End-user perspective on small office tools & technology

Gigaset C610A IP Now Available In The US

gigaset-c61H-skinned-200At long last the Gigaset C610A IP is available in the US. Gigaset recently issued a press release highlighting this very fact.

Much of the detail of the press release was already known from the product announcement back at CES. However, they have announced a possibly cute connection to SkinIt, a service that offers decorative skins for consumer electronics devices.

SkinIt are offering decorative skins for several Gigaset models. So if you really need a Hello Kitty skin to fit into your décor…you can have it. It seems more likely that someone would pick some classic art pattern to match their décor, or perhaps upload a custom image to brand the device unique to your company.

At $30 for each skin they’re not exactly cheap, but then it’s not outrageous either, given that you really want it to match your room. I expect that some will see the value in the skins. Myself, I like the classic black color of the unadorned device.

In related news, now that the C610A IP is available in the US I’ve added a note to this effect to the end of my 2009 review of the A580IP.

Since that review was published a number of people have commented that the A580IP was perhaps a bit too spartan in its feature set. At the time I thought it best to describe the lowest cost system being offered, especially since the S675IP was already reviewed elsewhere.

The C610A IP is now the baseline model that I would recommend. While the A580IP remains the least costly starter system, the C610A IP has the best price/performance mix of the various starter systems being offered. The S79H remains my preferred handset, should you need to add more handsets to the starter system.

This Post Has 14 Comments

  2. Can this phone dial alphanumeric SIP URI, as well as have them programmed into contacts? Import contacts from MS outlook? Just wondering if it is a practical alternative for the non-techies we would like to call using G722.

    1. While I have yet to actually test these things myself, yes it can store SIP URI in the contact list. The contact list can be provisioned/imported from an external source in vcard format. So while it might not have the direct Outlook integration of models with a USB port that use the QuickSync software, it can be loaded with contacts.

  3. Mike,

    After thinking about trading up from the Snom M3’s for a while, I finally took the plunge on the C610a-IP. I have a few comments that may help others. I would compare the upgrade to going from a driving go-cart to driving a real automobile. The Gigaset phones have the look, feel, and function of what one would expect from a real phone, unlike the toy-like M3’s. That said, I did have an initial snag in setting up the Gigaset that may help someone else.

    It appeared that the included handset, the C610H, comes already registered with the base unit. However, it must have not fully registered or something, because even though it saw the base and got a full signal it never would go to INT1. Which was the position in the que where the base had positioned it. When trying to pull up the menu on the handset, it would show the menu but not let you go any further. The solution from Gigaset was to hard reset the base and de-register all handsets as follows.

    From Gigaset:
    Unplug the power-supply unit from the socket.
    Press and hold down the paging key on the base station.
    Plug in the power-supply unit again.
    Keep the paging key on the base station pressed for 5 more seconds.
    The entire contents of the memory will be deleted. All portable handsets will be deregistrationed. The system code will be reset to 0000.

    There must be a firmware issue, because that did not work with my base. The hard reset cleared all the settings but any handsets remained registered, and there is no other way in the base web menus to de-register a handset (This seems to be a major shortfall). Why not just have a menu choice to de-register a handset in the base web menu?

    I was at the verge of doing an RMA when I figured that I would at least try the other two handsets that I had bought (S79H’s). Well after registering one of my other handsets I discovered that there is a menu choice in the handset to de-register not only that handset, but any other handset as well. So I promptly de-registered the problem handset. I then discovered that even though I de-registered it, that the base and the problem handset were still communicating on some level which still would not allow me to access any of the menus on the handset. However, if I unplugged the power from the base the problem handset would appear to function normally and allow me access to the registration option. Last ditch effort… Since I now had access, I put the problem handset in registration mode and immediately plugged in the base and went to the registration page and put it in registration mode and they finally agreed to play nice with each other. (This took about 3 tries to get the timing right before it worked).

    Overall, I really like the phones and you can’t beat the price point for a decent cordless VOIP phone with wideband calling. Since we have not used a PSTN line since around the January of 2000, that function is a waste to me. I wish that Gigaset would offer a base that was just VOIP only, and also sell the bases separate from the handsets. I am glad that I went with the S79H handsets as additional ones, they are indeed a lot better choice then what came with the base. Cheers…

    1. Thanks for the notes. I’ve been though something similar, largely because I’ve had four different DECT bases and needed to move the handsets from one base to another.

      The reset on the DECT base does work on the two that I have presently. Also the function to register/de-register the handsets was not initially obvious, but when I RTFM’d I found I was able to do what I needed.

      I doubt that we’ll see a DECT base without the PSTN connection from Gigaset. While you and I may have abandoned land-lines most of the rest of the world still uses them in some fashion. The presence of that connector gets the devices into stores that would otherwise balk. A deal with an ITSP could be the lever to make Gigaset think otherwise, but it would need to be a big deal.

      In Europe they sell ISDN capable devices that don’t have analog ports, but ISDN was really just a next-gen POTS connection anyway. At least from an application POV.

  4. Michael,

    As you know from my last post, I had a few problems setting up this c610a from the day that I got it. The other day the base started randomly rebooting itself every minute or so. So, I figured I would do a hard reset and just redo my settings from scratch. Note that previously when I had reset my unit it cleared most if not all the settings, but the handsets remained registered. Which you and I both thought as strange. This time, when I did the hard reset, it solved the reboot problem. However, all my settings and registered handsets remained intact. It sounds to me like my unit may have a gotten a bad firmware flash from the beginning.

    I would like to re-flash it with the latest but it wont let me since I already have the latest. I just spoke to Gigaset customer support and they were not much help, appeared to be an India based call center. I spoke to a woman named Adrianna and after about 30 minutes she could not help me and suggested that I exchange it with the retailer, even though I had stressed that I was beyond the 30 day return policy. There was a bit of a language barrier between us. I called back 4 more times hoping to get someone who spoke better English. And, here’s my frustration, out of the four calls I made to the call center, she answered the phone every time. I would like to believe that Gigaset has more then 1 person working in their call center. All I want is a way to try and re-flash the firmware. From my conversation with her, apparently versions 023, 024, and 025 work with this unit. However, you can’t download them directly. Do you know of any link to download any prior version? Or, would you have a better contact for me to get some help from at Gigaset? Thanks.

    Jim…

    1. I’ve just looked at my C610A. It reports software revision 420250000000.

      In the base menus under settings/management/firmware update I see a menu offer to upgrade, downgrade or revert to the delivery version. Have you explored those options?

      The handsets remaining registered appears to be normal. The pairing is stored in the handset. The full manual describes a simple process for de-registering the handset, from the handset.

  5. Michael,

    Thanks, yes my version is the same. From what Gigaset support told me, the third, fourth and fifth digits are the version number (025). I tried all the options, to upgrade, downgrade, and revert to delivery, does not work. I get a message that says I either have the most current version, or that the other options are not available. If I could figure out what the name of the file was on their server I might be able to trick it into loading that specific file via the “User defined firmware file” box. Will try technical support again.

    1. It’s possible that the version we have is the initial release version for that platform. Cross-referencing Gigaset sites with firmware for the rest of the world I see that same release applies to a variety of newish models, presumably all based upon the same hardware platform. If that’s the case then going backward may not be possible. You may need to pursue a replacement from the maker, or work out how to reflash the unit with the same release.

    1. Yes, there is. If you poke around the Gigaset support web site you’ll find that the 049 release has been exposed in some other countries. I found it offered for Spain. By selecting the Spanish version of the Gigaset site I could download that release, then manually provide that file to update my C610A.

      Understand, that’s possible…but I didn’t do it. I suspect that there’s a reason why the release is not yet offered for North American users. There may be something different about the NA hardware, so I prefer to wait until it’s officially offered in the Americas.

      1. interesting – I could not find it even in Spain locale either. Section still references a change log txt file…

        1. My C610 IP got updated yesterday to 49. Canada/US. So probably they are just doing the load balancing so that not to over-clog their servers. There are several visual improvements with the update.

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