cause I have 300 mins/month(Family plan,1500mins, 5ppl), if next month I use more than 300 mins, I'll call sprint to add this service.
anyone happen to happen an invite
[email protected]
so could i use this as my primary voicemail with my sprint number or would i have use the gv one? which i would see no point in if you don't use the gv number? thanks to whoever can clear this up for me
ko0pa11 said:
anyone happen to happen an invite
[email protected]
so could i use this as my primary voicemail with my sprint number or would i have use the gv one? which i would see no point in if you don't use the gv number? thanks to whoever can clear this up for me
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, you can use it as primary voicemail, while still using your Sprint number. That's how I primarily use mine, since I'm on a 1500 minute 5 line family plan with free mobile to mobile any network, and we barely use 200 anytime minutes COMBINED. So it doesn't make sense for me to use GV for calls, when everyone already has my Sprint number. just follow the section in the guide "google voice as voicemail" or the setup instructions on GV.
What is nice about GV for voicemail is that you get visual voicemail via the GV android app, access to voicemail on your pc, its easy to archive messages, custom greetings for different groups of callers, and a bunch of other stuff. Voicemail transcription isn't great yet, but makes it nice to get an idea of what callers are saying if you can't listen (class, meeting, etc)
Invites are pretty sparse. I only ever got three, which I've used for my close friends, or i'd hand them out.
Again, i'll be updating the guide semi-daily based on questions in this thread
laufine said:
I've heard about that. So you use google voice to dial to everybody? Cause I have 300 mins/month(Family plan,1500mins, 5ppl), if next month I use more than 300 mins, I'll call sprint to add this service.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
A lot of the family plans now have the free mobile to mobile any network, so if you mainly make mobile calls, you might take a look at that as an option too. (sorry if I keep bringing this up, but it did really do a killing on my plan; my sister used almost 9000 free minutes last month because of this)
The google voice app has never worked on my phone, always giving me some message about it being for US only.
But today i tried it from my phone and it actually allowed me to set up an account. It stopped at the screen where i was setting up my voicemail pin and said "We have a problem. Your phone number could not be verified. Please try again.". So far i havent been able to get past that screen.
I was able to make google voice calls on my laptop today so it seems like they are allowing use in Canada finally. Does anyone know if its possible to use google voice on mobilicity or wind?
I am curious because mobilicity has a new plan with unlimited calls texts and data for 25 a month, but no voicemail. If i can use google voice as my voicemail then obviously that wont be a problem.
don't know if you checked this out already, but read the post below...I think it should explain what you're looking for....
http://community.windmobile.ca/windmobile/topics/using_google_voice_on_your_phone?from_gsfn=true
Thanks, its too bad that the workarounds discussed in that post still dont offer a solution for voicemail, but that will probably be useful information for future reference.
I did find a solution to this problem without using google voice if anyone is interested. I may as well share it.
To those who are interested in this plan but wont sign up without voicemail:
- You can get a free phone number and a customizable answering machine from http://www.freephoneline.ca/ (if you cant get a toronto number you can use thornhill, richmond hill, etc to avoid forwarding to a long distance number)
- Then set your phone to forward your unanswered, busy, and unavailable incoming calls to your freephoneline number.
- Then set your voicemail access number to the corresponding number on this list http://www.freephoneline.ca/vmAccessNumbers
- Also make sure to set your freephoneline to only ring once before going to voicemail, you can do this by logging into your account on their website and going to your settings
- You now have $25 BTS + Voicemail! When people call your regular phone number and you dont answer, it will forward them to your voicemail on your freephoneline number, and you can check your voicemail from your cell phone the same way you always would.
I believe they also provide the option to automatically transcribe your voicemails and email them to you in text form.
EDIT: Apparantly call forwarding is $5 more, if thats true this wouldnt work. Another option would be using Dell Voice on the android market.
Its an app gives you a canadian number with the area code of your choice and can be used to make and receive calls anywhere in canada and US for free, and customizable voicemail. It uses your carrier data to do this, but since this plan has unlimited data that shouldnt be a problem. The only problem is you would have to get used to making and receiving all your calls through an app, and using your dell voice number as your primary number.
Might be worth the extra $5 to get call features and add the freephoneline voicemail via the method above, the $5 call features addon on the mobilicity website includes Call Waiting, Call Forwarding and 3-Way Calling, (plus voicemail via fpl). Thats basically $30 for the $29 plan i currently have with wind except that it doesnt expire in a year and go up to $45 =/
Hi Everyone,
Sorry if similar has been posted, I tried doing a search but I was not able to find anything for this.
So far I am loving my new watch. I have been doing a bit of playing around with it and the most recent thing I have been working on is getting google voice to be used for voicemail.
So I am newish to google voice and have not been using it for voicemail or anything until now, but I figure now I have two numbers and two voicemails and combining them to one would be great.
So I have configured my cellphone number and watch number with google voice. I have setup my google voice number to be the number that is forwarded to for voicemail for both my phone and watch. So far, initial testing seems to be going great except for one minor thing. On my watch, if I do a reboot it changes the default voicemail number that I would use to call my voicemail on the watch from my google voice number back to the default T-Mobile number. This is just a minor inconvenience as I could just setup a separate contact to be able to call the google voice number. I just like to be able to just tell it to dial voicemail though.
Has anyone else done anything similar yet, if so are you seeing the same issue. I am thinking that the watch has an issue with saving some default things as I have had it wipe out watch settings and stuff as well.
Thanks
I too am interested in this kind of setup. Been using Google Voice as my default VM for my cell. Can't get it to stick once I set it up on my Gear S2 and it reoots.
chibluboy said:
I too am interested in this kind of setup. Been using Google Voice as my default VM for my cell. Can't get it to stick once I set it up on my Gear S2 and it reoots.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Is your problem the same as mine where the default number that the watch is using to call out to check voicemail is going back to the default? Or is your actual number for people calling in to the watch and it going to voicemail being reset?
So the google voice voicemail seems to work great for watch and for phone. The issue with the number clearing out on the watch after a reboot really isn't a big headache as I don't power off the watch often so far.
One of the things I was thinking to try was to change the default number on my phone that is associated with the 1 key for voicemail to my google voice number and see if that would sync it over to the watch that way. I am trying to figure out how to change the default number associated to my voicemail though.
I have a Note 5 on T-Mobile and the voicemail settings is grayed out. I have read that I can root the device and then it would give me access to system files which I could then modify to be able to access the voicemail settings. I was hoping to do this without having to do a root on the phone. Has anyone else ran into this issue and is there any resolution for it without a root?
Thanks
rgburress said:
So the google voice voicemail seems to work great for watch and for phone. The issue with the number clearing out on the watch after a reboot really isn't a big headache as I don't power off the watch often so far.
One of the things I was thinking to try was to change the default number on my phone that is associated with the 1 key for voicemail to my google voice number and see if that would sync it over to the watch that way. I am trying to figure out how to change the default number associated to my voicemail though.
I have a Note 5 on T-Mobile and the voicemail settings is grayed out. I have read that I can root the device and then it would give me access to system files which I could then modify to be able to access the voicemail settings. I was hoping to do this without having to do a root on the phone. Has anyone else ran into this issue and is there any resolution for it without a root?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I went through the step by step process directly on the Google Voice website for adding a new # to my google voice account. Once your watch has been successfully added, GV will give you the ** (GV phone number) # sequence to dial in through your watch to permanently activate GV as your default voice mail. I have since rebooted my S2 several times and every single time my voicemail is set to Google Voice.
chibluboy said:
I went through the step by step process directly on the Google Voice website for adding a new # to my google voice account. Once your watch has been successfully added, GV will give you the ** (GV phone number) # sequence to dial in through your watch to permanently activate GV as your default voice mail. I have since rebooted my S2 several times and every single time my voicemail is set to Google Voice.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I followed the same instructions as well. For me it works to update the voicemail so when that phone rings the google voice voicemail is the one that the caller is directed to.
But if I go into the settings there is a number to use for voicemail, That doesn't update when I use the google voice instructions. So I manully change it to my google voice number, after a reboot it clears back to the default T-Mobile number.
So I noticed a bit of an issue today with using google voice as my voicemail for the watch and phone. Was wondering if anyone has any ideas on a work around.
So basically I have my phone and watch setup with the forwarding to go to my google voice number for voicemail only.The problem I am having is that when I lose the bluetooth connection to the watch, the call forwarding sends calls from the phone to the watch. When the bluetooth connection is established again, the call forwarding disables and it sets my call forwarding number on the phone back to the default t mobile number and not my google voice number. So then I have to dial the forwarding number again to setup the forwarding to google voice every time my phone connects remotely to my watch.
A couple of thoughts on it but I am not sure if any are possible.
The ideal situation would be if I could just change the default number away from t mobile's default and have it be my google voice number, so if it resets then it would reset back to google voice number. Anyone know if this can be done if I root the note?
The other thought would be some kind of program that would run that anytime the watch first establishes bluetooth connection to the phone, the phone will auto dial the number that does the call forwarding to my google voice number, this would allow it to fix itself each time it established.
Anyone have any ideas?
Thanks
rgburress said:
So I noticed a bit of an issue today with using google voice as my voicemail for the watch and phone. Was wondering if anyone has any ideas on a work around.
So basically I have my phone and watch setup with the forwarding to go to my google voice number for voicemail only.The problem I am having is that when I lose the bluetooth connection to the watch, the call forwarding sends calls from the phone to the watch. When the bluetooth connection is established again, the call forwarding disables and it sets my call forwarding number on the phone back to the default t mobile number and not my google voice number. So then I have to dial the forwarding number again to setup the forwarding to google voice every time my phone connects remotely to my watch.
A couple of thoughts on it but I am not sure if any are possible.
The ideal situation would be if I could just change the default number away from t mobile's default and have it be my google voice number, so if it resets then it would reset back to google voice number. Anyone know if this can be done if I root the note?
The other thought would be some kind of program that would run that anytime the watch first establishes bluetooth connection to the phone, the phone will auto dial the number that does the call forwarding to my google voice number, this would allow it to fix itself each time it established.
Anyone have any ideas?
Thanks
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you ever find a solution to this? I just got Gear s3 and in the same boat. When I establish connection to watch again the phone defaults to t-mobile voicemail number and not my GV one.
Got mine (LTE through TMob) a couple of days ago and immediately started with problems. I have a separate watch line with an S7 Edge. Essentially I can send/receive text in the stand alone mode but can not call out or receive. (Can on BT) Had the tech guys play with it (they thought it was a line issue) and they put a ticket in. That might get it working in a week. I thought I could bypass the problem with the line using DIGITS and my cell but nope. Turns out (according to the DIGITS guru) its a sim card problem so they are exchanging the watch. Not an impressive first start but I'm hopeful it'll get better. Hopefully...
Everything BT seems to work but its only been 2 days. I still need to check all the stand alone things when I get the replacement. And, of course, stand alone was the point of the watch.
Also make sure it works in remote connect mode, which is more useful than standalone mode.
How does remote connect work? Wifi?
The connection mode is shown by pulling down on the watchface. It will say "standalone", "connected via BT", or "remotely connected via carrier".
In remote connection mode, the watch doesn't communicate with the phone. Only calls and messages directly to the watch's number are transmitted. No notifications (ie. email, missed calls, Hangouts) from the phone are passed through. In remote connection mode, the watch communicates via it's LTE radio to the phone whether it be in different room or a different state. This allows all notifications to be passed through.
I keep WiFi turned off, it seems (inadequately) redundant for an LTE watch.
And the difference between that and Stand Alone is what?
afblangley said:
In remote connection mode, the watch doesn't communicate with the phone. Only calls and messages directly to the watch's number are transmitted. No notifications (ie. email, missed calls, Hangouts) from the phone are passed through.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I made a typo. What I meant to say is that in standalone mode the watch doesn't communicate with the phone.
afblangley said:
I made a typo. What I meant to say is that in standalone mode the watch doesn't communicate with the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
AHHHHH... That makes more sense. I'm going to use DIGITS. Do you know how that impacts? Or if it does?
rogerperk said:
AHHHHH... That makes more sense. I'm going to use DIGITS. Do you know how that impacts? Or if it does?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nope, sorry. I use Google Voice, so I don't have first hand experience with Digits.
afblangley said:
Nope, sorry. I use Google Voice, so I don't have first hand experience with Digits.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How does Google voice work with t-mobile
Sent from my SM-N950U using Xparent Purple Tapatalk 2
cherylbaker said:
How does Google voice work with t-mobile
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Google Voice for the most part, is carrier ignostic. Calls to a GV number can be forwarded to any of several landlines, cell lines, or digital lines. Outgoing caller ID is a bit trickier and device dependent. Messages can be handled through the messaging app or Hangouts.
In my setup, since my public number is under Google's custodianship, carrier assigned numbers are irrelevant/disposable. My watch, phones, and tablets each have their own carrier number, GV is configured to forward calls to each of these numbers, and they ring simultaneously and independently. Ditto with messages. The carrier has no input in this process. The Gear is also ignorant of this. I don't need to use it's call forwarding setting.
I don't doubt that T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon will eventually get all the kinks worked out of their number sharing system. But Google has been at it for a few years and offers more features, flexibility, and gives power back to the user.
So here's what we got after 5 days:
With my second watch in hand Im informed that the tMob engineers have decided the watch os bad and needs to go back to Samsung. After explaining that the odds against 2 bad watches were pretty small and demanding to be escalated I got a good manager who agreed. The watch is fine. After some digging she decided the problem was that the line is screwed up on the back end and won't connect voice. Problem is she has no idea why or how to fix it. So I'm waiting for their "engineers" to look at it again with her cracking the whip. Bottom line for me is if I can't get a stand alone watch I'm not interested and expect a full refund AND for them to not market what they can't provide. We'll see.
If the line is messed up, why can't they just start from scratch and assign the watch a new number? Then setup the watch without a phone to make sure it works. This is true standalone. If that works, then the problem is with Digits, not the watch or the line.
afblangley said:
Google Voice for the most part, is carrier ignostic. Calls to a GV number can be forwarded to any of several landlines, cell lines, or digital lines. Outgoing caller ID is a bit trickier and device dependent. Messages can be handled through the messaging app or Hangouts.
In my setup, since my public number is under Google's custodianship, carrier assigned numbers are irrelevant/disposable. My watch, phones, and tablets each have their own carrier number, GV is configured to forward calls to each of these numbers, and they ring simultaneously and independently. Ditto with messages. The carrier has no input in this process. The Gear is also ignorant of this. I don't need to use it's call forwarding setting.
I don't doubt that T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon will eventually get all the kinks worked out of their number sharing system. But Google has been at it for a few years and offers more features, flexibility, and gives power back to the user.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well THAT certainly cleared up the question...
REALLY PISSED OFF!! Over a week now and TMob STILL can't fix whatever THEIR problem is with getting this watch to use voice! They were really happy to take my money though! SO PISSED!!
So today it actually.worked! With the phone off!
Then it stopped.
Wrote the CEO of TMob and got an answer in 2 days. Seems not all of their networks supports Voice-over-LTG on 4G lines so it doesn't work everywhere (or something like that). Like where I am. They are hoping the Tizen 3.0 will correct that so the watch accepts a.lower quality line but not sure. Outstanding...
UPDATE 15 Oct - if I ran the watch as truly stand alone it would work. By using DIGITS it only uses 3G, which my area does not have. More info.