Forward mobile calls via SIP and Bluetooth

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glennr

24 posts

Geek

#144152 9-May-2014 08:47

Hi,

At my place we have poor mobile coverage, but there are a couple of places in the house where the signal is adequite. I work from home and my office is in the garage sleepout. There is good wifi coverage in both places. I can send and receive texts from my computer by leaving the phone in the coverage area and accessing it using AirDroid or MySMS and I would like to be able to do the same for voice calls.

One way to do that would be to write an app for the phone that intercepts the call and forwards it via SIP to a client on my PC. However from the reading I have done it appears that for security reasons the phone won't let you do that.

I am wondering whether it would be feasible to modify an existing open source SIP client to answer or place calls via Bluetooth using a second device nearby (e.g. Raspberry Pi + Bluetooth dongle) and forward the calls to a standard SIP client on my desktop PC via my LAN/Wifi.

Glenn

chevrolux

4962 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1040627 9-May-2014 09:49

..... Am I missing something here or do you just want to do 'Call forward immediate' on your mobile?

You can set this yourself on your mobile. In Android go to 'Call Settings' and then 'More Settings' and 'Call Forwarding'. All your call forwards are in there. So just set a 'call forward always' to a 2talk number (for example) and have a soft phone on your PC registered to the number.

Yes you will pay for forwarded calls but that will be the case no matter what.

glennr

24 posts

Geek

#1040843 9-May-2014 14:05

chevrolux: ..... Am I missing something here or do you just want to do 'Call forward immediate' on your mobile?

You can set this yourself on your mobile. In Android go to 'Call Settings' and then 'More Settings' and 'Call Forwarding'. All your call forwards are in there. So just set a 'call forward always' to a 2talk number (for example) and have a soft phone on your PC registered to the number.

Yes you will pay for forwarded calls but that will be the case no matter what.

I could do that, but as you point out it will cost something. If I do it the way I described (or some variant of it) then I won't be paying the telcos anything extra. I was also wanting a way to use up some of the accumulating call time that is included in my plan (2 deg carryover combo) that I wouldn't otherwise use. Currently I pay extra for calls to mobiles from my landline but those calls would be included in my call time if I could use my mobile. Also there's the 'fun' value of setting it up.

glennr

24 posts

Geek

#1040859 9-May-2014 14:48

This appears to be very close to what I want:

http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/Asterisk+Bluetooth+channels

wongtop

565 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1040905 9-May-2014 15:59

What about something like this

http://www.dicksmith.co.nz/telephones-accessories/uniden-cordless-phone-with-2-handsets-xdect-6135btu-1-dsnz-f7847

1eStar

1604 posts

Uber Geek

#1041161 9-May-2014 22:20

Bluetooth headset? Range will be the problem.

richms

28189 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#1041204 9-May-2014 23:19

Last I checked the bluetooth went to the basestation of the cordless phones, which then sent it out to the handsets over something with a bit of power behind it like dect or whatever bastard dect concoction uniden use is.

So if the base was stuck at a point that both reached the sleepout, and was within bluetooth range of the mobile when the mobile was in a good signal area, it would achieve what is needed. Some of the uniden phones have dect repeaters in the charging stands so that may help to get the dect side of it out to the sleepout/office.

Richard rich.ms

johny99

495 posts

Ultimate Geek
Inactive user

#1041233 10-May-2014 05:45

can you answer calls with airdroid, if so could you pair a blue tooth phone device to your cell?

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glennr

24 posts

Geek

#1041258 10-May-2014 10:44

Thanks for all the suggestions.

Some replies:
It is way outside of standard bluetooth range (about 30m, but both buildings are metal skinned) so any solution involving that requires some sort of relay.

The uniden phone looks like it would work, but $189 is more than I wanted to spend.

I already have a raspberry pi, a bluetooth dongle and a wireless AP (can use it in client mode) that I am not using for anything else and I was hoping I could use them and not have to buy anything else.

I did a bit more research last night and found that there is an RPi distro called raspbx that has Asterisk + FreePBX. There is a driver for Asterisk called chan_mobile that, as far as I can tell, does exactly what I want. I have installed this on my Pi but I'm currently stuck because the bluetooth scan doesn't see my phone but the dongle is recognised and the driver isn't complaining about anything.

Glenn