Hello! I’m currently using an Obi200 and it is showing it’s age. It does well for a stretch of time and then all of a sudden, no dial-tone and when I log into the UI, it’s asking for a firmware upload. Has anyone run into this issue?
Regardless, I’m looking to replace my ATA with something similar. Light use and support for call encryption. I’m looking at a Grandstream 801. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
Hello @Gus1,
I had a HT701 for many years, and as you it died one day. It was no more possible to get it “registered.” I am now using the HT802 and it was a great upgrade for us! Both devices support well call encryption. You can find the instructions on the wiki:
https://wiki.voip.ms/article/Grandstream_HandyTone_802_-_HT802#Call_Encryption_-_TLS.2FSRTP
For the price difference, I took the HT802 instead of the HT801. The first line feeds all the home’s phones, and I use the second line for a fun project. I plugged an old phone (with a “bell-ringer”) in my shed. Not really useful nowadays, but fun.
So yeah, the HT801 looks like a good choice for what you want to do. 
It makes about a month or so I have it and so far works well and I feel the sound quality is better than the HT701 it replaced.
Kind regards,
Alexandre
Hi @aleclerc ,
Thank you for the advice! I really like the idea of the “bell-ringer” phone as I have an old rotary phone in my workshop, I may copy your project! Now I just need to stop stalking Amazon for the price to dip and just buy it!
Thanks again!
-Costa
Hi @Gus1,
Yeah, I know about that. 
I just looked and indeed, it was lower in January when I bought it (on Amazon US). I was surprised that it was cheaper to buy it there than the Amazon Canada store. After the exchange rate and everything, it was still cheaper from the US. But now the prices on the Canadian store are lower. It might be equivalent in fact.
Good luck!
Alexandre
Hi @Gus1; Just to add my support to what @aleclerc said.
I have two HT802 devices to handle a handful of legacy POTS stuff in my home and they work perfectly. I have them configured to use SIP-TLS and encrypted SRTP calls to/from Voip.ms with no trouble.
I have had a number of ATA devices since the early 2000’s and retired all of them in favour of the HT802. The most important factor is the HT8xx devices are currently manufactured and enjoy regular firmware updates from Grandstream. Most of the other ATA devices out there are discontinued so they are either new-old-stock or used, and have no support at all. They have outdated firmware that’s probably insecure to use now.
BTW, in 2019 and 2021 when I bought mine new, I paid a dollar or two more or less what Amazon shows as the price today: $64.
Cheers!
Thank you so much for the info @BruceW ! I really like that Grandstream updates the firmware regularly. I’m going to pull the trigger on the HT802. Much appreciated.
-Costa
Hi @BruceW,
You bring very good technical elements here!
Indeed, this is a very important point to consider. This is why I went again with their devices, and the quality/price ratio is quite good, in my opinion. This is a good device. You plug it, configure it, and forget about it. 
Kind regards,
Alexandre
Also use the HT802 here for the past 4 years. Once setup, I don’t need to babysit it. I use one port for our local IPPBX and, for a backup, configured the second port to register directly to our voip.ms sub account. Haven’t needed the backup, but nice to know it’s ready to go.
New forum person here, current google voice user with Obihai 202. Got the Hp/poly/Obi end of service notice so looking to change from the Obi202 to a Grandstream Ht 8xx. I guess the Obitalk support forum service is going away as well.
I currently have a voip.ms account that I setup 9 years ago for the Obi box but I forgot all the details of what I did. I didn’t see a wiki on how to “move” the google voice service from an Obi to a Grandstream box.
Is there an easy way to do this? Can someone point me in the right direction? thanks in advance.
Google Voice doesn’t use industry-standard protocols, so you won’t be able to directly use a Grandstream HT8xx with it.
My suggestion: port your Google Voice number to a service like voip.ms or similar. Then you can use any standard SIP phone or ATA like the Grandstream with it.
It’s well worth the couple bucks a month to have your phone number at a “real” voip provider rather than Google Voice.
Btw the Obi202 works perfectly fine with voip.ms, even if it’s unsupported/end-of-life. So you don’t need to buy a Grandstream if you don’t want to.
Thank you BigVoip!
I’ll check the wiki/faqs to figure out how to port my google voice# to voip.ms.
No problem. It’s pretty easy to port in with voipms’s directions. Just be sure to not cancel the losing carrier’s (Google Voice) service until after your number has fully ported into voipms. And always keep a positive balance in your voipms account so you don’t risk losing the number.