![[H]ard|Forum](/styles/hardforum/xenforo/logo_dark.png){kind=logo}
I want a telephone / intercom solution for my new home, and I'm pretty sure a product like what I want exists, but don't know exactly where to start looking. Basically, I'm looking for two line phones that can work together as regular phones and as an intercom system... one line would be for the outside phone line going to the telco, and the 2nd phone line purely for internal home use.
I have 2 phone line pairs going to each phone jack in the home so I think wiring wise I am covered, one pair can handle outside calls and one pair can be reserved for internal calls.
First the simple requirements, I would like the outside phone line to be able to handle caller ID and have a telco voicemail indicator (I use comcast digital phone service). Pretty much any decent phone (1 or 2 lines) can probably handle these two requirements... now onto the slightly more difficult requirements...
For my purposes, even a regular one line phone would probably work since you can hear people on the other handsets just by picking up 2 different phones.... but 2 things don't work in this case:
1) If there is no outside call on the line, there will be the dial tone in the background
2) You cannot make other phones ring just by picking up one phone and pressing an intercom button, and also, I'd like a distinctive ring if it's an intercom call vs and outside line call
Hence, I think a 2nd phone line would be needed. One other requirement would be to not have to install some mini PBX system in the house. I would like the phones themselves to be self contained as an intercom system as long as 2 or more of the phones are connected via their line 2s. The main reason I don't want to go the mini PBXs route is because of cost: I looked around and they are hundreds of dollars... I'll probably be dropping near $100 (or more) for each phone so I don't want that extra cost. However, if this mini-PBX system is cheap enough (around $100), then I'd probably be able to use cheap generic two line phones and have one line of each phone going to the telco and the 2nd line connected to the mini PBX. But I have a feeling I'm not going to find any mini PBXs for that cheap so I'd rather invest a little more on each phone and have them work together out of the box.
One last requirement, no cordless phones, I don't want to deal with dead batteries as I probably won't be using the phones all that often and I know phones left fully charged most of the time have their batteries die pretty quickly.
Anyway, if anyone can point me to some product examples or have some other ideas, I'd love to hear them, thanks!
I have 2 phone line pairs going to each phone jack in the home so I think wiring wise I am covered, one pair can handle outside calls and one pair can be reserved for internal calls.
First the simple requirements, I would like the outside phone line to be able to handle caller ID and have a telco voicemail indicator (I use comcast digital phone service). Pretty much any decent phone (1 or 2 lines) can probably handle these two requirements... now onto the slightly more difficult requirements...
For my purposes, even a regular one line phone would probably work since you can hear people on the other handsets just by picking up 2 different phones.... but 2 things don't work in this case:
1) If there is no outside call on the line, there will be the dial tone in the background
2) You cannot make other phones ring just by picking up one phone and pressing an intercom button, and also, I'd like a distinctive ring if it's an intercom call vs and outside line call
Hence, I think a 2nd phone line would be needed. One other requirement would be to not have to install some mini PBX system in the house. I would like the phones themselves to be self contained as an intercom system as long as 2 or more of the phones are connected via their line 2s. The main reason I don't want to go the mini PBXs route is because of cost: I looked around and they are hundreds of dollars... I'll probably be dropping near $100 (or more) for each phone so I don't want that extra cost. However, if this mini-PBX system is cheap enough (around $100), then I'd probably be able to use cheap generic two line phones and have one line of each phone going to the telco and the 2nd line connected to the mini PBX. But I have a feeling I'm not going to find any mini PBXs for that cheap so I'd rather invest a little more on each phone and have them work together out of the box.
One last requirement, no cordless phones, I don't want to deal with dead batteries as I probably won't be using the phones all that often and I know phones left fully charged most of the time have their batteries die pretty quickly.
Anyway, if anyone can point me to some product examples or have some other ideas, I'd love to hear them, thanks!
Last edited: