BT Advanced Digital Home Phone with Alexa Built-In Works Only With BT Smart Hub 2

I had long postponed switching over to "digital voice" because I had my own high spec router which was remote from the master socket. I was reluctant to change to a "standard" BT router and had a 5 handset DECT answer-phone system, all of which was well established and worked very well indeed. In the end I was forced to change by BT. Before the system was changed over, I researched routers with a built-in DECT base unit, but could only find some basic and quite "old" alternatives. So, I decided to give the BT Smart Hub 2 a try. I also ordered the “free” BT Digital Voice adapter which I intended to use with my existing DECT phones. When the new BT router arrived, I installed it and set it up to mimic my own old router. I found that it was actually quite a good router. It was enabling faster, and more consistent, WAN download speeds than before and Wi-Fi coverage and speed was very good. My thoughts then turned to my old DECT phones. These were very old. Some had button problems, some had fading displays. It would also mean that using the BT adapter would re-introduce an analogue link into the digital phone system. Upon looking at the specification of the “BT Advanced Home Phone” I found that these would be ideal for my setup. The BT Hub would support 5 phones from its built in DECT base station. There would not be a local answering-machine, but 1571 would in fact work better. I bought five of these BT Advanced Home Phones from Amazon, and installed them with the BT Smart Hub 2 router. The phones I received were a mixed-bag. Three were BT branded with the BT logo and a purple screen display. Two were the later EE type of phone with “HD” branding and a black screen display. This was rather odd, but all five phones worked in the same way, and looked much the same. Because they appeared to be “old” stock, sold at a reduced price, I updated the phones firmware from each handset to the latest version, and brought them up fully up-to-date. It was clear that the phones were old stock and the batteries were slow to charge. As a precaution I decided to change the batteries for some Panasonic Eneloop ones - which have a long service life. I have not enabled or used Alexa, so it is something I cannot comment on. It is not something I need or want. The phone is so very easy to use without it. The phones more than met my expectations. The sound is very good indeed – of course provided both ends of the call are “digital”. They are easy to use. There are many configurable settings with a lot of user options. The Contacts can be imported (into the BT router) via a .vcf file, or exported from the phones to a backup file from which the Contacts can be restored to the phones. Reviewing recorded messages is a one-button operation. The phones are very easy and logical to use. The phones themselves are excellent, but have one downside - they only work with the BT Smart Hub 2. If you want to keep, and improve, your telephone landline after Digital Voice changeover these phones are an excellent way of doing it. They are fully recommended, and will give you a far better solution than the old analogue landline.

I really like this phone. I found it very easy to set up and use, since I had a BT premium phone before.

Minimal instructions, badly balanced and too thin especially for older users, quite easy to pair with hub2 and then you can put the charging base anywhere in house. Not advanced: Not great audio, some very loud audio clicking artifacts that an advanced unit should be able to filter/ peak limit / normalise out. Will not be using Alexa, handset has enough issues. Digital Voice not great at all, copper audio much better.

At last running downstairs, only for voicemail to cut in first, is over.

phone arrived with a set of faulty batterys would not function, after replaceing the batterys ( not that easy needed a bit of research on youtube) the phone now works as it should,

Having had a new system installed by BT we needed another handset for upstairs. This came in perfect condition and had an extra feature that the one issued by BT didn't have. Oddly the one issued by BT was marked HD but this one was as per the item description marked BT, confusing eh? The sound quality is mostly excellent but this type of internet phone can give problems (feedback) if both you and the person you are speaking to are using "hands free" mode. I had no trouble setting the phone up following the instructions. All done in under a minute.

This is a WiFi phone: easy to setup, just plug into the mains and follow on screen instructions. No problems with use, setup, or sound quality. But a couple of minor issues. . Buttons could be bigger, my wife finds her nails get in the way when trying to press the 'phone book' button. . The online manual mentions logging on to your BT hub to backup the phones contact list. But, you can also use this process to import a contact list: with some issues! Backup your mobile phone contact list (.vcf file) and import to a PC or MAC. The BT phone directory does not recognise +44, so edit the vcf file in Excel and replace +44 with either 0044 or 0 (same with International numbers). You can have a max of 3 numbers per contact, so also edit in 'work', 'mobile', 'home', etc, if needed. Logon to your BT router (instructions in the online phone manual), and import the edited vcf file - took me about an hour, but saves having to enter a long list manually into the phone. Problems with this process: do a web search and there's some help on the communty.bt web site.

This is the worst phone we have ever had, kept 2 & sent 1 back, not sure why. Phone drops out during conversations, battery goes flat quickly, writing on display screen tiny. After a year of "putting up" with the drop outs, we went back to good old faithful Panasonic which is compatible with BT Digital lines & BT Voice, much clearer screen & better signal from hub. (Phone plugs into hub using the RJ11 cord which woild have gone into the BT wall socket/jack). Would not recommend to anyone, expensive too.