Dialog+ Internet Phone
Reviewed by Robert Pritchett
Miglia Europe (HQ) http://miglia.com/products/communication/dialogplus/index.html $99 USD, £59.57 (Excl. VAT) Comes With: 3 rechargeable Ni-MH AAA batteries, a USB charging cable, a USB “dongle”, CD and User Guide. Requirements: Skype and/or iChat Mac Requirements: G4 or later; Mac OS X 10.4 or later; 256MB RAM; USB2 port; Internet connection. For Windows, Pentium III or later with USB and Internet. Skype, the latest version. Strengths: You don’t have to be tethered to the computer to use Internet Telephony anymore. Weaknesses: Download the latest software from the website.
Other Reviews: http://applejac.typepad.com/applejac_macintosh_users/2007/01/telephone_throu.html http://climbtothestars.org/archives/2007/01/14/miglia-dialog-cordless-skype-phone/#dialogplus |
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Miglia released the Dialog + Internet phone October 2006. The CD has version 1.1.3 on it for the software interface and I was running Skype Beta, so I could not get the unit to work until I downloaded 1.1.4 from the Miglia website and updated Skype to 2.5 (beyond beta) in January.
Skype needs to be activated in order for this to work with the Mac. Technically the unit is supposed to work up to 25 meters from the computer.
For iChat, I kept getting a SIMBL Error:
“iChat 3.1.6 (v441) has not been tested with the plugin iChatForDialog 1.0 (v227). As a precaution, it has not been loaded. Please contact the plugin developer for further information.”
Once I removed the DialogPhone app (from the previous review) and the SIML folder from the Library > InputManager folder, iChat played m nice with the Dialog+ and the error disappeared.
For Mac OS X, the Dialog+ is recognized as a “USB Headset” in Sound and Speech Preferences.
Once the DialogPhone app was removed the switch between the Headset and dongle worked too. Previously the dongle “grabbed” the Input and Output Audio and the only way to get those back was by disconnecting the dongle.
Updated to 1.1.6…
Victor Marks (US Miglia Product Manager) wrote that the Dialog+ phone uses the 2.4GHz ISM band at 12.5 cm wavelength for wireless connectivity - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISM_band
And deductive reasoning by means of distance makes the dongle a Class 1 Bluetooth device.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth
Now, I haven’t tried the Dialog+ with Gizmo Project. It looks for a SIP phone function. I have not been very happy with iChat and
Skype so far has been the best player, including the annual subscription-based Internet-to-Phone functionality.
Calls are clear and apparently are as good as the headset/mic combo
I’ve been using. That is high praise.
