The phone system was once the communication lifeblood of the world. Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) lines were connected to almost every home worldwide. But then cell phones and broadband internet came along and spelled doom for traditional telephones. Now it’s actually quite challenging to get a real POTS line installed — most providers of “home telephone” service will simply send you a box that plugs into your modem/router and creates a virtual line. Well, this POTS shield does more than just provide a VoIP line.
It’s designed to completely emulate a central office, providing all the correct voltages needed for older rotary phones to operate. This shield attaches to a GUI development board called the gCore, giving a nice GUI for configuration, as well as enabling WiFi and Bluetooth connections with the ESP32 built-in. With Bluetooth enabled, you can connect your old rotary phone to your smartphone and make and receive calls with the hands-free Bluetooth profile. Work is proceeding to enable it to be connected to a VoIP system like Asterisk (or your choice of commercial VoIP provider) if you want to use it separately from your current phone.
One of the really cool features is that you can connect it to existing POTS wiring in your home, allowing all your existing phone outlets to be operational again, if you so choose! You can make talking on the phone a highlight of your day by setting up a small phone table with a comfortable chair and notepad. Or, if your house still has a telephone room (which were very common in houses built in the first half of the 20th century) you can bring it back to its original purpose.
If you’re interested in phones, be sure to check out the entire weeBell project over on Hackaday.io. If you have the skill to contribute, the project is open source and looking for contributors!
