Bluetooth Adaptor - Pay Up! - Why is it?

Problems using My Ooma? Ideas on how we can make it better? You’ve come to the right place.
Post Reply
Morpheus
Posts:67
Joined:Sun Feb 07, 2010 8:35 am
Bluetooth Adaptor - Pay Up! - Why is it?

Post by Morpheus » Wed Jun 09, 2010 7:28 pm

I'm having a problem here:

1) Why is it that My Telo has the availability of Bluetooth, and now I find out they are going to be pushing an up to my Telo that will be disabling that function so they can start charging me to use it. Is this even legal?

What do you think would happen if Microsoft pushed an update to your computer that cut the ability to use a standing function, just so they could sell you a service. Or, if your cell phone company pushed an update out that killed your bluetooth availability unless you carried the Unlimited Plan.

I think there may be some serious legal problem here for Ooma. I personally think they have over stepped the boundary of playing fair with their customers.

2) Why do I have to pay for a Bluetooth adaptor and then on top of that I have to pay $10 a month for the service to use it.

3) Why in the heck didn't Ooma provide a external headset jack. There is finally a way to connect a head set and they want to nickel and dime their customers into paying up. Maybe there was a reason for not adding a 3 cent headphone jack to the Telo Handset...

I supported Ooma by not only buying the Telo, but 4 Telo Handsets. The handsets are less than stellar, compared to other systems that are out there. I'm now at the point where I could care less about Ooma. I'll be reviewing other options for my Telephones and be returning my 4 Ooma Handsets. I'll be using my Ooma Basic just for the pass thru service.

Am I nuts here...

oldanbo
Posts:797
Joined:Wed Apr 01, 2009 8:16 am
Location:North Olympic Penninsula, WA

Re: Bluetooth Adaptor - Pay Up! - Why is it?

Post by oldanbo » Wed Jun 09, 2010 7:42 pm

Speaking for myself on one issue. The BT capability. I love the cordless headset capability. The implementation....IMHO leaves some room for improvement. Again, just my opinion and thinking to myself as a user.

I have seen other cordless phones claiming BT capabilities but have not tried them. Another thing for me to think about. Ooma has it. Do the others?

Cheers

Morpheus
Posts:67
Joined:Sun Feb 07, 2010 8:35 am

Re: Bluetooth Adaptor - Pay Up! - Why is it?

Post by Morpheus » Wed Jun 09, 2010 8:17 pm

oldanbo wrote:Speaking for myself on one issue. The BT capability. I love the cordless headset capability. The implementation....IMHO leaves some room for improvement. Again, just my opinion and thinking to myself as a user.

I have seen other cordless phones claiming BT capabilities but have not tried them. Another thing for me to think about. Ooma has it. Do the others?

Cheers
Absolutely, there are some that have Bluetooth capabilities, and they work very well.

The problem I'm have is why are the all the people that support Ooma not up in arms about Ooma tying the Bluetooth service to the Premiere account. If they want to tie it to the premier account then add Bluetooth as integral part of the Telo and be sure to inform users of this before the purchase. You don't just give them something like Bluetooth availability and then dump an update to the Telo to disable the function so they can start charging you for the service they just disabled.

This is just sleazy...

What do you think people would have done if Ooma pulled this with the Purevoice technology.

oldanbo
Posts:797
Joined:Wed Apr 01, 2009 8:16 am
Location:North Olympic Penninsula, WA

Re: Bluetooth Adaptor - Pay Up! - Why is it?

Post by oldanbo » Wed Jun 09, 2010 8:57 pm

My bad..I failed 2 recognize the premier rqmnt. But I would have prem anyway. Have u tried another BT phone 2 see how it
Woks? Inquiring minds would like 2 know.

oldanbo
Posts:797
Joined:Wed Apr 01, 2009 8:16 am
Location:North Olympic Penninsula, WA

Re: Bluetooth Adaptor - Pay Up! - Why is it?

Post by oldanbo » Wed Jun 09, 2010 9:27 pm

Morpheus wrote:
oldanbo wrote:Speaking for myself on one issue. The BT capability. I love the cordless headset capability. The implementation....IMHO leaves some room for improvement. Again, just my opinion and thinking to myself as a user.

I have seen other cordless phones claiming BT capabilities but have not tried them. Another thing for me to think about. Ooma has it. Do the others?

Cheers
Absolutely, there are some that have Bluetooth capabilities, and they work very well.

The problem I'm have is why are the all the people that support Ooma not up in arms about Ooma tying the Bluetooth service to the Premiere account. If they want to tie it to the premier account then add Bluetooth as integral part of the Telo and be sure to inform users of this before the purchase. You don't just give them something like Bluetooth availability and then dump an update to the Telo to disable the function so they can start charging you for the service they just disabled.

This is just sleazy...

What do you think people would have done if Ooma pulled this with the Purevoice technology.
Understood....shouldn't need that type of disclaimer. Marketing is strange that way, the mindset seems to be "oh well, next!" Except for ooma of course. :?

User avatar
lbmofo
Posts:9337
Joined:Sun Mar 14, 2010 7:37 pm
Location:Greater Seattle
Contact:

Re: Bluetooth Adaptor - Pay Up! - Why is it?

Post by lbmofo » Wed Jun 09, 2010 10:22 pm

Morpheus wrote:I think there may be some serious legal problem here for Ooma. I personally think they have over stepped the boundary of playing fair with their customers..
I disagree. Ooma provides great basic phone service and a lot more for free. That they continue to do a good job of. Bluetooth functionality was never advertised as basic/free service as far as I know. If you were able to make bluetooth work, at whatever level of capability, you got that as an unintentional side effect of ooma putting in plumbing for their future premier functionality. I think you are being overly critical.

dsinternet
Posts:852
Joined:Fri Nov 20, 2009 8:32 pm
Location:Minnesota

Re: Bluetooth Adaptor - Pay Up! - Why is it?

Post by dsinternet » Thu Jun 10, 2010 2:50 am

lbmofo wrote:
Morpheus wrote:I think there may be some serious legal problem here for Ooma. I personally think they have over stepped the boundary of playing fair with their customers..
I disagree. Ooma provides great basic phone service and a lot more for free. That they continue to do a good job of. Bluetooth functionality was never advertised as basic/free service as far as I know. If you were able to make bluetooth work, at whatever level of capability, you got that as an unintentional side effect of ooma putting in plumbing for their future premier functionality. I think you are being overly critical.
I also disagree, ooma never said it was free. Many companys do the same thing. I had Windows 7 on my computer well before it came out. When it did finally go on sale I had to pay to keep it. Microsoft didn't let me keep it for free.
BT is not a free, it's part of Premier. I don't understand how anyone would thing BT is a basic phone service.

User avatar
bw1
Posts:1781
Joined:Wed Mar 18, 2009 9:06 am
Location:MI

Re: Bluetooth Adaptor - Pay Up! - Why is it?

Post by bw1 » Thu Jun 10, 2010 3:35 am

I also had the Windows 7 RC for free for a few months. It had a built in trigger to disable the functionality and I had to purchase and re-install a full version.

Ooma never said that they were going to allow the use of your own Bluetooth adapter for free, nor was there Bluetooth capability built-in that they disabled. Like lbmofo said, you may have been able to use your own adapter while they were configuring the firmware to use their proprietary adapter. You shouldn't expect that to continue since they would probably have a lot of support issues allowing any adapter to be used.

However, it was reported on blogs that the bluetooth adapter would be free to Premier subscribers and $50 to everyone else. Perhaps that was a marketing mis-communication or they changed their marketing plans.

http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2010-01/oom ... of-tricks/

Morpheus
Posts:67
Joined:Sun Feb 07, 2010 8:35 am

Re: Bluetooth Adaptor - Pay Up! - Why is it?

Post by Morpheus » Thu Jun 10, 2010 7:57 am

lbmofo wrote:
Morpheus wrote:I think there may be some serious legal problem here for Ooma. I personally think they have over stepped the boundary of playing fair with their customers..
I disagree. Ooma provides great basic phone service and a lot more for free. That they continue to do a good job of. Bluetooth functionality was never advertised as basic/free service as far as I know. If you were able to make bluetooth work, at whatever level of capability, you got that as an unintentional side effect of ooma putting in plumbing for their future premier functionality. I think you are being overly critical.
It was never advertised as anything. Had it been then I don't see any problem.

Unintentional side effect; Let's not even go there.

The feature was just there. Add a Bluetooth dongle to the Ooma Telo and go. Now they decide that this is something that they can use to leverage on basic subscribers by pushin a firmware update to disable the feature, then turn around and force the basic subscribers to purchase the Premier service to get it turned back on. This is just sleazy practice.

Morpheus
Posts:67
Joined:Sun Feb 07, 2010 8:35 am

Re: Bluetooth Adaptor - Pay Up! - Why is it?

Post by Morpheus » Thu Jun 10, 2010 8:08 am

bw1 wrote:I also had the Windows 7 RC for free for a few months. It had a built in trigger to disable the functionality and I had to purchase and re-install a full version.

Ooma never said that they were going to allow the use of your own Bluetooth adapter for free, nor was there Bluetooth capability built-in that they disabled. Like lbmofo said, you may have been able to use your own adapter while they were configuring the firmware to use their proprietary adapter. You shouldn't expect that to continue since they would probably have a lot of support issues allowing any adapter to be used.

However, it was reported on blogs that the bluetooth adapter would be free to Premier subscribers and $50 to everyone else. Perhaps that was a marketing mis-communication or they changed their marketing plans.

http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2010-01/oom ... of-tricks/
Ooma never said anything about using any sort of BT dongle on the Ooma Telo. Where did Ooma state that a generic BT dongle could be used while they were developing firmware that would eventually restrict that function to their own proprietary BT dongle.

That's a pretty sad analogy. You knew going into the Windows 7 BETA program that it was going to die, try again...

Post Reply