This is something I didn't know even existed until I was already agreeing to review it. The idea is that you set it up to connect all your cell phones to it when you come in and then you just have one central phone in the house to make and receive all your calls. I really is a little more elegant than it sounds at first.
Why would you want this?
I'll be honest... At first, it sounded cool. Then it sounded really unnecessary. After trying it out, I landed on a middle ground somewhere between pretty cool and unnecessary. So why would you want one? Anyone could have their own reasons for wanting to consolidate phone calls into a home phone. For me, it would be to have all my wife and my mutual friends be able to reach either of us via either number. It's also useful if you want to drop your cell phone on the charger and use a set of wireless home phones while your cell charges. Maybe you have a home business with several cell phones on a group plan. You could set this up to answer any of the lines from one centralized system.
How does i set up and use it?
First, I need to clarify something I wasn't initially sure about. This doesn't need an existing home phone. Actually, it doesn't really support one, either. The model I tested is the ITC-BT. For about ten bucks more, they offer the ITC-BTTN model. The core (and perhaps only) difference is that the BTTN includes an extra RJ45 connection for connecting it to an existing home phone line.
Although the instructions were all crammed onto one sheet and in multiple languages, they were pretty complete. You plug in the gateway to the wall and you connect it to a home phone via a standard RJ45 phone cable. I just used an old phone I had sitting around in my office for satellite call testing. Once it's all connected and turned on, you connect the phones to it. Make sure your bluetooth is enabled on all your cell phones and you're ready to connect. Note that you don't have to connect them at the same time if the other cell phone's owner happens to get home way later, for example. The buttons on the top of the gateway are for the three cell phone lines you can connect to it. To connect a cell phone, all I had to do was hold down one of these buttons to ready the line for pairing. Then I went into my phone's bluetooth settings and found the gateway and paired it. I then did that for a second cell phone and used the third to test. Once the cell phones are all paired, it can be hung on the wall or set on a desk or counter top.
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(Click here to see the whole photo set)
Using it is pretty simple. Inbound calls are answered just like you'd expect to answer a home phone. The phone rings and you pick it up. Simple, right? Making calls is almost as easy. To make a call, I just had to pick up the home phone and dial. It automatically connects to the cell phone paired with the first spot on the gateway. You can "flash" over to the next line in the order to use it instead. When you move the cell phone out of range of the gateway, it unpairs from the gateway and will re-pair when it is in range again. So in theory, you could leave it set up all the time near your phone chargers and just plug your cell into the charger when you get home.
From what I understand from the documentation, you can also set it up to pass on caller ID information if your base phone has a digital display and wasn't made in the 80's like my test phone. The one thing I would miss greatly with a system like this always in place is my contact list. If you have a newer home phone system, however, some have contact list functionality that would resolve this problem.
Conclusions
For around $89, it's not going to break the bank. I don't have a lot to compare pricing on, but that seems decent. The real question is of need. If the functionality the XLink provides is worth the price tag, it's a worthwhile device. The setup and use is about as easy as you could expect for it. It doesn't feel very sturdy, but it's meant to be sitting in one spot the whole time, so that shouldn't matter. If I had the need, I'd buy one.
