How-To:Totally Integrate Google Voice

[mekishiko]

Not technically a hack, but Just a tutorial for those who want to integrate Google Voice transparently on their DROID and other Android powered phones.

1) First Get a Google Voice account here: https://services.google.com/fb/forms/googlevoiceinvite/

2) Log into it and click on the SETTINGS link in the top right

3) Click on the PHONES tab and click ADD PHONE

4) Type in the name fo rthe phone profile EG: MY VERIZON DROID or whatever

5) Enter the phone type, select MOBILE in the drop down box, and make sure RECEIVE SMS check box is ticked.

6) Click on SHOW ADVANCED SETTINGS and from there you can disable the need for a PIN code if you call to check Voicemail from your Cell Phone (If you want)

7) Finish by clicking SAVE you will be given a 2-digit number, click CONNECT and your cell phone will ring, an automated voice will ask you to type in the number given on the website, so type it in! if successful you should hear "Your forwarding phone is active" then you can hang up

8) You should still be on your Google voice settings page, on the PHONES tab. click the link right next to the new phone entry that says "ACTIVATE GOOGLE VOICEMAIL ON THIS PHONE"

9) a window will pop up asking you to "Switch your voicemail to google voice" the number of the cell should already be there, but you have to use the drop down box to select your carrier (Verizon for Droid users) and click continue

10) the window will change to an activation screen with a number *71########## (Where # is your Google voice number) so grab your phone, and enter that exactly as shown, and press CALL as if you were calling someone. It will connect and then it will hang up, an dyou're done with that.

11) Grab your phone and go to the Android Market and search GOOGLE VOICE and download the official GV app. Install it.

12) Install it, and set the phone to USE GV FOR ALL CALLS in the GV SETTINGS

13) Go back to your Google Voice page, click SETTINGS and click the VOICEMAIL AND SMS tab.

14) Disable Voicemail transcription if you want, or pick SEND AS SMS or FORWARD AS EMAIL. Whatever is your pleasure.

15) Now grab your cell phone again, and open up the default sms text program called MESSAGING and press the Menu key, then click SETTINGS and make sure DELETE OLD MESSAGES is checked, then scroll to the bottom and UNCHECK the NOTIFICATIONS box.

16) Now make a link to the Google Voice Application on the Home Screen or wherever you used to have your MESSAGING icon.

What this does is it sends SMS to both Google Voice SMS AND to your carriers SMS system, which forces the Google Voice application to check for new messages so they are delivered INSTANTLY instead of having it find messages at intervals which is slow, creates conversational delay, and wastes battery.

(sms tip is from robertbaker13 on google forums)

17) LAST STEP! make sure all of your numbers are in 10-digit format EG: 6195551234 if your numbers are in any other format EG: +16195551234 or 5551234 then your Google voice Number will not show up on their Caller ID INSTEAD your actual carrier # will show up and confuse people if you're trying to use GV as your primary contact number.

[lolcatz]

Really interesting....

so i can send/receive unlimited texts with this?...

I already have the VOICE completely integrated

[adam8ch]

google voice still uses your regular minutes(and in cases where you would be calling a M2M user, uses more minutes) and uses your regular txting quota. i'd keep a close eye on your usage statements if you are trying to integrate Google Voice.

[VitsDroid]

google voice still uses your regular minutes(and in cases where you would be calling a M2M user, uses more minutes) and uses your regular txting quota. i'd keep a close eye on your usage statements if you are trying to integrate Google Voice.

You can text through the google voice app and it doesn't use your sms allotment from verizon it uses your data plan, and you can set up google voice to send you the texts to your email instead of your sms and you would use data in that instance.

[bguild]

anyone having problems with the http links to the Gvoice recordings of the voicemails? I am getting a "google internal server error 500" when clicking those links. I can play the voicemails out of the Gvoice application, but that is a pain, I'd rather just click the link. Thoughts?

[mekishiko]

Also: Has anyone tried checking out their bill yet that is using google voice?

I am a new verizon customer so i'm not too familiar with the frequency call details are refreshed on the account page, but wouldn't it be cool to add the Google Voice Phone number that is uses as a proxy as a "Friends and family" in order to have unlimited minutes?

EDIT: I guess the access number that GV uses changes every so often so you'd have to keep an eye on it like every 3 days or so in order to catch the change and update your Friends & Family records. What a pain.

Source: http://www.google.com/support/forum/...f914c3cf&hl=en

[namelessNN]

i set up gvoice to send my txt messages to my email. then had my gf send me a txt to my gvoice #. on my phone, i got it as an email AND a txt msg. and my verizon account reflected the txt msg.

[sp90378]

Really interesting....

so i can send/receive unlimited texts with this?...

I already have the VOICE completely integrated

If you set it up right, you can. I currently have texting on verizons end disabled on my phone, and yet I am sending texts and everything else just fine. Just make sure you get the google voice account and app on the phone, and then for me i disabled sms forwarding in google voices settings. In the phone under contacts I can now select a person and hit text and then when I send it, google voice is the one that I have default for sending texts. Now when I get a text my phone blink and I get a notification from the google voice app that i have a text, then I open google voice and there is the text. i can then from there reply and everything as if i was texting from my phone.
So for me, I have texting integrated as if I was using the phones texting system, when indeed I am using Google voices. And again I am not using any texts from verizon as I even have it turned off on their end.

[mekishiko]

i set up gvoice to send my txt messages to my email. then had my gf send me a txt to my gvoice #. on my phone, i got it as an email AND a txt msg. and my verizon account reflected the txt msg.

Yeah to get it to not copy the text to your verizon number you need to login to GV on a computer and go to SETTINGS and then VOICEMAIL AND SMS

then UNCHECK the box that says "Send a text (SMS) message to: YOURPHONENAME"

then click SAVE CHANGES

let me know how that goes.

Really interesting....

so i can send/receive unlimited texts with this?...

I already have the VOICE completely integrated

If you set it up right, you can. I currently have texting on verizons end disabled on my phone, and yet I am sending texts and everything else just fine. Just make sure you get the google voice account and app on the phone, and then for me i disabled sms forwarding in google voices settings. In the phone under contacts I can now select a person and hit text and then when I send it, google voice is the one that I have default for sending texts. Now when I get a text my phone blink and I get a notification from the google voice app that i have a text, then I open google voice and there is the text. i can then from there reply and everything as if i was texting from my phone.
So for me, I have texting integrated as if I was using the phones texting system, when indeed I am using Google voices. And again I am not using any texts from verizon as I even have it turned off on their end.

And yeah you can totally not use your carrier (Verizon) text services when you are using google voice, The method I used is because 1) I have unlimited TXT, and 2) It causes the phone to check the GV system for new texts when it gets dinged with a new Verizon SMS message. It is definitely not necesarry, but I don't like to wait the 5, 10, or 15 minutes it takes to refresh for notification of a new message.

[namelessNN]

i set up gvoice to send my txt messages to my email. then had my gf send me a txt to my gvoice #. on my phone, i got it as an email AND a txt msg. and my verizon account reflected the txt msg.

Yeah to get it to not copy the text to your verizon number you need to login to GV on a computer and go to SETTINGS and then VOICEMAIL AND SMS

then UNCHECK the box that says "Send a text (SMS) message to: YOURPHONENAME"

then click SAVE CHANGES

let me know how that goes.

i DID do that it still sent me the txt and email both. that's what had me so confused.

i checked the box for "Email the message to:" and i unchecked the box for "Send a text (SMS) message to:"

i also didn't check the box for SMS Forwarding. it says Forward SMS message to my email: as that seemed a bit redundant with the above setting. perhaps that has to be checked as well?