 - Enjoy unlimited US calling, exceptional voice quality, and must-have features with no monthly fees or contracts
- Receive caller-ID, call-waiting, and voicemail at no extra charge; Pay as you go for low-cost international calls
- Hear voicemail and customize settings in the ooma Lounge
- Extend the power of the ooma system anywhere you have a phone jack with an ooma Scout device
- Try out ooma's enhanced calling features with a free trial of ooma Premier, which includes a free second phone line, real-time message screening, one-touch Do Not Disturb and Send to Voicemail, a second personal number with private voicemail, and more
List Price: $599.00
Lowest Price: $239.95 
Product Description: OOMA HUB DEVICE - Customer Reviews: Rating: 
Date: 2008-06-20
Good call quality.
I tried this at a friends house and the call quality is great. What scares me is the fact that the company could be gone in a blink of an eye. They promised a lot early and didn't deliver, so the current promises make me a bit edgy. I use ATT Callvantage and this would pay for itself in a year. So should you roll the dice? I'm currently checking to see if they can port over my VOIP number to their service and what would happen to my number if OOMA goes to vapor.
Rating: 
Date: 2008-06-09
Fantasic Device - No More Phone Bills
I've been using my ooma box for a number of months and I love it.
Design: The Ooma is definitely designed well with simple, large buttons. The instructions for setup are fairly simple.
Quality: I was very surprised when I plugged in the Ooma box and listened to my welcome voice mail created by the company. The voice quality was excellent! I thought it sounded better than my old service provider. Customer service has been friendly in helping me set up and port my number. When you pick-up calls, there is a short "bling" made through the receiver I guess to let you know you're using the ooma-over-the-internet line.
Voice Mail: The Ooma service will store voice mail for you, and you can even check and listen to your voice mail online after you log into the Ooma Lounge. I love that it will send me an email whenever I receive a voicemail.
Reliable: So far so good for me concerning the phone's reliability; however, if your Internet connection is completely down, you won't be able to make calls. You can set the Ooma system up to have a backup land-line connection for a minimal fee depending on who your provider is.
Porting Numbers: Check to see if your number is portable which means you can transfer your number completely over to Ooma from your old service provider. If your old number can't be ported for some reason, you can still use the land-line backup option which will retain your old number for you. You can also select the option for a brand new phone number in your area for free.
Other Features: The Ooma box let's me put my phone on "Do not disturb." I can send incoming calls straight to voice mail. As far as I understand from reading the "help" information , your voice conversations over the Internet are also digitally encrypted from your Ooma box to the Ooma main servers.
No More Phone Bill: I went with the Internet only line and I love not having my regular phone bill show up each month. It's great! Rating:
Date: 2008-06-08
Outstanding product - beats competition hands down
Please allow me to digress a little bit first - I was trying to get Vonage VOIP adaptor work with my setup consisting of cable modem, Airport extreme router (Time Capsule) and couple of Mac computers. Vonage gave me one hell of a horrible time. I wasted couple of hours on Tech support and finally thought I will give Ooma a try, based on the glowing reviews here in Amazon. If it doesn't work, Amazon is such a sport in taking it back (unlike Vonage - they transfered me to THREE different levels on stubborn representative before they would refund my money).
I am so glad for that decision - one *key* difference between the two set ups, if not already obvious, is that Vonage adaptor connects *behind* your router, whereas Ooma connects in front of it...i.e. between the modem and your router. So unlike Vonage, you don't have to do meddle with the firewall of your router to open up bazillion ports and set up port-forwadings etc etc.
To get a phone no., you go to Ooma website and in few clicks choose a snazzy number (you could port your current no. too) and submit the unique MAC id of your Ooma device. Just shut down your router, plug the beautiful Ooma device to your modem, and connect your router to Ooma. That is it - you are done! Really!
Ooma automatically configures itself to the phone no. you picked and you can start making calls in about 5 minutes!
The call clarity is great and the basic feature you expect like voice mail and call waiting work like it is supposed to. I plugged in a Vtech phone to Ooma and kept two additional handsets in different rooms and I have to tell you - the whole set up is working like a charm. Unlimited calling with Vonage is about $27 to 28 per month and in 7-8 short months Ooma would have paid for itself and from then on, it is free! I know it sounds like it is too good to be true but I checked up the company and it certainly looks like they will be around for a long time and at most may start to charge you something after three years (worst case scenario). But even then, I think it is a great deal if you are getting three years of unlimited phone service for $249. Of course not having to pay *any* monthly phone bill is a nice little relief by itself!
I have only scratched the surface of this thing - there are a lot of additional features that some of you might find very useful, such as optional land line integration (so you get real 911 instead of e911 that you get with any VOIP), instant second phone line if you are using the Ooma scout and so on. I haven't tried the scout yet, so can't comment on that.
Do yourself a favor and give Ooma a try - you will be glad you did. Rating:
Date: 2008-06-04
Incredible. Say goodbye to your phone company. They're about to go out of business
Forget about Vonage, Verizon, Qwest, AT&T. They're all history if people get wise and buy an ooma. I couldn't be happier and there's not enough good things to say about it.
I have used other VOIP phones before, but have never been overly impressed with the call quality. And the savings is marginal. Vonage is still $25 per month, while a local phone company is going to be around $50 + w/ long distance. The major difference between ooma and Vonage or anything other VOIP service is that ooma operates on a peer-to-peer network, like Napster (used to) or Skype. The ooma device runs on Linux and calls are routed via other ooma Hubs throughout the US while it's sitting wherever you put it. You wouldn't know that other calls are passing through. I think that's what makes the sound quality so good. It doesn't have to rely exclusively on your internet connection. It feeds off of other ooma Hubs...at least that how I understand it.
I've successfully ditched my local phone company, where I was spending between $125 - $175 per month for 3 lines in my home...one for business, one for a fax, and one for my home line.
I bought the ooma promo package on Amazon with the ooma Hub & the ooma Scout for $249. I'm real sorry I didn't buy before the 1st of April '08...then ooma Premiere would have been free for life.
I now have my business, fax, and home lines all running through the ooma devices and they work perfectly. They were very easy to set up. It was simply a matter of plugging them into my router and plugging my phones into the ooma devices. Pretty easy.
With ooma, you get two lines (and two phone numbers) for free when you buy the device. You can add additional phone numbers (note: Not additional lines) for $4.95 per month. So you can make at least two calls on two lines at any given time. That's $4.95 per month, for unlimited local and long distance calls in the US (and probably Canada and PR...I haven't taken the time to check). ooma will pay for itself in my home within 1 - 2 months.
If you just want the regular ooma service, you get 2 lines, 2 numbers, and caller ID for life...with no expenses outside of the initial hardware purchase.
I will probably upgrade to ooma Premiere after my 60 days is up. It allows for 3 way conference calling. If I'm on the phone when someone else calls, I can place my caller on hold and pick up the other line of look at the caller ID and simply dump them into voicemail. I can also retrieve voicemail when I'm away from home very easily, and ooma even sends me an email on my Blackberry when a voicemail message is left for me. It tells me how long the VM is and what number it came from. Pretty cool.
It's a remarkable device, and an incredible savings. I also really like the way it look, and the packaging is snazzy. I've had 3 friends all buy an ooma Hub / Scout package from Amazon and all have been incredibly pleased with the service, the call quality, and the savings. How can you not dig it?
One other note: I tried ooma with a satellite internet provider. The folks at ooma don't recommend using satellite with ooma, and I did notice a lag here or there in call quality with the satellite. How ironic was it that a week after ooma went in, I received a letter from Sprint telling me that they were discontinuing their satellite internet service. I now have screaming fast cable, and ooma works beautifully.
Do yourself a favor. Pick up this hardware and stop paying for crappy home phone service. ooma could spell the end for those companies that have been gouging us for so darned long. Rating:
Date: 2008-06-03
This is the solution.
I used Vonage before and was happy with it. Then, I found out Ooma in Amazon website and when price fell, I decided to give it a try. Wow, I was able to transfer my phone number for free and features are a lot more than Vonage. Voice quality is more than Vonage and I don't have to pay monthly fee. I don't use my home phone a lot and I know it will save me a lot of money after about 8 months. In this rough time with economy, this is the solution to save money and a good investment. |
