Google finally updated Hangouts app and added new app Hangouts dialer that allows one to make regular phones calls using data.
Let's discuss Nexus 4 related experiences here.
Voice quality wise, this is the best quality among 10+ VOIP solutions. I have tried many in the last 2 years using N4. The quality is great on LTE 4g,
However, I noticed a slight more lag when doing an echo test at 909-390-0003 especially on LTE.
Another nice new feature is to voice call (not video call) to Hangouts contacts. This doesn't rely on PTSN (regular phone network) so the quality is superior.
Big fan of the product as well. Was going to hold onto Vonage as my long distance calling app, but they recently hiked the prices of their international rates for the country I was interested in, so I deleted the app entirely.
One question/area of interest
The thread listed here states that data consumption for the user was approximately 1.6MB/hr, whereas in my experiences, I encounter data consumption of approx. 690KB/s (25 times greater). Being I don’t talk a lot on the phone anyways, those numbers are not worrisome in the slightest to me, but I am curious what the reason could be for the discrepancy.
One potential theory that I have is that my calls were long distance perhaps? Calls routed overseas to a non-Google Hangout # requires larger data packets perhaps?
1.6 MB/hr is unrealistic low (just can't compress the stream that much). I recommend using WiFi for hangouts unless you have an unlimited plan.
Justin
It (google voice) is working fantastic for me! I could never get any of the other google voice apps from google or 3rd party vendors to work. Now it works awesome over my WiFi.
Sent from my Nexus 4 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app
macallik said:
The thread listed here states that data consumption for the user was approximately 1.6MB/hr, whereas in my experiences, I encounter data consumption of approx. 690KB/s (25 times greater). Being I don’t talk a lot on the phone anyways, those numbers are not worrisome in the slightest to me, but I am curious what the reason could be for the discrepancy.
One potential theory that I have is that my calls were long distance perhaps? Calls routed overseas to a non-Google Hangout # requires larger data packets perhaps?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I made two calls over wifi totaling 9 minutes. Google settings measured hangouts data usage increasing by 2.8MB during those calls. FWIW. Twice I heard a slight momentary digitization of the other caller's voice lasting about a second each time.
I wonder if Google scales the audio quality based on the speed of your connection the way netflix/amazon automatically scales video quality. If you have a super fast connection, maybe they crank up quality. Maybe that digitization I heard wasn't a general issue, but a glitch while audio was readjusting bitrate, the way a video might fuzz for a second in between adjustments.
fortunz said:
I made two calls over wifi totaling 9 minutes. Google settings measured hangouts data usage increasing by 2.8MB during those calls. FWIW. Twice I heard a slight momentary digitization of the other caller's voice lasting about a second each time.
I wonder if Google scales the audio quality based on the speed of your connection the way netflix/amazon automatically scales video quality. If you have a super fast connection, maybe they crank up quality. Maybe that digitization I heard wasn't a general issue, but a glitch while audio was readjusting bitrate, the way a video might fuzz for a second in between adjustments.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Now that I think about it, that is a feature of Google Hangout Video calls. You have to be in a call to be able to tweak the settings, but you have the option to alter the rate of data consumption through various tiers of video quality. It wouldn't be too far fetched to have something similar in the phone app related to voice I suppose.
Not too sure if that would explain my personal data consumption though. I was using a WiMax Router through FreedomPop which is 4G but it is no Google Fiber.
T-mo $30 plan + Nexus 4 + Hangouts + 4G LTE = bliss!
Just trying to see if its rom/kernel related or just a intitial kink with a new product.
But when I receive an incoming call to hangouts - after hitting accept I am experiencing a 3-5 second delay before I can actually talk or hear the other person.
Anyone else experiencing this?
ogrillion said:
Just trying to see if its rom/kernel related or just a intitial kink with a new product.
But when I receive an incoming call to hangouts - after hitting accept I am experiencing a 3-5 second delay before I can actually talk or hear the other person.
Anyone else experiencing this?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've experienced a lag/freeze when I answer incoming calls as well. If I don't get it on like the first or second ring then the caller goes to voicemail as I wait for the lag to disappear. Hopefully it is something they fix in the future. Not a huge deal since I can still call people back for free with great quality.
macallik said:
I've experienced a lag/freeze when I answer incoming calls as well. If I don't get it on like the first or second ring then the caller goes to voicemail as I wait for the lag to disappear. Hopefully it is something they fix in the future. Not a huge deal since I can still call people back for free with great quality.
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Click to collapse
Oh ok thanks for the response - definitely not a deal breaker.. The call quality is great, I even had a conversation driving down the road doing 50.., was impressed.
I haven't taken an incoming call with it yet, but that sounds like the sort of issue that Google could and would likely address. You might look around for a bug report you can upvote. Or reviews of the app highlighting the issue.
fortunz said:
I made two calls over wifi totaling 9 minutes. Google settings measured hangouts data usage increasing by 2.8MB during those calls. FWIW. Twice I heard a slight momentary digitization of the other caller's voice lasting about a second each time.
I wonder if Google scales the audio quality based on the speed of your connection the way netflix/amazon automatically scales video quality. If you have a super fast connection, maybe they crank up quality. Maybe that digitization I heard wasn't a general issue, but a glitch while audio was readjusting bitrate, the way a video might fuzz for a second in between adjustments.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just as an update, today I called out again over the same wifi with a similar signal for 6 minutes and used 4.7MB. Whatever the cause (I'm not sure either), the data usage is highly variable. I wish we could at least cap it. Even with some paygo data, this could be cheaper than some paygo minutes... or not, depending on whether you're getting 0.3MB/min (2-3c/min at 7 to 10 cents per MB, typical mvno paygo data), 0.8MB/min (6-8c/min) or 40MB/min ($2.80-$4.00/min) like macallik reported.
This is certainly fine for either supplemental wifi use to slice down a bill a bit, or for use with generous data buckets like the much celebrated tmo package, but without the ability to control or cap the data rate, it's still a bit limited. With just that one tweak, I could see using it as a dedicated second line through hangouts, and even on a paygo account, you could save even when you weren't on wifi, and far moreso over wifi. It'd be like having a dual sim phone, but cheaper and with less account management hassle.
ogrillion said:
Oh ok thanks for the response - definitely not a deal breaker.. The call quality is great, I even had a conversation driving down the road doing 50.., was impressed.
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Just thought about it. Did you/do you have call screening on when you used Google Voice previously? (Where you have to press '1' to answer an incoming call) That could be leading to the freezing as Hangouts attempts to get a button prompt from a feature that is no longer being used. I just disabled my call screening on the Google Voice website but haven't gotten any recent incoming calls to test my theory.
macallik said:
Just thought about it. Did you/do you have call screening on when you used Google Voice previously? (Where you have to press '1' to answer an incoming call) That could be leading to the freezing as Hangouts attempts to get a button prompt from a feature that is no longer being used. I just disabled my call screening on the Google Voice website but haven't gotten any recent incoming calls to test my theory.
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Oh man I never knew that was a feature. What a pain in the ass, I've been living with it for a long time now...
As someone who has their number ported to gvoice, this is a great change. but, my phone rings twice, at the same time with two different ring tones by two dialers. It's confusing and annoying because each dialer tried to override the screen of the other one to get your attention.
ferrocene said:
Oh man I never knew that was a feature. What a pain in the ass, I've been living with it for a long time now...
As someone who has their number ported to gvoice, this is a great change. but, my phone rings twice, at the same time with two different ring tones by two dialers. It's confusing and annoying because each dialer tried to override the screen of the other one to get your attention.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is also something you can change in the settings @ the Google voice website. Change the call forwarding portion. Mines is set to 'none' with no boxes checked but you might need to play around with it a bit (that's what she said)
Because my plan doesn't dock me for incoming calls I let the forwarding come in through the old mobile voice network. But outgoing calls are routed through my Hangouts dialer.
macallik said:
That is also something you can change in the settings @ the Google voice website. Change the call forwarding portion. Mines is set to 'none' with no boxes checked but you might need to play around with it a bit (that's what she said)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I' ve used here in brazil for the first time, over wifi, calling other state to a house number and the result was 15 minutes of calling and 10,43 mb used by hangouts.
An average 695 kbs/min. I think its not bad at all.
UPDATE:
Today i've called the same number and the conversation went for 37 minutes, using 25,71 mb of wifi data.
The average was 695 kb/min again , this means that an 0,1 Mbits/s conection should be good to make the call without hiccups. So even here in brazil with our poor 1 Mbits/s 3g we can use this service for good, thus saving a lot of money.
Hey guys, I had just purchased some credit to try hangouts in germany I have one slight problem though. My ID is hidden when calling someone, I have confirmed my number in the app itself, anything else to do?
Related
I woke up yesterday morning and had an idea for an app...
Now im not a coder so im not sure how easy it would be but im thinking alot of it should be pretty simple.
Now to the core of the app.
My thoughts are for an app that goes and retrieves your voicemail and saves it as a mp3 on your phone.
1. When a message is recieved from a certain number the app is triggered
2. The app starts recording the voice mail that is left.
3. (this is the tricky part) detect when the voicemail has finish and send the no. to delete the message. For my voicemail i press 3 to delete the messages.
4. Hang up the call and save the message to your phone.
Now there is a few reasons behind this.
It will save on money for some people, as i know here in Aus some companies charge to ring your voicemail no. So this app could download it and you could listen to it as much as possible.
If its important you could save it off to your computer or email to someone else to listen to.
As i said im not a coder but i thought this might be a good idea for someont o look into. Would have been good for the ADC2 but entries have finished for that now.
Anyway if any developers want to run with this go a head.
Great idea! But it has already been done. Check the market
seriously, lol
Whats the name of it
Thanks for the heads up
pf fusion voicemail, youmail I think, tmobile visual voicemail. I personally use pf fusion visual voicemail. It saves the messages to your sd card, has a nice user interface, and also backs them up to their server so you can retrieve them online.
lookout4theyeti said:
pf fusion voicemail, youmail I think, tmobile visual voicemail. I personally use pf fusion visual voicemail. It saves the messages to your sd card, has a nice user interface, and also backs them up to their server so you can retrieve them online.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
youmail does exactly the same thing. in addition to that, if you buy a youmail premium subscription (they have several levels depending on how many voicemails you regularly get) you can get the voicemails transcribed to text and displayed as well.
another one to add to the list is google voice. also does the above mentioned features.
Thanks for your suggestions everyone.
There is an issue with the suggestions though.
I live in Australia and all the options are for the US.
YouMail and PhoneFusion both need your voicmail to be diverted to them and GoogleVoice isnt here yet.
What I was thinking of is something that runs from your phone.
The App calls your pre defined Voicemail number and records the message and saves it to your phone.
Would work worldwide and you wouldnt need to change your voicemail details.
Anyway, just a thought
I understand what you're trying to say and from a developer standpoint, I can fill you in as to why it wouldnt work.
First, voicemail is like call forwarding. After your phone stops ringing, nothing is actually happening on your phone. The call is forwarded after a preset number of rings, or an action (like pressing the end key to ignore the call) to a voicemail server, which answers and records the message. At that point, your phone is completely out of the loop, so the idea of having it record to both the phone and the voicemail server is dead right there because it just cant be done. The way youmail, t-mobile vvm, google voice and phonefusion simulate this is by recording the message on their servers and then downloading it to your phone using your data connection.
Now, it would be possible to have your phone do the recording after a certain number of rings, like an answering machine, but it would be ridiculously process intensive because it would have to be running at all times. This would do two things:
1. slow down your phone considerably.
2. eat battery like you wouldnt believe.
And whats the point of having something like this if your phone is going to be dead all the time and unable to record messages anyway?
So yes, its possible, but not feasible. GV should be in australia soon, seeing as the wave development team is entirely based there. So keep your fingers crossed until then.
ok I wanted this app too, but you think too hard.
Disable provider voicemail.
After 10 rings, let phone pick up call and play message. Then a beep, and the phone starts recording.
No external voicemail server needed, just have an anwering machine application.
kusotare said:
Now, it would be possible to have your phone do the recording after a certain number of rings, like an answering machine, but it would be ridiculously process intensive because it would have to be running at all times. This would do two things:
1. slow down your phone considerably.
2. eat battery like you wouldnt believe.
And whats the point of having something like this if your phone is going to be dead all the time and unable to record messages anyway?
So yes, its possible, but not feasible.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Why would slow your phone down so much? It could be service, not doing anything untill a call is recieved. If it rings too long it takes over.
It doesn't need to record all the time.
Try HulloMail
can't find HulloMail in the market
i also would like to have this "answering machine" app... and I also don't understand why this would slow down the phone, or eat up a lot of battery. as someone said already, it would run in the background (like "toggle settings" "missed call" and all the other services do) and just really start to work when a call comes in and it has to play a message and record the callers message.
the only downside (with which i can live) is certainly that the phone has to be switched on all the time, because off it couldn't record anything. for me that is no problem, i have a docking station at home and in the office, so when i am not running around, it is charged.
technically i see this as very feasible
i wonder whether devs shy away from this... because actually doing this is a major attack at the "revenue machine" of mobile operators, because - well - a local soft answering machine would take a huge amount of calling minutes away from the operators.
kusotare said:
First, voicemail is like call forwarding. After your phone stops ringing, nothing is actually happening on your phone. The call is forwarded after a preset number of rings, or an action (like pressing the end key to ignore the call) to a voicemail server, which answers and records the message. At that point, your phone is completely out of the loop, so the idea of having it record to both the phone and the voicemail server is dead right there because it just cant be done.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Actually that's not exactly true. If you take a look in the Android Call Settings. Under GSM/CDMA Call Settings > Call Forwarding, you'll see that Call Forwarding when busy, unanswered and unreachable can all be disabled. It's possible one could write a program to catch the call after it rings X times, but I'm not sure if Android has that kind of hook in its API yet.
But as for it being impossible due to the forwarding, that's utterly false.
Quite simple.
Cancel the carrier answering service. (I hate the term "voicemail" -- everyone who uses it should be shot dead).
Have the program answer the phone after some defined number of rings and record it.
1) It would NOT slow down your phone.
2) It would NOT eat battery.
Don't know where that guy got the idea that it would... it WON'T.
Every time my wife calls she says she can't hear me for perhaps 2-3 seconds after I think the call has connected.. My previous phone did not do this, but the Nexus One does.
Anyone heard of this, and have any suggestions? I have Google Voice call on by default, but she's calling my cell number so I don't think it'd affect anything. As far as I can tell, the call is connected, but she can't hear me say anything for several seconds. I usually wind up going "Hello? Hello? Hello?" and she finally answers.
Glad to see I am not the only one this happens to..well not glad but i just hope this means its not just my phone.
I know when they call one of my numbers (either Google Voice or Cell Phone # not sure which) it says incoming call from <Name> press 1 to answer and press 2 to send to voicemail
@sandtiger
this is from google voice it is a filter setting you can change by going to to the setting on the google voice website.
But this is a different issue (im assuming) then the OP
Blueman101 said:
@sandtiger
this is from google voice it is a filter setting you can change by going to to the setting on the google voice website.
But this is a different issue (im assuming) then the OP
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I think I muddied the waters mentioning Google Voice, but these are calls directly to me cell number..
I might try disabling Google Voice just for S&G just to see what happens.. Seems when I place calls, they're connected when I expect them to be, but the delay could be more critical when answering.
I haven't yet, but going to try calling myself from my work phone to see what kind of delay I'm hearing.
I am having this problem also...did you ever find a solution?
Using BT headset by any chance?
In that case, it's normal.
Nope, no headset. Just the phone.
I need to test some more, but I think this has gone away for me.. Delay answering, plus the other party was "dropping out" often, ie: if it got quiet on their end, their voice disappeared entirely, and sometimes faded in or out while doing so.
Only thing I've changed is I disabled Google Voice as being my default call method, but this thread is about answering calls so I doubt it matters, especially since the calls were directly to my cell number not my GV number.
I might turn GV back on the way I had it and test some more, but maybe it was something weird with AT&T?
Im noticing this problem too, both on 2.1 and 2.2.
It seems to be a problem specific to AT&T N1's.
I also experience this. I've adjusted to swiping the answer button, pausing, then saying "Hello." I typically pause about 0.75 or 1 full second, and rarely do I need to do it longer.
The opposite seems to be true of the vibrate-on-connect feature: about 1 second after the person picks up, then the phone vibrates in my hand. How is that useful?! =P
Love Google Voice but it's making and receiving phone calls nearly useless. With GV phone # integration enabled it regularly take 45-50 seconds to place a call - specifically, from the time you hit dial to hearing the first dialing ring, there's almost a full minute pause. I routinely miss calls because the phone never rings. I'm assuming there's a lot of router hopping or whatever going on over on Google's end.
I've disabled GV for the moment and I'm right back to 3-4 seconds to placing/receiving calls.
Not sure when this started exactly but I started noticing it well over a month ago. Not a KK/root/s-onoff/etc issue afaict.
(fwiw, no 'don't complain about a free service' replies please.. we don't subscription fee, but we do pay for GV with the data mining and ad hits they get from us)
Has any one noticed any issues with call quality? I am getting a noise reduction hiss. Every time the remote caller speaks I hear a background hiss around their voice. Once they stop speaking the background his goes away.
Did not get this on my pixel 6.
Is anyone else experiencing this?
Thanks,
RJR
Not here, tried a lot of calls (i use a lot the phone for work) and nothing, audio quality in-call is perfect. Sometimes those problems are on the other side and not ours. Do you have this with every call?
What is happening is when someone on the other end is talking you hear them talking with a slight background hiss. Once they stop talking everything goes silent.
I am accustomed to always hearing a very slight hiss when the call is connected whether the other party is talking or not.
Not sure if this is the new norm with cell phone moving forward.
RJR
call quality has been superb for me via US Mobile.
No issues here with Cricket Wireless as my carrier.
Call quality has been great on both Tello and SafeLink.
rrusek said:
What is happening is when someone on the other end is talking you hear them talking with a slight background hiss. Once they stop talking everything goes silent.
I am accustomed to always hearing a very slight hiss when the call is connected whether the other party is talking or not.
Not sure if this is the new norm with cell phone moving forward.
RJR
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
is it one particular caller or multiple?
rrusek said:
What is happening is when someone on the other end is talking you hear them talking with a slight background hiss. Once they stop talking everything goes silent.
I am accustomed to always hearing a very slight hiss when the call is connected whether the other party is talking or not.
Not sure if this is the new norm with cell phone moving forward.
RJR
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Its more data efficient to take the "silent" times and actually just transmit silence (a long line of "0"'s).
I've had several calls, and all were crystal clear. So much so I think I'm on a land line. Not sure what network you use, but that may have something to do with it. Also what signal you're using at the time (5G, LTE, Wi-Fi calling, etc).
I have been reading up on this and it seems that what I am hearing is called comfort noise when the other party is speaking. It is most prevalent when the volume is set all the way down.
I am trying to find out if my pixel is defected or if everyone is hearing the same same thing since this was not the case with my Pixel 6.
RJR
rrusek said:
I have been reading up on this and it seems that what I am hearing is called comfort noise when the other party is speaking. It is most prevalent when the volume is set all the way down.
I am trying to find out if my pixel is defected or if everyone is hearing the same same thing since this was not the case with my Pixel 6.
RJR
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Click to collapse
did you get any progress with diagnosing?
i have the same issue. a hissing noise on-top of the caller voice, that reduces to crackles when the other side is not speaking. its with multiple callers on the same network. it happens with or without wifi calling. on regular calls using the phone app and on calls using telegram or whatsapp. i tried on 4g and 3g. it starts hissing in while making the calling sound, that means its something in the hardware. the device is rooted, and "converted" to GVU6C (global) model from G03Z5 (japan) using an alteration of the init file and also installed VOLTE module and enabled 5G using an app called network signal guru.
AJ205 said:
did you get any progress with diagnosing?
i have the same issue. a hissing noise on-top of the caller voice, that reduces to crackles when the other side is not speaking. its with multiple callers on the same network. it happens with or without wifi calling. on regular calls using the phone app and on calls using telegram or whatsapp. it starts hissing in while making the calling sound, that means its something iin the hardware. the device is rooted, and "converted" to GVU6C (global) model from G03Z5 (japan) using an alteration of the init file and also installed VOLTE module and enabled 5G using an app called network signal guru.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately, I ended having the call speaker (top) replaced. Did not cost anything since it was under warranty. Depending on your service center it is usually a one-day repair.
rrusek said:
Unfortunately, I ended having the call speaker (top) replaced. Did not cost anything since it was under warranty. Depending on your service center it is usually a one-day repair.
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Click to collapse
i found this on google support. it seems like a common issue. thats a shame. I'll have to try my luck with the importer in my country because there is no official support for google devices. fml.
I faced a different kind of issue. Every 2/10 calls i hear some sort of clicking noise In my phone earpiece. It disappears after a few seconds but it happens sometimes. I got scared when it started happening the first few times. I think this issue appeared after the November update. Anyone else faced this?
AJ205 said:
i found this on google support. it seems like a common issue. thats a shame. I'll have to try my luck with the importer in my country because there is no official support for google devices. fml.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm not seeing this as a common issue but merely a few users. Support told them to either return the device or get it fixed. Returning after the 15 day period is unfortunate because you'll get sent a refurb. However, if it's noticed before 15 days after receipt then you can return it, get your money back and then buy another new device. I believe the return period for hardware related issues should be at least 30 days but that doesn't seem like it's in the cards. In your case without support I'm not sure there is anything you can do other than get it fixed which is a bummer. My call quality has been stellar as others here have said so I hope you and the OP can get this resolved.
I keeps coming back and im fed up with it and cant find anything related to this online:
When i make call (in and outcoming 5G/WIFI, doesnt matter) the voice on the other side is just fine. But always after 5/10 minutes in the call the other person starts sounding like a robot and is hardly understandable.
Anyone has similar issues, is it modem related? 5G and wifi coverage are just fine. Let me know what i can try or is this just a hardware failure?
In settings, try toggling adaptive sound and/or adaptive network connectivity. Not a problem for me, though.
weinbers said:
In settings, try toggling adaptive sound and/or adaptive network connectivity. Not a problem for me, though.
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Click to collapse
Thanks, will try but dont think this will be it though...
I've had this on more than one Android phone, but they were both Pixel's. 3XL and 7. After about 10 minutes the caller would sound tin based, and/or robotic. I thought it was just the line being messed up, but now maybe it's a Pixel thing? Not sure. The times it happened were with a caller that was using VOIP, so I figured it was a mix between the both of us. When I call real landlines, or other mobile carriers, the calls are always crystal clear.
bobbyphoenix said:
I've had this on more than one Android phone, but they were both Pixel's. 3XL and 7. After about 10 minutes the caller would sound tin based, and/or robotic. I thought it was just the line being messed up, but now maybe it's a Pixel thing? Not sure. The times it happened were with a caller that was using VOIP, so I figured it was a mix between the both of us. When I call real landlines, or other mobile carriers, the calls are always crystal clear.
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Click to collapse
Yes this is the exact thing I encounter. Mostly with a colleague whos on a Samsung and probably also with wifi calling. Never had this issue with all the one pluses I had before the pixel...
Probably wont be Fixed anytime soon since I can't find anything similar online