We have been switched, without choice, to DV. My wife is registered blind and relied on a BT Big Button phone previously connected to copper. Aware it would not connect to the BT router, I texted and then when no response, phoned and ordered a BT Digital Voice Adapter to be told that they were out of stock till mid August. The BT customer service person was very helpful and has sent us a BT advanced Digital Voice phone with Alexa built in. That seemed if it might solve the problem. Unfortunately having registered with Amazon (not all that happy having to do that) and uploaded all our contacts, my wife finds the phone very challenging to use, in particular because Alexa responding to requests to call xx, speaks in a barely audible voice. I have searched the manual and cannot find how to raise Alexa's volume level. (I also made the mistake of loading home/mobile/work phone numbers under each contact thinking that like my car Bluetooth service, it would offer us the opportunity to select 'home', or 'mobile' etc, however it doesn't. Alexa reads out the last six digits of each of the saved numbers and asks for us to select. I am afraid the days of remembering actual phone numbers are long gone! This means I shall have to reload every contact listing their phone numbers individually, eg xx mobile, or xx home. A bit of a pain)
Another concern is that we are experiencing frequent power cuts in this rural area of mid Wales and with a dodgy mobile signal (my wife also cant use a mobile) I am concerned about access to communication.
I welcome new technology that improves OUR lives and makes things easier, but I feel slightly put upon by this forced change which is providing us with a retrograde service and where it looks we shall have to spend our money to solve problems not of our making.
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You can connect the big button phone to the phone socket on the back of the BT Smart Hub 2, and it will work just fine.
Its shown in green on this picture, and may have a sticker over it?
re BT Digital Voice Advanced Phone - any tips please as to how I can increase the volume of Alex on the handset? I can understand how to increase the volume of the ringing tone, and the handset tone but not Alexa's voice. It would also seem that one cannot permanently set a higher speaker volume, instead having to raise it during every call. Unless I have missed something, it appears to be less competent than our earlier handsets. Solutions welcomes please? Thanks.
have you tried the normal press Alexa button and say 'increase volume'?
Many thanks. I tried that but no response using the Alexa button on the handset. I went into Alexa settings via my tablet and found that volume can not be increased other than by increasing the treble and bass sliders. It just seems all a bit clunky and imagine could prevent wider use by a number of people. It was a kind offer from the BT customer service lady, but we look forward to using our 5 year old Big Button BT phone when that adapter arrives! (there is a reason we cannot plug it into the router but that is a boring long story!)
There are a couple of very good DECT cordless phones with big buttons and volume boost, namely Gigaset and Panasonic, so one solution would be to buy a set of twin handsets (one base unit and another handset). The base plugs into the Hub and the other handset can be elsewhere in the home. That's the set up I have here.
RIC9380
many thanks, appreciated.
many thanks everyone. P