My family, like so many others these days, got rid of our landline a few years ago and rely solely on our cellphones. That saves us some money, but it does introduce some aggravations. My husband and daughter both tend to miss calls because they don’t remember to take their phones off silent when they get home. With the Renny Bluetooth Home Ringer from Olens Technology, they wouldn’t miss calls. The Renny connects via Bluetooth to two cellular phones and rings and announces who’s calling when either of them receives a call – even if the phone is still on silent or in another room. The Renny also acts as a speakerphone, so you don’t have to make a mad dash to find your phone before your caller hangs up. It’s available as a pre-order now for $129.95.
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You might check out Panasonic’s Link-to-Cell system. It has a few issues (1 connection at a time) but allows you to leave your phone at the door when you get home, and to answer cell calls in the basement.
would any of the popular bluetooth speaker units (jambox, clarity, etc.) have the same functionality?
@ David I have a V-tech phone system that’s similar to the Panasonic you mention. It paired up easily with both my phone and my husband’s phone the first time, but it almost never saw his cellphone when he was at home after that initial pairing. It only saw my phone about half the time, so I finally just gave up on them.
@ Steve Braswell I haven’t tried either of the speakers you mention, but it seems most Bluetooth speakers like that are speakers first and speakerphones second. The ones I’ve seen connect to only one phone/music source at a time, not two. And I personally haven’t seen one that will announce caller ID.
@ Steve – Maybe. Depends how the volume is controlled. Bluetooth ringers normally don’t “honor” the phone’s volume settings, where most media Bluetooth connections do. So if the volume is turned down, you still won’t hear it ring.
@ Janet – My Panasonic works great (as long as I remember to charge the phone 😉 ). The only time I had 2 phones hooked to it (about 1 week), it also worked fine. Their new one even has SMS alerts.
My biggest gripe with these, is you can only have 1 conversation going at a time. With me it’s not a issue, but anyone with more than 1 person in the house, I’m sure would want to have 1 call per line/phone. I’d pay more if I could use more phones at once. I think the DECT spec allows this. If not, it could be handled by a small CPU, and multiple Bluetooth/DECT hardware per phone/base.
Of course, if you keep your phone with you 24/7, neither of these are that helpful.
@ Steve & David – The Jambox and others like it don’t have the functionality of Renny because the others auto shut off when the phone is out of range for 10 minutes. Plus they serve as the default audio source for all call functions and steal the signal every time they connect causing dropped or lost calls to the speaker. Renny connects and disconnects repeatedly without any interference when the phone is in use and automatically selects the correct audio source to use during all calls. Also, it doesn’t matter if the phone’s volume is turned down or off – Renny still rings and let’s you even select from built in ringtones.
@ Janet – You’re right, and Renny is the opposite of those other Bluetooth speakers – It’s a ringer/home base station first, and a speaker second. It acts like the V-techs and Panasonics, but with added features such as a range of 200 feet, text and email notifications, and the ability to stream high quality stereo music. There’s a product comparison chart on the Olens Technology website: https://olenstechnology.com/rennycompare/
would this work on my mother-in-laws blue tooth compatible flip phone?
The Renny works with most of the newer non-smartphones that have Bluetooth, so it should work. In the rare instance that it does not work, it is no problem to return it to Olens Technology for a full refund.
Hope this helps!