Rotary Phone Doorbell

[tennblondie78]

I ran across this on Retro Renovation. A guy has a kickstarter page to develop wireless doorbells that use analog phones as the ring. Too cool! The come in single door or 2 door styles. The 2 door style rings the US ring on one door and the UK ring on the second door. I want one!

http://https//www.kickstarter.com/projects/713401305/doorbell-phone-a-rotary-phone-doorbell

 

[a440]

Great idea!

 

[kb0nes]

Neat Idea! Would be pretty simple to do actually

Take a while to reprogram my brain though, I'd run for the phone for months when someone is at the door...

 

[blackstone]

Yeah, but the old rotary phones that I have saved are so old, that they don't have the modular cable. I might have the old wall mount that converted 4-wire phone cable to flat wire.

Yes, it would confuse me, too. My ringtone on my cellphone is "Vintage Rotary Phone."

 

[petek]

Neat idea though it wouldn't work for me . I always have one or another plugged in on a rotating basis in the livingroom

 

[rp2813]

Yeah, this is for people who have foolishly abandoned their land line service along with their indestructible telephone set,  99.99999999999999% network reliability and clear transmission not subject to satellite lag that went along with it.

 

Except for my cordless/answering machine phone, all phones in my house are vintage rotaries, and those in key parts of the house have their ringers enabled. 

 

This doorbell idea wouldn't work for me unless I picked a particular phone with a distinctive ring to work with it.  I see no reason why a touch-tone phone wouldn't work on this system.  The ringer mechanism on those is no different from their rotary contemporaries.

 

What would be interesting to know is whether this gadget will work with a stand-alone chime ringer.  I have one of those installed as well.  I suppose that would defeat the purpose, but it would sound more like a real doorbell.

 

[kenwashesmonday]

I didn't abandon my landline, it abandoned me. The copper wires coming down the street are shot and Verizon has no desire to replace them. It was no longer reliable so I dumped them and just use my company cell phone.

Ken D.

 

[rp2813]

Ken, that is a sad, sad story.  It's no secret that the telcos don't want to maintain their landline facilities, but I was unaware that the FCC or state PUCs made decisions that don't require them to fix them when they fail.

 

You can bet that any communications involving government security will always take place over land lines.  The "hot line" as a pocket-sized red smart phone?  I don't think so.

 

As I've been saying for years, it's coming full circle, where only the wealthy will have true telephone lines and the rest of us will be stuck with garbled and staticky transmission-delayed throw-away cell phones.

 

[jamiel]

Verizon has been particularly and publically notorious about abandoning copper---they're using the excuse of hurricane damage to abandon copper landlines in relatively large areas of NY/NJ (including Fire Island and parts of lower Manhattan, I believe). The PUCs have been fighting with limited success...that, together with carving off New England/West Virginia to Fairpoint (which has been through one bankruptcy already) and their rural systems nationwide to Frontier. You know, though that AT&T is chomping at the bit to do the same thing (Verizon has always been a few steps ahead of AT&T on the landline side).

 

[NYCWriter]

Yep ...

"Except for my cordless/answering machine phone, all phones in my house are vintage rotaries, and those in key parts of the house have their ringers enabled."

Me too.

We abandon copper lines in favor of cheaper and notoriously less secure and reliable "wireless" service at our own peril ...