The Project Works!

I am glad to see that the Bluetooth Ericofon is ready and working! You can check a short video in YouTube.

Summary

The project was fun to build. I doubt that there are any other Bluetooth Ericofon telephones in the world, which makes this project unique and more interesting. Richard Rose was right about not having much space inside the Ericofon to put things in there, however, I accomplished to meet the original goals:

• Bluetooth connectivity
• Use the rotary dial
• Obtain dial and busy tone
• Ring (mimicking the original Ericotone ringer)
• Voice Recognition dial
• No external components (battery, bluetooth radio, microcontroller and electronics embedded)

Of course, there is room for improvement. New features can be added, such as dial with DTMF (after a connection is established), hold and answer of another incoming call, volume adjustments and others (suggestions welcomed!).

I also noticed that when speaking, the voice sounds a little bit muffled on the other side, as if I was talking in a bathroom. This may be due to having the microphone inside the phone shell. A way to improve it is by adding a cone connecting the microphone to the opening (the holes) in front of the phone. I will also add a foam inside the neck of the phone to reduce the acoustic feedback from the microphone opening to the ear piece.

I will release another SW revision fixing some minor issues that doesn't really affect the operation of the phone. As with any software and hardware project, you will always find some obscure bugs that only happen under certain weird conditions. I am writing them down and will work on them later.

Now I am ready to go with my Ericofon to my favorite coffee shop and get some work done, while enjoying others watching me using this extraordinary piece of art of the 60's. Sure, it will be a piece of conversation.