There are a number of reasons why you may choose to keep or to abandon your home telephone line. Having a landline telephone, for example, means that you don’t have to worry about signal strength in the same way that you would on a cellular phone. What if you could marry these two ideas and save yourself about thirty bucks a month?
That’s the idea behind the XLink BT Bluetooth Cellular Gateway. Rather than wandering around your home (or office) with a Bluetooth headset attached to the side of your head, you can pick up that cell phone-sourced call on a regular telephone. Let’s see how it works.
What is the XLink Bluetooth Gateway?
The product that we are reviewing today is the XLink BT Bluetooth Gateway and this is designed to pair your cellular phone with a regular landline telephone, thus bypassing the phone company and using your cell service instead. Alternatively, you can opt for the XLink BTTN which allows you to connect to a regular landline and your cell phones. This is helpful for people with a VOIP line in the home.
You can think of the XLink BT as a Bluetooth sender-receiver, pairing with your cellular phone in much the same way as a Bluetooth speaker. The kicker is that you can connect any regular phone to it that you want, answering your cell phone calls just as you would a regular call when the home phone rings. It’s even handier when you have a set of wireless phones attached to it like a set of four DECT 6.0 wireless phones. Leave your phones on the charger and have access to that line in any room.
In addition to the money that you can save by cutting out the landline, you can improve the cell phone performance in your home. Place your iPhone, BlackBerry, RAZR, or whatever next to the window where you get maximum coverage, but have the XLink anywhere else in the home within the Bluetooth range (up to about 30 feet). This is great for people who live or work in concrete jungles.
The XLink BT will work with just about any Bluetooth-enabled cell phone. If you have VOIP service in your home, you’ll find that it is no bigger than one of those Linksys Phone Adapters that VOIP companies send out.
Looking in the Box
One of the biggest selling points for the XLink Bluetooth Cellular Gateway is that it is supposed to be very easy to use. As such, you won’t find very much when you open up the box. Accessories? What accessories?
Inside, you’ll find the XLink Gateway itself, a wall adapter for providing power, and a single sheet that provides the instructions. Realistically, this is all you really need from the team at XLink, because it is still up to you to provide the cellular phone and the landline phone to bridge to it through the gateway.
In terms of first impressions, the XLink feels like it is made from rather thin and cheap plastic and the device itself is remarkably lightweight. XLink could easily improve this by simply dropping a few weights in the base.
Vertical or Horizontal Configuration
Also included in the box is a small piece of plastic. This clips into the back portion of the XLink so that you can have it sit vertically on your desk or table. It’ll work just as well in a horizontal configuration, as far as I can tell, but going vertical seems to be all the rage these days. That’s how most people set up the Wii or Xbox 360, after all.
If you don’t want it sitting around, you can actually hang it on the wall as well, thanks to the mounting holes in the back.
Ports, Jacks, and Lights
The XLink BT doesn’t really look like most other cell phone accessories. Instead, I’d say that it looks more like a wireless router and it has a series of jacks and ports to match.
Along the back of the XLink BT are three ports. Starting from the top, there is a jack to take your telephone cord, one to accept the wall adapter, and a USB port for firmware updates. The XLink BTTN has an additional phone outlet that can be used to connect your telephone line service, either from a landline or VoIP adapter box.
The front of the XLink BT has a pair of indicator lights, showing you whether everything is working as it should. You want to see a solid green light here.
Getting It All Ready to Go
The connection process is relatively straightforward, especially if you are already familiar with Bluetooth pairing and connecting regular phone line items.
First, you’ll need to provide the XLink BT with AC power. Second, the regular telephone will need to connect to the XLink BT using a standard telephone cord. I’m using a very cheap and generic phone for testing purposes here but you can easily splurge on a set of Panasonic DECT 6.0 handsets. Third, you’ll need to pair the XLink BT with your Bluetooth-enabled cell phone.
For the pairing process, your cell phone needs to be discoverable and in searching mode. While it is searching, press and hold one of the three buttons on the top of the XLink. This will get it to blink and search for available Bluetooth devices. Complete the pairing process on your phone by entering the default passcode (1234). You’ll know you’re good to go when the light on top of the XLink is solid on.
Supports Up to Three Cellular Lines
Remember how I said that there are three buttons on top of the XLink BT? That’s because this Bluetooth Cellular Gateway can support up to three cell phones simultaneously. This is great for people who have multiple cell phone lines. You may have one for work and one for personal use, but both can be used with the same regular phone via the XLink BT. The flashing of the indicator (which is normally a solid blue) tell you which line is ringing. The XLink will also transmit a different tone per line so you can hear it if you aren’t within line of site.
Inbound and Outbound Phone Calls
Assuming that the pairing process has been completed correctly, all incoming calls will then be routed through the XLink BT. To pick up an incoming call, pick up the regular phone just as you would if you were receiving a landline-based call.
When a call comes through, your land line phones will ring (distinctly if more than one handset is paired) and you can pick up the call as if you were picking up your cellphone handset. Also handy is the fact that even if you forget that you’ve left your phone on silent or vibrate, the landline phones will still ring through. The light on top of the XLink will also blink based on the cellphone being rung.
For outbound calls, you can pick up the attached regular phone and dial as you normally would. It seems that the XLink waits to detect a pause (about three seconds) before getting your cell phone to put the call through. This delay (and the silence you “hear” while waiting for the call to go through) can lead to a sense that something isn’t working.
If you have multiple cell phones connected to the XLink BT, the device will cycle through the first, second, and third connections in order, dialing with the first available connection it finds. You can also force it to default to a particular cellphone through the setup utility. If you want to choose another handset besides the default, you can also select the handset you want prior to the call by hitting the line number then flash on your landline phone. This is handy if you have a phone that has your long distance minutes on it and you want to swap to that to make the call.
Call quality using the XLink BT was indistinguishable from using the same regular telephone to make a regular landline-based call. Naturally, your experience will vary based on your chosen “regular” phone as well. You can further expand this range using a cordless phone as mentioned.
Final Thoughts and Conclusion
The XLink Bluetooth Cellular Gateway can be a great way to cut costs. You can abandon your landline in favor of using just your cell phone, but you can still get the same familiar “regular” telephone experience. This is a similar idea to what you’d get with the YUBZ Talk Bluetooth Headset, except you actually use a regular phone. I do wonder if a regular rotary dial phone would work with this product? Hmm…
In addition to improving cell phone reception in the home and office, the XLink BT is also great for reducing the amount of radiation rattling through your brain. Talking on a regular phone is probably safer than talking continuously on a cell phone. It’s amazing how much more comfortable a regular phone still is.
From a functionality standpoint, the XLink performs exactly as advertised and I was able to get about the same range as a generic Bluetooth headset. Whether you think the Bluetooth Gateway is worth about $100 of your hard-earned cash is up to you. However, knowing exactly where your cellphone is and always having it fully charged without missing a single call is quite handy.
Pros
- Call quality indistinguishable from regular landline calls
- Very easy to setup and use
- Supports up to three simultaneous cell phone connections
- Reduce exposure to mobile handset radiation
- Works with any regular telephone (even wireless)
Cons
- Slightly cheap build quality
- Still restricted to Bluetooth range
Overall Rating: 8.5 / 10.0
