[asterisk-users] Maybe a little OT---USB Handset

[Gordon Henderson]

On Sun, 27 Jan 2008, John Millican wrote:

> Tzafrir Cohen wrote:
>> On Sun, Jan 27, 2008 at 11:27:16AM -0500, John Millican wrote:
>>> Hello All,
>>> This may be a little OT for the list but it seems to be to be the place
>>> to get the best answer. I have looked at the many Skype/Yahoo phones out
>>> there and none seem to be what I am looking for.
>>> I have a need for a USB handset that I can use with an Asterisk server.
>>
>> A USB handset is basically a sound device (and not a great one, usually)
>> along with a small keyboard. Linux will usually easily identify the
>> sound device and you can use the phone as chan_{oss,alsa,console}.
>>
>> Using the keyboard in it may be trickier.
>>
>> Do any of the above support cancelling acustic echo? Is it actually
>> needed in this case?
>>
>
>
> Tzafrir,
> Thanks for the reply. Acusitic echo cancel may not be needed as this
> will not be used in a noisy work place, only in possibly quieter home
> environments.  There will also be no need for speaker phone operation.
> Enabling the keypad is definitely the tricky part. I am trying to avoid
> loading a soft phone since I don't want to have to instruct the users on
> how to use one (mostly NON-technical types).  If the set looks and feels
> like a phone they will be OK on their own.  I guess I may have to go
> with a decent, hopefully inexpensive, basic IP desk phone.

I had a little success with a cheap USB 'phone' (From Tesco in the UK) 
which was a Yealink device. Linux has a driver for the keypad on it which 
makes it work just like a regular keyboard (limited number of keys, 
obviously!), but the issue is still that you'd need a program of some 
sorts to take the keypad input and translate it to an asterisk console 
command dial, if using it as a console phone.

I did use it successfully some time back with idefisk, although idefisk 
didn't have a keyboard equivalent of 'hang up' at the time (zoiper might 
have now though). The down-side was that you needed to put the mouse over 
the idefisk application so it had keyboard input focus )-:

Oh for a command-line IAX client, but it's something I just don't have 
time to put together myself.

Gordon