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Gigaset One: Bluetooth-Based Cell-to-PSTN Interface

A couple of weeks ago friend Tony up at Gigaset promised to send me a couple of the newer Gigaset DECT handsets that they’ve started to sell in the US. The box arrived and true to his promise there are a couple of handsets..but this is not about them. Left with a little space in the box Tony threw in a Gigaset One Bluetooth interface device. It’s proven to be a curious and interesting little device.

Let me be completely clear about this….it’s not often that manufacturers just send me stuff (disclosure statement). After almost 600 posts to this blog I’ve managed forge a few good relationships with manufacturers, but in most cases I simply buy whatever hardware I truly need, and that’s what I get to write about.

This being an especially Monday-like morning I found myself distracted by the box from Gigaset, and specifically the Gigaset One interface device. It occurred to me that this device is a lot cheaper and possibly more convenient than the Portech MV370 GSM-SIP interface that I installed two years ago. The Portech box was around $300 all-in whereas the Gigaset One can be found online in the $80 range.

The One, if I may call it that without sounding too Matrix-y, connects to a cellphone using Bluetooth. Once connected it mimics a headset. Calls to that cell number are routed to the RJ-11 jack on the One.

An analog phone connected to that RJ-11 jack can also make outbound calls on the cell phone. If you have an existing POTS line that can be passed through the One, so that don’t give up your analog capability.

The Gigaset One essentially turns a Bluetooth capable cell phone into a wireless trunk for your home phones.

I poked around online and found that back in February TWiT had a mention of the Gigaset One in Daily Giz Wiz #1018.

Since our home phones are a Gigaset A580IP system they have a connection for one analog POTS line, although we don’t have even one POTS line coming into the property. This very fact gave me the opportunity to connect the Gigaset One device to our home phones.

I started this little adventure by hunting down my old Blackberry Pearl 8100, which is Bluetooth capable. I removed the SIM card from the Portech MV-370 and put it into the Pearl. Then I paired the Pearl with the One.

In just a few minutes I was able to bring cellular calls to my second number into the A580IP. Here’s a picture of my cobbled together little test rig.

Gigaset-One-Test-Setup

I’ve decided that as an experiment this week I will leave this little test rig setup and use it to call home when I’m in Austin the next few days. Like the earlier GSM gateway project, the goal is to use my T-Mobile unlimited free mobile-to-mobile minutes when I’m calling home from afar.

I’ll let you know how it goes in about a week. Oh yes, I will get around to something about the newer Gigaset handsets, too. Over this past weekend they both officially passed my local spousal approval test.

This Post Has 24 Comments
  1. Great concept, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to run upstairs to find my cell when it’s been ringing from afar!. It woudl be great if Siemens were to add this in as a feature on one of their DECT bases.

  2. Great article! I sometimes, leave my cell downstairs in my office and forget to bring it up at night (as I am on-call quite often). I would love to get one of these and then hook it into my in-home PBX system. I could then route incoming calls to specific phones and probably even setup outbound routing via the cell for specific prefixes etc. Hmmm, stuff to think about :-).

  3. Any word if a “business” version supporting SIP-ethernet instead of FXS-analog is coming?

    1. I really can’t say, but I wouldn’t be expecting it from Gigaset. It’s not really their target market.

      OTOH, the Portech MV-370 is pretty much exactly what you need in that respect. It takes a SIM card and otherwise acts as a SIP device. This makes it in some ways more flexible than the Gigaset One, but it’s also almost 3 times the price.

      Once I’ve used the Gigaset One a little more I’ll compare these two approaches to cellular trunking in some length.

      1. I’ll look forward to your analysis. I suppose a Linksys SPA3102 + Gigaset One would work, but frustratingly complicated compared to direct SIP support. Let alone trying to keep each of the three cell phones as separate extensions in asterisk.

  4. Looks suspiciously like a rebranded XLink BT gateway, if you ask me…

    http://www.myxlink.com/

    These have been around for a while. I’ve been pleased with mine, though I do wish I didn’t have to go through a POTS connection to bridge between two digital devices…

    1. I wonder who is actually the OEM? With the strength of Siemens manufacturing it’s possibly that Gigaset actually makes the device for XLink.

  5. I have one of the Gigaset One’s with my Nokia 3711 phone paired to it and can’t get anything from it? The blue light is solid and the green light is on and it comes up as paired device on my cell phone. The One didn’t ask me for 0000 like in the instructions, it just paired up. My other phones don’t ring and I can’t make or answer a call on my “home” phones. I do not have POTS anymore. Any ideas?

    Thank you

    1. I’m told that there may be a firmware update to the Gigaset unit that could help it with any phones where there are problems. The Gigaset One is actually made by XLink, so you can check with them as well.

    1. I have two Siemens handsets. The base station is connected to the One and the other handset is plugged in. I have a Casio wireless handset plugged into the homeline and a POTS phone connected to the home line. I have all the wires on the outside in the AT&T box disconnected. I can dial out on the Siemens handsets and get incoming calls on them, the phones wired to the homeline do not function. There is no dial tone and they do not ring. I am thinking about getting more Siemens wireless handsets, if that is the only way it is going to work.

      Thank you for the help as well as mrgraves

      1. I should say that the Siemens Base station is connected to the home line as well as the Gigaset One.

        Thanks

  6. RETRACT THE LAST STATEMENT.The Siemens 2410 is attached to the Gigaset One and the Gigaset One is connected to the home line.

  7. Okay, I got some 2400 handsets off Ebay and now I have 3 connected to the 2410 base station and they are all functioning. I still can’t get my home phone lines to connect to the Gigaset One that the base station is plugged into and then the One is plugged into the wall and paired to my Nokia 3711 as well. Wish I knew what I was doing wrong why these jacks in my house won’t transfer the phone calls through.

    1. There was a site there at the time this post was written. They must be doing some reorg of their site. Not sure if it’s US only. Don’t see why that would be the case. You can always get more details from the OEM at http://www.myxlink.com/

  8. Okay! I have it working properly. It is overly simple and I made it too technical. I went back outside and connected the wires going into my home back to the AT&T Box (NID). I left the wires from the telephone pole disconnected. I then plugged the top jack on the Gigaset One into a phone outlet in my house and left the lower jack empty. The lower jack is for a POTS line if you still have service, I believe. All my jacks work, the Gigaset One is actually plugged into my answering machine and passed to the wall, so my answering machine works instead of gettting the messages from my voice mail. I can tell when I have a message without looking to see my missed calls, which I like better. I think it is a nice piece, so far. I’ll see how it pans out. It’s all in the written directions, silly me for misunderstanding them. I emailed Siemens a couple times and they were of some help.
    Thank you all for the input and thanks for the site!

    Chester Polak

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