Button on cell phone to answer and play pre-recorded message

Submitted by brad on Tue, 2005-10-25 18:12
Topic: 
Inventions
Telecom

Of course, if you don't answer your cell phone it goes to voice mail and plays your pre-recorded message.

But what we need are phones which can answer and play a pre-recorded message for a short time. In particular a message of the form, "Hold on, I'm in a meeting and must keep silent. However, I'm walking out of the meeting right now while you hear this recording, and in a few seconds I'll be able to talk to you. Hold on... Still walking..."

This could be a special answer button on a phone (with the carrier doing nothing) or you could just press a number button (DTMF) or other button right after answer and the cell carrier could receive that and start playing the audio to the caller until you press another button or simply start speaking at full volume into the mic. This latter system would work with any phone, and you could choose from several options to play, including "Hold on, I'm actively driving" and so on.

At a recent conference they asked people not just to put phones on vibrate, but to turn them off unless you're a doctor-on-call. They declared that people getting up (and often briefly talking) was becoming too much of a disruption in meetings. A feature like this could be some of a stopgap.

It could also be implemented in a headset, particularly a bluetooth one, so you could use it with multiple phones.

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Comments

brandon

Mon, 2005-10-31 12:44

I had a phone (I think it was the Sanyo SCP4700) that let me do that - I could answer the phone, or choose "Answer and hold", in which case it gave a message that said "Please hold, the person you're trying to reach will be with you in a moment" or the like.

Loved that feature, for the exact reason you mentioned above. Good thinking!

Wong Online PoKer Hu

Mon, 2005-12-05 01:42

That is actually a terrific idea. I hate it when nobody answers the phone or when it is turned off. I like it when a message like that pops up rather than deal with another mobile answering machine.

Anonymous

Thu, 2005-12-08 03:18

this is a great idea, can you give me an idea how this could be produced, equipment i need what needs to be done etc

This is just for a college project, i will only be showing how it can be done and will not actually be producing it.

brad

Thu, 2005-12-08 12:22

Well, there are a couple of ways. It could be a feature on a phone, where the phone stores and plays back your voice, just as it plays back a speed-dial number you would enter.

Or it could be a feature in the network, where if the network detects you pressing a key after answering, it sends your pre-recorded voice (or even theirs) to the caller, possibly also blocking the tone.

Finally, it could be made into a very tiny box that plugs into the standard headset jack. Today the box could be not much larger than a plug and battery. A button could trigger the messages. Or, perhaps easier to build as a project, it could be a feature on a bluetooth headset. Bluetooth headsets have a button to answer the call. They could have another button to answer and play a message pretty easily.

Anonymous

Fri, 2006-02-24 12:32

don't know how old this topic is but i use to have it on an old phone of mne and loved it. is there such a thing for ppc phone?

Anonymous

Sat, 2006-09-09 07:00

I would like to be able to have one cell # (my existing one) but have a greeting message that would split my different departments or different companies(ex: dial 1 for accounting, dial 2 for ...and have the freedom of transfering the calls for each dept independantly from one another.
ex: I choose to answer dial 1 calls, but transfer dial 2 calls to a voicemail with notification. Basically having an intelligent phone system -for cell phones- intergrated or sold seperately. Can this idea be realized? Does it already exist?

brad

Sun, 2006-09-10 00:32

You can't do much on a cell phone directly without the cell company being involved. However, if you want to get a non-cell number which you forward to the cell number, or forward after doing menus, you can do all the things you describe pretty easily, and there are numerous services that will sell you a number which forwards to whatever phone you like when the caller presses numbers etc. Just about any "one number" style service does this.

Anonymous

Mon, 2007-05-07 01:24

sanyo already has this feature, sanyo m1, 7400, 7500 to name a few
but id like to find out if any office phones or home phones carry this feature?

Anonymous

Fri, 2009-02-20 21:07

My Keyocera 3225 had this feature. You could record a message and press a button when someone called and it would repeat the message over and over agian until they hung up or you answered. This is what I would like, for it to repeat continuously until they hang up or I answer. And to be able to record your own message.

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