Hands-free non-POTS Answer/speakerphone for disabled user

I need to pick your brains about modern alternatives to copper landline answerphones or speakerphones for a heavily disabled user since we are planning to get rid of our landline.

I need to be able to ring home and leave a clearly audible message for my wife who is heavily disabled. If she could reply, that is a strong bonus. She cannot hold or pick up a phone, cannot press buttons on a device and her speech is bad enough that Siri has trouble understanding her.

While we do have the normal Community Alarm service in case of emergency, any delay in me being able to communicate a change of plans or accident to her could become distressing very quickly. For example last October I had a minor motorcycle accident and had to ride home injured to make arrangements for her care for before admitting myself to hospital. The Community Alarm system does not allow me to make incoming calls despite it being 4G as it is a closed system.

At the moment we have the copper landline with a normal DECT landline answerphone that can echo the audio of incoming answerphone messages. She cannot pick up or interact with the phone and we rely on her being in the correct room to hear the message. More often than not she can only hear the tone of voice rather than the content due to distance or background noises.

Our answerphone is the last use of the landline so we are looking for alternatives or improvements to it prior to ceasing the landline completely.

Our internet is non-BT FTTP provided by Giganet without any VOIP service. It passes through the ONT into an ASUS router and through an unmanaged switch. I own the only mobile in the household (iPhone) but we are not averse to obtaining another one when we cease the landline. We have two Homepods on the wifi network if that is useful.

If the call can be two-way, that is desirable but an audible message would be the minimum we need. It does not need to be saved for playback.

One preference is that only a whitelist of individuals should be allowed to phone in and leave messages to avoid cold callers initiating an audio call.

If it has to be via an app such as Whatsapp or Skye, the home device must be able to accept and play the message or call without ANY physical interaction so no keypresses, swipes or similar. Voice interaction to accept or cancel the call should be minimal.

If it can operate via a secondary speaker in a different room that is a bonus.

What sort of devices might cover the majority of these requirements?

In reply to a post by DanielCoffey67:

Our answerphone is the last use of the landline so we are looking for alternatives or improvements to it prior to ceasing the landline completely.

One thing I would say here, as a point of clarity is that the copper landline wont cease to exist (unless your provider has told you otherwise) or you wish to move the 'landline' service to say another VOIP service over your Gigaclear internet connection.

The original BT copper landline service, will in future be delivered using a router (or equivalent) device over what becomes in effect a broadband-lite connection. But just for voice carriage. Thus replacing the analogue bits of the copper pair, including DC voltage and a exchange generated dial tone. If that makes sense.

So you ought to be able to re-use most if not all of your existing DECT answer phone etc without having to re-invent the wheel so to speak. It would just be connected to the new box, rather than master socket.

I hope I've interpreted your post and requirements otherwise correctly, but reply if not or unclear.

Thank you for thinking about the issue. I should add that the reason we were hoping to cease the landline was to try to save money. Having a landline that is only used for rare incoming messages is an expense we were hoping to trim out. I am an unpaid carer so have no salaried income.

If there was a device that could sit behind my firewall listening for incoming requests for me to start an audio message that would be ideal. I don't mind an up front cost (such as changing my unmanaged switch for a managed one to allow proper security) but I would like to avoid the recurring costs for a rarely used but important task.

Daniel,

My 2 cents worth here...How good is your wife's eye movement? If she has fairly good movement then, MAYBE, you could source (via crowdfunding, possibly) some sort of system like the late Stephen Hawkings had. This could allow her some more freedom to answer phones and use apps like other people. Another option could be some sort of small pole that she could wear on her head that might allow her to, at least, tap things & in this way she could "dial" a phone or use some apps.

Just some ideas for you to think over.

Yours,

Eye movement is shaky but an engineeered solution like that would be prohibitively expensive. Bare minimum we need is a non-landline version of a speakerphone that I can call into securely. It only needs to be used every few months which is why we are hoping to get rid of the recurring landline fees.

Simplest solution would be an Alexa dot. Cheap in the Amazon sales, or under £15 on eBay. You can send messages to it so that it lights up yellow, and I'm sure your wife can respond too.

The OP commented that the wife wasn't able to use Siri so it would be a question of whether Amazon were better at understanding. I think it would need a "strengths based" review of what their wife can do rather than listing the things they can't as at the moment barring a loudspeaker phone connected to a VoIP service I am struggling with any suggestions based on what we know of the wife.

You can 'announce' to the dot and it will play the message without any interaction from the listener at the other end (just got my dot to 'fart' at me to prove it works...)

I think we are definitely onto something here... some sort of device that can sit on the home wifi and either receive an audio message that I have made via an app and dumped to it from out of the home or open an audio conversation automatically like I think the security doorbell devices can do?

We are an Apple home here with two existing Homepods as I mentioned in case they were useful for this purpose.

As for her speech difficulty, I do know that even trying "Hey Siri, skip" on a playlist is somewhat unreliable. This may be down to me perhaps having Siri associated with myself rather than open for any persons to talk to?

My own ear of course is tuned to her speech but even I benefit from watching face and lips when she is speaking to get the correct words.

I did try the Apple Announce feature once but I think it can only be used for very short phrases and I am unsure if it can work when the caller is out of home wifi range.

I had forgotten you could do that on Echo devices - I don't use any of the drop in features but you have prodded my memory and are you able to open a 2 way conversation without the other end having to do anything to accept it (I can't remember if you can as I have never enabled it due to me thinking that is a massive potential invasion of privacy!).

Daniel

Off topic but if you are caring for more than 35 hours per week, ( including overnights) you can claim carers allowance look on Gov.uk/carers-allowance for details..

Thank you - I already do claim that. Just under £70 a week for the first 7 hours a day - the rest is free. We often joke that my wife is my Boss since she gets paid the main disability benefit so that she can employ me.

To be honest that is the way they should organise it. The disabled person is assessed and awarded the appropriate benefit. They employ whatever carer they need out of it and the carer gets an allowance for helping them too. If it was done the other way round there would be a flood of "Hey, I want minimum wage for sitting at home and pretending to help my Granny."

On paper it doesn't look like a fair wage for the carer but as a couple it works (just). It is also easy to audit.

Following on from Pheasant's comment, you can connect your existing DECT phone to a VoIP ATA's (Analogue Telephone Adapter) or router with a VoIP connection and then port your number to a VoIP/SIP service.

This will not give you any improvement over your current setup in terms of use, but will enable you to cease your copper landline and make the associated saving.

VoIP/SIP services are generally cheap/free - especially if there are no outgoing calls.
Personally, I use the AAISP service (currently £1.44 per month), but I know others here have their own preferences.

That is something to look at, thanks. I understand I would need a VoIP/ATA connected to my switch since the ASUS AX86U doesn't have one built in.

Yes, that is correct. You can pick up the Grandstream HandyTone HT801 on Amazon for £46
I don't have any experience with this kit as I have either connected via a port on the router or with VoIP phone hardware - someone else on here may be able to provide other recommendations on ATAs

Edited by timandhaylea (Thu 23-Feb-23 17:01:44)