Replacing old Telo, with Ooma Phone Genie for 4G backup etc.
Okay. Bear with me. My elderly mom stays at home all day and uses our ooma system. However, occasionally there might be an internet or a power outage. She has a cell phone but feels uncomfortable with using it. We are practicing with her but it is just not looking good. So along comes the promise of ooma 4G coming soon and battery backup that says you can buy now through myooma but when you go to myooma says your trying to buy an add-on that does not exist. Both say I need to upgrade my original ooma telo - that is fine. Coming soon says the upgraded Telo and 4G item are $149.99 together. But you can find at Walmart the Ooma Phone Genie, which according to customer support is the same upgraded Telo and 4G item for $49.88. I've seen the manual for it online and it does appear to be just that. Support says because it is a "different" device, you will have to get a new account and port your number and lose all your account settings and voice mail and reset up. I can live with that. But if you wait for the new more expensive system (which is the same thing), you may not have to do that. Well that seems like a no-brainer, if it indeed is the same thing and I can get it now and save $100; just buy it, unless they plan on having some significant sale later. I don't want to wait. I need something now for my mom while I am out of the house. Well then of course I am also interested in the battery backup as most often the internet goes down because of a power outage. All of the phones my mom uses are old fashioned plug into the wall phones. No wireless phones so no power needed for them. All I need power for is for the Telo and it's attached 4G device. But myooma says the add-on doesn't exist. Do they not exist for some reason? Was there some problem with them. Is it just better and/or more cost effective to buy a UPS. It just seems like I don't have all the information I need to make an informed decision and either the customer support people don't either or for some reason they are withholding information. With the price so low, it is worth it for me to attempt the Ooma phone genie replacement to my old telo and either get the battery backup when available or get the UPS if I have to wait. I don't know whether they will charge me for the number port as an existing customer, but I'm assuming they will. In addition there are two cell plans for the genie, one for a backup plan user, one for a 4G only user. I've seen two different prices for the backup plan user: $4.99 and $11.99/month so I'm not sure what to expect there exactly. The 4G only plan is $19.99/month. Well I'm going to take the plunge. I'll let you guys know how it goes, but if anyone wants to chime in or has already done this let me know what your experience was.
Re: Replacing old Telo, with Ooma Phone Genie for 4G backup etc.
I’m considering moving to the genie too for the 4g backup ability, primarily for the security system. What was your experience migrating from your old Telo to it and porting your #?