Ring-a-Ding : Should you rely solely on your cell phone in the home?

Although I haven't done this yet, more and more people are dropping their home land lines in favor of using their cell phone and number as their main home land line phone. Americans who rely on cell phones
as their primary line of communications tend to be younger, less affluent, single and more liberal. That's according to The Cell Phone Challenge to Survey Research, a report released by The Pew Research Center and based on a survey conducted in association with the Pew Internet & American Life Project, the Associated Press and AOL.

Seven to 9 percent of Americans don't have home phone lines and use their cell phones as a primary phone. Just under half (48 percent) of cell-only respondents are under 30. Thirty-five percent are 30 to 49. About 55 percent of cell-only respondents are men, and 46 percent are women.

It’s fair to say that cell phones can induce laziness. They enable effortless directory assistance, mobile Web access and the ever-important luxury of calling someone in the next room so you don’t need to get up. But this laziness can be reversed in an instant: Just misplace your cell phone at home, hear it ring and note how quickly you move—running, climbing stairs or flipping couch cushions—to find the phone before a caller hangs up.

VTech Communications wants to put an end to this mad phone dash with its $150 Expandable Cordless Phone System with Bluetooth, the LS5145. This device synchronizes with your cell phone and redirects incoming cell calls to ring wherever the VTech phones are placed in the house. It works with your land line and up to two Bluetooth-linked cellphones, and can be expanded using additional handsets that cost $80 each. The concept of a cell phone extender isn’t new, but not many of them have caught on.

Another popular add-on to cell phones at home is the repeater, which focuses on boosting a phone’s signal in a place with poor coverage. The VTech 5145 could work as a repeater, assuming you put it and the finicky cell phone in a place with good coverage. But if your entire house has lousy cell coverage, it won’t work as a repeater.

AT&T licenses its corded and cordless phones through VTech, which sells a less-expensive product similar to the 5145 called the AT&T EP5632. It costs $100 and has the same basic functions as the 5145, but is clunky and much less stylish. Its additional handhelds cost $60 each.

The VTech phones are stylishly thin and have bright color display screens, which can be set to one of 27 still color wallpaper images or four animated designs. It takes only a minute to pair cell phones with the system using Bluetooth, a wireless technology that connects devices that are within about 30 feet of one another.  But the 5145 doesn’t display the numerous names and numbers stored on one's cell phone contact list. Unless you wanted to painstakingly enter the data into the VTech, incoming calls are only identified with phone numbers.  Also missing are other features from your cell phone, such as text
messaging and voice mail.

Each handset is equipped with a speakerphone, and missed calls are noted on the color screen and in a call log, along with the date and time. A built-in intercom system lets handsets communicate with the other or the base station. Users can choose from one of 23 ringtone-like melodies.

If you’re looking for an easier way to answer your cell phone whenever and wherever it rings, VTech’s system might be a good solution for you. But if you rely on your cell phone’s address book to identify callers and aren’t up for inputting these data again, it might be worth waiting for a Bluetooth cordless phone system that will automatically copy data from your cell phone.

Let me know if you're one of the growing number of folks who have forsaken Ma Bell and gone wireless only in your home by commenting below.

Comments

[Home Security Systems]

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