Kitz Forum
Computers & Hardware => Other Technologies & Hardware => Topic started by: broadstairs on March 02, 2015, 03:51:33 PM
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Anyone here have a DECT repeater or any experience of them? We have two DECT handsets but coverage in the house is not good and since it is very awkward to move the base station to a more central location I thought I might invest in a repeater. Hence the question to see if anyone knows anything here.
Stuart
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No, I did not know you can get them :o
This where our many extra phone extension socket and wiring all over the house comes in handy ;) I have one base station in one part of the house and a second (different make) plugged in another part of the house and they are set to recognise each other.
So that's 4 Dect and two fixed phones at the moment.
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Since found out that the range of phones these repeaters can be used with is somewhat limited and our new BT DECT phone is not one of them. Apparently you can get mains extenders for the wired phone signal now (like the ethernet ones) but not sure how well they work.
Stuart
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I would hazard a guess that the main problems with DECT repeaters would be where manufacturers have chosen to exceed the basic DECT/GAP procedures with proprietary enhancements such as caller display and answer phone playback. Don't know if GAP includes these or not, nowadays?
I have quite a large collection of different DECT phones, mostly from different manufacturers, and different ages. All are GAP compatible and so, with a little effort, all can be made to register with a single base and they always do work together for basic telephony. But for the cleverer stuff like caller id, phonebooks, and answer phone, it hardly ever works unless everything is same-brand, same product family.
I notice some claim to do seamless handover, when you move around the house. At back of my mind, I didn't think that handover was in generic DECT? In which case again, it might only work with some phones.
For basic call handling then if it were me, since I like playing with DECT, I might be tempted to buy one and try it regardless of whether it is 'supposed' to work. My guess is it may actually work quite a lot. But you'd have to accept the significant risk of it not being successful...
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This where our many extra phone extension socket and wiring all over the house comes in handy ;) I have one base station in one part of the house and a second (different make) plugged in another part of the house and they are set to recognise each other.
I've gone down a similar route and tried all sorts of combinations with handsets registered to multiple bases, "roaming" allowed, mixed manufacturers (GAP) etc. etc.
In the end I've gone for a fairly simple solution in both our house and my in-laws:
Ours: One base station with DECT handset and 3 additional handsets around the house. Second base station with just one DECT handset - did have 2 others but they were really surplus and have been binned as they became unreliable. No "roaming", it just wasn't any real help.
In-laws: One base station with corded handset and 3 additional handsets. Second base with DECT handset and additional handset. Also no roaming.
Ours is for convenience; the in-laws to ensure they always had a phone close whichever room they were in.
However as my mother-in-law has now died and father-in-law went into a care home recently that will all be "repatriated" fairly soon.
We used to have a lot of extension wiring around our house, it's nearly all been ripped out now, just one cable to the second base station.
The in-laws house just had two phone sockets anyway some distance apart so they suited the method used without any wiring changes.