Customer Reviews

Ooma Scout (to use with Ooma Hub VoIP Phone Device)

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

You obviously have or are buying a hub. Should you buy a scout too? I didn't initially... and they were on a different price plan (less expensive) then. I should have. But they recently extended the functionality of these little boxes and I bought 2. Bottom line - for an additional $60, you get a second IN and OUT line and separate phone number (if you subscribe to premier or are grandfathered in with their old - expensive) price point. I am an 'old' one. I didn't get one initially. With the scouts you can play voice mail from the scout. Handy because I have the hub, buried in a cabinet. you can assign a separate phone number ring to that device. It provides, potentially another place to plug another cordless set of handsets.

Configuration is very easy and very difficult at the same time. They provide an 'idiot proof' guide in their documents. And all works as they say it will. Here's the problems... (and they are not really OOMA's problems).

1. I have a large home. I don't want to buy a scout for each room. Most cordless devices provide only 4 and sometimes 5 handsets. That may be enough. You can use the scout to extend that and plug in another set of cordless handsets into it... but that is ONLY if you don't use the separate phone line with the scout.

2. Their functionality as of the writing of this does not allow you to move your second phone number to the scout alone. If you set it up as a shared device (which I, unfortunately did), you can't move it. So for now, all the scouts ring as does the hub for either number. They say 2-3 weeks for software deployment for moving numbers to a specific device. If you do that, the second cordless for the first line is out. the handsets applicable to this will ring only on that second line.

3. To avoid the handset issue, I 'backwired' my home. I plugged the OUTPUT of the HUB into LINE 1 of my home. (on any phone plug, called an RJ-11 jack there is a maximum of 6 wires. Most jacks and most wires are wired with 2 or 4 wires. Look at the plug on your cord. How many copper tips are there? The center 2 are for line 1. The next two are for line 2 and so on. Thus for wires 1,2,3,4,5,6 - 34 are for line 1, 25 are for line 2 and 16 are for line 3. Most newer homes have at LEAST what they call THREE PAIR wires. (that's three pairs of wires) run through the house. Most have 5 pair. The standard convention are blue/white for line 1, orange/white for line 2 and green white for line 3.

Here's where the fun comes in. By backwiring your home, you can distribute the ooma hub to every jack in the house. But that's not in their manual and it would conflict with how they recommend you hook up the scout. In my situation, the OUT of the hub goes to line 1 wiring in the house. In their directions, the hub IN (wall) jack is plugged into line 1 and the scouts pick up the hub signal from any jack.

You can get around this this way:

a. get several line splitter jacks from radio shack. They usually have three plugs labled (1+2, 1 and 2). Thus, the 1+2 acts like a normal jack. The 1 is line 1 only and the 2 is line 2. Plug one of these jacks into a house wiring jack. Plug the IN of the hub (wall) into the LINE 2 of the adapter. Now, the scout signal will be distributed through the house on the line 2 wiring.

For each scout you will need a similar jack converter and just plug it in to the line 2 jack as noted above. Use the line 1 part of the jack for your regular phone (where you will find the OOMA dial tone).

= = = a caveat. Many homes do not have the wires RUNNING THROUGH each wall jack. That is they may not be connected at the jack. If they are not, everything 'downstream' of the disconnection will not work. Most of the newer homes I have seen have all three line wires connected all the way through. But you may have to look at each jack to make sure that the IN wire to the jack is connected as well as the OUT wires (which feed the next jack in the house).

More than you wanted to know, maybe.

BUY a scout. Maybe 2 or three!

I am writing this review to let people know that first I am not affiliated nor a sponsor of ooma. I bought this device on a whim, I had just spent 45 minutes on hold with my local phone company. I did break away from ma bell years ago when the phone co.s were deregulated and smaller telecom companies sprouted up selling the same service cheaper.I bought into this and had this phone system for years. All was ok as long as I did'nt have to deal with their customer service which totally sucks. They made life easy by allowing online paying of your bill, a nice feature except their site was down 99% of the time, and if you wanted to pay by phone they charged a convenience fee of 5.00.

My lastdealing with them put me over the edge, It was time for this company to go away for good.I had purchased and set up a Vonage phone system about a year prior and used the lowest price system whichwas 14.99 for 500 minutes. I was calling to have them changemy account to the 24.99 a monthplan. I started to figure a cheap alternative way to have Vonage throughout the house, we have a two story townhouse so going up and down stairs for the phone was not an option,but on their website they gave instructions on how youcan go to the outsidephone box, disconnectthe phone lines comming in to your house and then set up the Vonage into one of the phone jacks and use all the other jacks as extensions. This was a great solution, but one minor problem, my home security system was not compatible with Vonage and what if I lost internet service while away from home,the security system would be worthless.

I proceeded to price out moving the existing phone service to the one jack that the security system uses and use Vonage throughout the house. The phone co.wanted 150.00 to move the jack and set up the line,my answer was get lost.

Later that night I was browsing on Amazon for a new cell phone, when all of a sudden up popped on the screen the ooma device, I started to read about it and it really got my attention. I went and ordered it on a whim and even had it delivered two day express shipping.

I received in two boxes,one had the ooma hub and one scout and the other had an additional scout(for upstairs) I opened them and the first thing they tell you to do is register before hooking up anything, so I went to the site registered the unit with my current phone number and proceeded to hook it up.

The one thing that surprised me aboutthe ooma was that there was no need to disconnect the outside phone lines into the house, the unit's signal overlays on top of the regular phone line signal, this was great because I did not have the need to move any phone jacks forthe security system. I finished hooking up and all the units lights went blue, which means that they are working and that they are all synchronized together. One thing that is unique to the system is the dial tome you get, its like a sort of jingle that flows into a dial tone (strange).

I havehad this unit in my home since December, and it has not failed or performed poorly since,The features that come with it are better than the phone company's and better priced. When you buy the unit you get 60 days free trial of the premier service, I enjoyed having two lines going at the same time, with no degradation in the signalon either line, the voicemail is better than anything I have seen. Log in to ooma lounge to retrieve messages or set up your phone, have a wav file sent to your e mail account and listen to your messages, I have mine come to my pda phone and I amable to return an important call in little to no turnaround time.

Of course there are all the nice features that you get from the phone co. but with the ooma hub and scouts using the features is easier than the phone co. system.I recently did have a hiccup inthe system with the call waiting feature, and the ooma people told me to expect this at times until your number is ported over.

One other thing I forgot to mention, since this system has a signal that overlays the phone co. signal, you can keep a cheap line for local service and for the security system in case the internet goes down, this phone line is good to have as a redundancy for 911 calls which the ooma unit will use if need be.

There is really more than I can say about the ooma other than try it, goto their website and readthe info and watch the videos, and you too will see like I did that this is a no brainer.


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People have a hard time believing that they can have first rate totally free phone service, but they can. This Scout device is an add on, or part of the Ooma package that enables that. To use this Scout device you need to already have the ooma Hub - VoIP Phone Device with No Monthly Phone Service Bills
This scout provides the ability to have use of a second phone line, all integrated into the same phone number you use with the hub.
For those who are new to the Ooma phone, get it. The voice quality is superior to the other types of VOIP service I have used. I even had a problem with automated phone systems asking for "Press one" for example. I would press one, but occassionally, with certain places, it would not register. with Ooma, those places that I had problems with all work perfectly.
You can actually disconnect your regular phone with the Ooma system, and transfer your existing phone number over. You will need to maintain a broadband connection though, since that is what your phone operates through. If you have DSL, you can request a dry line, with DSL only, and still be able to disconnect your regular phone service. If you have Verizon FIOS, or cable you can use your phone through there, and not have any committments for a regular phone line as well.
Hey with the new TV converter boxes, and the government coupon offer, you can spend 20 dolars once for the converter, and discontinue satellite, or cable tv, and still get digital quality picture and video, with nothing more then a set of rabbit ears. So much for 80 dollars per month to watch TV. Then forget having to pay a phone bill, because Ooma is free unlimited phone use. All that is left is your internet connection. If you want to use Verizon's basic DSL at 756k for 20 bucks roughly, you now have all three for the least expensive price. That way you have more money for more toys.
You can see that the Ooma hub makes it possible to greatly reduce your overall overhead. It works without a glitch. Highly recommended.

This is the Ooma scout. It's basically another extension you use along with the Ooma Hub.

Using the Ooma Hub results in no telephone bill, unless you call internationally.

This just pays for itself, especially when you make a lot of calls.

Another great feature is that you can have multiple scouts attached to your phones and each phone operates independently.I can use one phone with the scout while my girl can pick up another phone and make her own calls,without interruption of my own calls.

I am absolutely thrilled with mine and I strongly recommend it.

The OOMA "Scout" is simply for use with an additional phone in another room. However, there are no additional hook-ups to your Internet service. Just install your phone jack, wall jack and power plug and you have a new OOMA "Scout" in another room - same features as the OOMA Hub. Well worth the initial costs!

See my review of ooma if you like, I am a fan. If you are going to go with the OOMA system, be sure to get one of these scouts. It enables the virtual two lines. Only one scout is needed, and you have two lines. They can be both incoming, both outgoing, or one incoming and one outgoing at the same time. I am not affiliated with the company, but I am a huge fan. My monthly bills for phone calls is now.. um.. 0.00 a month! I quickly pay for the ooma system by the lack of phone bills.

The Scout is a 4" by 3" device designed as an extension to a main Ooma VoIP Hub. Once you have the Hub installed to DSL or cable modem, you can then add as many Scouts as you want to connect the phones throughout your house using the internal telephone wiring. Although you won't need this if all you have is one cordless telephone set with a single base station (the hub automatically connects all those handsets), you will want to purchase one or more Scouts to connect the corded/wired phones in your house.

The Scout takes mere seconds to install, provided that you already have a phone and telephone line in place. The buttons allow you to call out on a second line if the first is in use; simply press "2," and you get the Ooma dial tone. You can also replay your voice messages on this auxiliary until by pressing the arrow. The unit automatically detects and connects to the hub.

My Scout did stop working after about three weeks of use, whether because of an undetected power surge or simply hardware failure. It took another month or so for Ooma to send me a replacement. Although the Scout is a valuable and easy to install device, I took away a star for its unreliability and Ooma's unenthusiastic customer service. In Ooma's defense, I did get a replacement Scout with postage paid for the return of the defective unit.

Potential buyers of the Ooma system should read my review of the ooma Core VoIP Phone System with No Monthly Phone Service Bills since their internet/home configurations may not be well suited to this option. I love that I didn't have to buy special phones and that I could use my existing phone number and landline back-up.

I was skeptical. But this VOIP device simplifies my life. (I had Vonage before...) Setting it up was easy and it works like a charm! Not having to pay a dime more for phone service each month is the clincher for me. The only complaint I would have is that the Caller ID doesn't show the caller's 1 before their number so you can't just hit "call back" with my phone set but must key in the access 1 and then the caller's number. But this is no biggie at all. I hope Ooma stays in business and keeps their free phone service with all its bells and whistles (free as in free beer)!

So there are a few ways to use the ooma system throughout your house. The first is to have a cordless phone with a good range connected to your ooma Hub. The second way is to use an ooma Scout device in your bedrooms or another location. And you can combine both methods to meet a variety of needs.

With the new switching to a tiered pricing model, the uses for the scout seem to be expanding. If you sign up for the premium service you can add additional phone numbers to your ooma account and have the scout be used for a seperate "virtual" line. That's a cool feature for families or apartment sharers. Or, even a business that operates multiple storefronts could take advantage of seperate lines.

Either way, using the scout will let you pick up and make ooma calls from the phone hooked up to your scout. And the ability to make calls from both your main hub and the scout at the SAME TIME make this very useful.

The only challenge with the scout is that you have to use your home phone wiring to connect it. It's probably not a problem for most people, but those with older wiring or shared wiring may be limited by this. Still, the instructions ooma provides does make it easy to install as long as you have home phone wiring that is in good condition.

The price for the scout is well worth it. For only $60 you can extend your system to multiple floors or jacks as long as they share the same wiring. That's a great feature.

Alternatively, if you only want to hook up a cordless phone to your ooma hub, newer DECT systems like the GE 28821FE2 Dect 6.0 Digital Cordless Phone and Digital Answering System offer wider range that may be enough for a single family home.

You may have to test your options, but for many people the scout will be an almost necessary add-on to their ooma system.

Enjoy.

Wanted to get rid of the local phone company charges for our 2-line home setup. Bought the Telo at first, then quickly realized that it had only one dedicated line. Returned it and bought a Hub/Scout instead.

As an engineer, I thought this would be a snap, but I admit I was baffled at first by some of the diagrams and descriptions. All I wanted was a way to disconnect the regular phone lines and use Ooma instead. But some of the diagrams implied that I would need to buy a Scout for every phone in the house.

So now I figured it out. I pay $30/month for a DSL-only line to the house. That signal goes to an Actiontec M1000 modem, and an ethernet cable runs from it to a DLink Di-524 WiFi router. An ethernet cable runs from one of the ethernet ports to the Hub. The Scout is connected directly to the Hub with a short RJ11 cable via the "wall" ports on the backs of the Hub and Scout. Two phone lines come off the "phone" ports of the Hub and Scout and connect to the two phone lines already running throughout the house. Works great.

UPDATE 25 Feb 2010:
My two numbers ported over to Ooma earlier today. The landlines went dead for incoming calls this morning, and the numbers showed up on the Ooma boxes about 4 hours later. Voice quality is excellent, everything appears to be perfectly normal, and if it continues I'll be pocketing $60/mo, so breakeven in about 5 months, then gravy.