Let Xlink Bluetooth do the walking!

For the last 5 years I've been wondering how to integrate my home phone with my cell phone. In fact I've had many ideas none of which I've been diligent enough to try to develop. I even got so bold recently as to draw a schematic that involved the destruction of a modem and 2 bluetooth headsets to create virtually the same product as the Xlink.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I found the ItelliTouch Xlink ITC-BTTN before that happened. I, personally, would like to claim the original idea!

First thing to mention is pay careful attention to the product you buy. There is an ITC-BTTN and an ITC-BT you can find them both many places online. The ITC-BT will seem like a great deal (as it can be found a good bit cheaper). Unfortunately, if you have the need to incorporate a land line with your home phone system the BT won't do the trick. Keep that in mind when you're shopping and look closely at the stores manufacturers product code.

The product works exactly as described and is a great addition to my home.

Before the Xlink I'd get home from work stick my cell phone on the charger in the kitchen and go upstairs to relax. Ten minutes later my cell phone would ring and instead of being able to answer the phone on the table next to me I'd have to hustle down the hall, down a flight of stairs into the kitchen and pick up the phone, many times wishing I'd just let voicemail handle it.

After Xlink I can put my phone in the charger, next to the Xlink. When the Cell phone rings all my home phones ring (well almost all... I'll get to that later) and I can pick them up from anywhere. With 6 phones strewn about the house it's a lot easier to get to one of them. The caller ID comes across and I can choose to answer the call. The Xlink works with my phone and my wife's phone and caller ID even works through the Xlink so I can answer a call from my cell phone while talking on the land-line or vice-versa. I've even stopped making long distance calls from my land-line because I can dial my cell phones from my home phones using the Xlink. I can even use voice commands to dial numbers in memory on my cell phone.

What are the other highlights? Connect any bluetooth phone (up to three of them at one time) to your home phone system. When you walk in the door the Xlink sees your phone and connects it automatically. Fortunately, this can be easily disabled with the press of a button if needed. The xlink can connect via USB to your computer for updates to the internal software. I've not done this yet, but it's a great idea.

So what's the lowdown, is it really that good? For convenience, yes it is, but it does have it's flaws.

If you don't have a great cell phone connection at your house the broken audio from a weak cell signal combined with the lossy audio from the bluetooth connection make for some difficult conversations. This is the case with my system. Sometimes the signal is great, sometimes not. Either way at least I see the caller ID and can get to those calls without running down a flight of varnished wood stairs in my socks!

Sometimes it just doesn't connect... I'll walk in the door put the phone on the charger and the flashing (not connected) indicator never goes solid (indicating a connection). I can't explain it. Sometimes it goes weeks without a problem and sometimes it's every other day. The solution is simple. Unplug the power from the Xlink, plug it back in and all is normal in a matter of seconds.

It needs to be plugged in near the source of your land-line. My land-line enters in my basement and all my phone jacks are "home-runs" to that location. Fortunately most of my phones are wireless and share the same Uniden Base station so they aren't actually plugged into the wall. Since my cell phones are in my kitchen that's the best place for the Xlink. I tried putting the Xlink in the basement with the main phone jack, but the bluetooth signal just wasn't strong enough to make it work. I have one phone, my bedroom phone, that's a different brand and connects back to the main jack in the basement. When the cell phones ring the Xlink cannot ring the bedroom phone because it's not connected directly to the Xlink. I'm planning on fixing this with some fancy wiring.

Voice mail can be a problem. If you have an answering machine instead of a service through your telco the answering machine will most likely pick up your calls if you miss them. Doesn't sounds so bad until your kids start singing a song about how good beans are to that prospect you've been working on for 4 months. Fortunately I've never had that happen, but my basic recommendation is keep your home message simple and clean if you have an answering machine in your house and you're using the Xlink with cell phones that may be used for something other than personal use.

I highly recommend the Xlink. It's price is reasonable, it integrates with any standard home phone system and can save a lot of stress and potentially reduce risk of injury (definitely in my case).