Sype In as a phone replacement
 

Hi There,

I'm wandering if it is possible to use Skype In on the N800. Is it Ok for the device to be on 24h/24 in order to receive phone calls?

Cheers

Re: Sype In as a phone replacement
 

I use SkypeIn on my N800. Here's the current situation:


the N800 is designed to be "always on/always connected"

The big problem I have with the current implementation of Skype is that it seems to use the microphone built into the unit, even when I plug in the supplied headset. Effectively, that means I can't throw it in a pocket.
Skype also has three audio settings: A) Play sound only when Skype is the active task B) Play sound at all times C) never play sound.

B) means the ITT makes noises whenever someone on your contact list connects. C) Means you never hear calls.

Now, OS2008 is coming, and they promise a new, improved Skype. If you're looking to buy a N800 for SkypeIn, I suggest one of two things:

1. You buy it, 'cos it's cool. If 2008 makes it a skypeIn vehicle (or, hey, the Gizmo project could come through), even better.
2. You wait a week or two and find our what OS2008 brings.

Re: Sype In as a phone replacement
 

Thanks for your answer DingerX. It's really a good thing if the N800 can be actived all the time with Skype In (hoping it doesn't affect too much the battery life if it's always on sector). Right now I have to leave my laptop open to be able to receive phone calls which is quite annoying.

Re: Sype In as a phone replacement
 

According to this it will do Skype In.

If you're going to just use it at home I would think the battery would be the only drawback. On page 5 of the Nokia Product Information guide it reads, " Do not leave a fully charged battery connected to a charger, since overcharging may shorten its lifetime." Hmmmm? If you're at home you'd have constant WiFi so you wouldn't have to worry about being handed off from location to location.

Re: Sype In as a phone replacement
 

I would think any modern charger/device would cease charging when a full battery is detected, or at least I'd hope so :)

Re: Sype In as a phone replacement
 

One would think. <g> It was in the manual that came with the N800. If it isn't true then Nokia needs to tell me which parts to believe and which to dismiss.

Re: Sype In as a phone replacement
 

Was there in the 770 manual to. Could be that they are trying to cover their asses in case something happens...

Re: Sype In as a phone replacement
 

Though I've heard other people have this problem, it isn't universal; when I plug in my headset it switches to using the headset mic. OTOH, I think the sound from the headset speakers are too weak, so most of the time I just use the internal mic and speakers, ala speakerphone.

Also, I notice that although having Skype loaded doesn't seem to decrease battery life, active conversations do drain the battery rather quickly; I don't believe I've ever talked more than an 1.5 hours without my battery starting to give out. OK maybe with an extra battery or nearby AC outlet, but devastating without them.

Re: Sype In as a phone replacement
 

I use Skype-In. Skype-Out, and Skype to Skype on my Nokia N800 daily. I leave my N800 turned on 24 hours a day, and plug it into a charger ( car or wall ) whenever I am near a charger. Skype will work well if your WiFi LAN is good. If you experience problems with Skype when you are out of the house or office please realize your are in a public hotspot, very likely an inferior one.

With regard to keeping a charger attached to the N800 (or any portable device with a Lithium battery) for long periods of time, I fail to understand why Nokia (or equiv.) would say that would over-charge the battery. The reason I fail to understand this is because the fact is the battery charge level is not controlled by the charger, or the device it is attached to. The charge level is controlled by a tiny microcontroller sealed in the battery itself. Rechargeable Lithium batteries have internal intelligence to protect us from danger in the event of an external short circuit, and also in the event of attempts at over charging. Lithium batteries can literally explode with great force (and / or violently burn) if the internal cell(s) are overcharged or shorted. The internal microcontroller circuit monitors --and controls-- lithium cell charging and discharging to prevent danger. This fail-safe design doesn't always succeed as can be seen when a laptop or cellphone self combusts, but the battery design is such that you are unable to overcharge the battery (even if you try) so long as the batteries internal microcontroller is working as it should.

Charging and discharging lithium batteries causes wear to the chemistry. Reducing the number "cycles" will extend your batteries life. You cannot extend the life of a lithium battery indefinitely, but it can be stretched by not cycling to battery unnecessarily. N800 batteries ( like cellphone batteries ) are not too expensive so it really is not a big deal I guess. What I am saying, is I would not be concerned ( I am not concerned ) about leaving the N800 plugged into an external power source, leaving the N800 turned on at all times, and running Skype on it, prepared to answer incoming calls from people. That is the way I use my N800 when I am home, or in the car.


For more about the N800 and Skype read this:
http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...73&postcount=2

Re: Sype In as a phone replacement
 

Did you try pushing the headset in all the way? The black of the headset should really be against the casing of the N800. At first I didn't dare push it in that far, because it requires quite some force and I had exactly this problem. With the plug in all the way it works great.

Re: Sype In as a phone replacement
 

The quality of Skype on the N800 cannot compare with a regular phone. Just too many drop outs and mediocre sound, gets on your nerves quickly.

Gizmo works better overall, but their network is not completely reliable when calling a landline phone.

I hope the new OS will have a better skype implementation.

Re: Sype In as a phone replacement
 

To clarify what I've said about Skype and microphones:
I have called the same people using the Jabber/Gtalk client and Skype. I can only use the former when the N800 is in my pocket; with Skype, people complain about loud noises; source is verified when I blow on the microphone.


About battery life and power sockets:
Major factors in the degradation of Lithium rechargeables are charge level and heat. A battery stored at 100% degrades much faster than one at 40%, and one kept at 50 degrees C cooks far quicker than one at 20 degrees. Battery University provides the lowdown.

Anyway, this explains why my last laptop battery went from full to useless in a year: Compaq's design did not allow it to be removed, Intel's P4M specs (what a dog) had it running at high temperature, and I had the computer plugged in and running most of the time.

When I've been using the n800 for VoIP, after about 10-20 minutes, the unit gets noticeably warm to the touch. Now, plugged into the wall, and doing something fancy, that's gonna result in wear.

And if you store it for days plugged in, you're storing it at 100%, guaranteeing degradation. If you let it run down to three bars or so, then the battery should last longer.

Re: Sype In as a phone replacement
 

Well, the major factor is charge / discharge cycles. You get only 300-500 cycles. Storing a battery fully charged at 25C -vs- 0C reduced the capacity by a mere 16% after 12months of such storage (source: your battery university link above). A key factor in all of this is "what did the designer of the battery program the float voltage to be?". We do not know what the N800 battery's float voltage is, and that plays a huge factor in longevity. Float voltage is something us end-users have zero control over, and I'm sure over a year's time charging and discharging the N800 battery will put more than 16% wear and tear on it, so my feeling is, keep the battery charged when you have an external power source available. Charging and discharging the battery 200-300 times in a year puts much more wear on the battery than leaving it on full charge all year long (assuming the battery pack designer did not set the float voltage way higher than he should have).

Using the N800 without it being plugged into an external power source results in wear on the battery also.

You make reasonable points about long term storage, but the guy I responded to was asking if it was okay to keep the N800 on 24hours a day so he could effective use it for Skype-In. This isn't really storage.

I too have noticed the N800 warm slightly when doing processor intensive tasks like watching movies and Skype but it does not come close to how hot most laptops get, the N800 doesn't get nearly as warm as my Samsung A900 cellphone when it is in prolonged use. I'd say the N800 stays relatively cool compared to many portable devices. Regardless, it is what it is.... I'm going to use it for Skype and to view movies, and play music, and run Maemo Mapper and internally it will get slightly above room temperature.

The alternative is to not use the N800 and keep the battery at below full charge, stored in my refrigerator 12 months out of the year, but then I can't enjoy using the N800 at all. :-(


Maybe the battery designer for that COMPAQ battery model had a high float voltage setting programmed, which was good for capacity but bad for longevity. (BTW- I had a Compaq N150 laptop which I kept plugged in for three years 24/7 as my main computer. The few times it was unplugged from AC power is when I took it out of the house which wasn't very many times, and that laptop and battery lived 4 years that way, and still worked somewhat when I sold it, so your Compaq notebook experience was different than mine. What model Compaq notebook did you have that would not permit you to remove the battery??). The float voltage set by the designer is out of our control and if you knew it was high and you wanted to take action that would require you to always manually pull the external power away before the battery reaches full charge, and shut your computer off. Not very practical or pleasant way to use any battery powered computer device.

I say, just use the N800 the way you want / need. If you want it to be a Skype-In device and be powered on all day and you worry about float voltage (chosen by the battery pack designer) being too high and you don't wish to keep it plugged into the external power, then unplug it but realize the drain (you have unnecessarily triggered) on the battery is a "cycle" of the limited number of cycles the battery has (300-500 cycles) ANOTHER source of battery wear. Who is to say which manner of wear will degrade the battery quicker....it all depends on how you use the N800 and too many variables to give a perfect answer. Being extremely anal about trying to get a working N800 battery to live close to as long as a battery that was put in a refrigerator with a 40% partial charge isn't what I want to do with my N800.

I say, leave it charged most of the time so there is a full charge when you need it to go portable (which is what Nokia had in mind for us) and be prepared to buy a replacement battery when the time comes either because the 300-500 cycles transpired or the battery wore out sooner because it was kept fully charged and above room temperature (the later being the lesser evil).

Is it okay to keep the N800 plugged in all day in order to receive Skype-In calls? Yes, in my opinion. Your opinion may differ.

DingerX brings forth a good piece of advice, and this goes for all portable devices with lithium batteries (cellphones, laptops, PDA, N800), do not leave them in a car on a sunny day with the windows rolled up. The heat in such a scenario is definitely not good for the battery. Heat is your enemy with lithium.

I just went to eBay and looked an several BP-5L 1300mAh replacement batteries for the N800. They are $4 plus ~$8 shipping in the US. I'm not going to get all anal about stretching the battery in my N800 to the max. if I can buy another battery for under $15 to my door. Keeping my N800 battery meter at three bars as you suggest is too much of a hassle (for me). I'll just buy another battery for ~$12 when the time comes, and enjoy the freedom of not worrying about shortening my N800 battery by a possible 16% a year by keeping it plugged in nearly 100% of the time at 25degreesC (and this isn't even a known because we have no idea what float voltage is designed into the controller in the BP-5L).

Your mileage may vary.

Re: Sype In as a phone replacement
 

Ultimately, yeah. Use it the way you're comfortable using it. When the battery dies, replace it. Even Nokia branded batteries aren't that expensive. The way I use the thing, I'll be surprised if my battery lasts half a year.

The Laptop designers were just bad. I don't see it as a float issue: I would go for weeks where I'd run it always plugged into the wall. If they actually decided to take from the battery in quick cycles (your float, I suppose), then the battery would not have lasted four months.

As it was, it was crammed into a case with components that regularly heated the surrounding area to 70 degrees C.


Anyway, I was just trying to determine why Nokia would advise against leaving the thing plugged in all the time. Maybe you're right about the float voltage and cycling.
If the n800 is designed to run off of batteries, and to recharge those batteries (in other words, its "plugged in" state uses the battery whenever possible -- after all, this thing has a lot of components from cell phones), then using it while plugged in could very well cause a series of quick recharge cycles (let's see, if it cycles once every ten minutes, then you'll cook the battery in 80 hours). Leaving it plugged in and turned on may cause it to cycle only once every few hours (so, 1000 hours, or forty days continuous). But, as you point out, all this is aimless speculation without some spare time and a lab setup.

Moral of the story: use it. If you find yourself changing batteries every week, rethink your strategy.

Re: Sype In as a phone replacement
 

I have been using Skype for three years and I cannot say I have seen this inferior performance. You must have something setup wrong with your network, your computer, or your internet service provider.

I use Skype instead of a landline, and have been doing so for the past 2 years. Prior to that I was using Skype but still had my landline at the ready. What I pay for Skype-Out & Skype-In are a bargain and the service works well with my ISP and my Local Area Network (the way it is set-up).

I use both Gizmo and Skype on the N800 ( and my desktops and laptops) and I cannot say I agree with this either.

I have noticed that the internal N800 microphone is extremely sensitive. Any background noise (distant room noises) are picked up and incorporated into a N800 Skype / Gizmo call. More so, than a cellular call or a call with a ordinary telephone. It is a microphone issue. Forget about using Skype on the N800 in a noisy coffee shop / donut shop, or out on the street with the N800's internal micrpphone. I am glad it is so sensitive though because the alternative is worst IMO. When I am home (it is quiet here) I can use Skype on the N800 as a speakerphone and people say they hear me loud and clear. That would not be possible if the N800 microphone was attentuated.

Skype has much higher fidelity than cellular or landline phone calls, Skype to Skype. Whenever you go Skype to landline (Skype-Out) or you get a call from a landline (Skype-In), fidelity is limited by the landline.

I am fairly convinced that dropped calls, choppy call behavior with N800 VOIP are almost always local area network issues between the N800 and the wireless access point the N800 is exchanging packets with. I don't think this is a Skype issue. Sometimes it is an Internet congestion issue in general.... that is also out of Skype's control.

A big issue that I look forward to OS2008 resolving is the Bluetooth headset / Skype issue. I could not believe when I got my N800 that there was no facility for using a Bluetooth headset for N800 VOIP. When that begins working I will celebrate.

M5

Re: Sype In as a phone replacement
 

My guess is that this is simply a leftover from when Nokia used NiMH batteries, they used exactly the same advice then. Which would have been correct, as those chargers were timer-based and had other problems. In particular, the point about 'overcharging' seems to support this theory: You could overcharge NiMH batteries (particularly with the timer-based chargers), there is _no possibility_ to overcharge a Li-Ion battery, in the sense that if the device didn't turn off the charger when the battery was full then the battery would explode..

(and btw. there's regulation circuitry in the devices too, the one in the battery is the final safety circuit, it switches off at typically 4.30V which is a bit higher than your device. Don't know the N800 voltage, but my Palm T3 cuts at 4.24V)

Re: Sype In as a phone replacement
 

That's what I thought first when I had the problems with Skype (just calling echo123 etc). But the internet connection is perfectly fine, I have a good Linksys router and there is nothing which prevents skype to work. I even opened a special port for skype alone, with not much success.

The quality of skype is certainly much worse than a normal mobile phone call.

Re: Sype In as a phone replacement
 

If there is a malfunction of the microcontroller circuit inside the battery, and the external power were connected the results could be catastrophic. My guess is, that Nokia ( and the laptop manufacturers ) tell us to disconnect the external power from our devices in the rare event there is a malfunction in the battery's safety circuitry.

There is no downside from Nokia's perspective ( or Dell, Compaq, IBM, et.al. ) to suggest we remove the external power when it has completed it's role. This might prevent .0000....0002% of the liability claims from a lithium battery failure. When the external power is not connected and the microcontroller in the lithium cell malfunctions, there can be no fire or explosion. So, there is an upside for them to say it. Also, if removing the external power results in battery cycles that wear the battery quicker and we need to buy a new battery in 2 years ( or one year ) instead of the battery lasting longer, Nokia gets a chance to sell us a replacement battery and make a few more bucks (another upside for them, but I'd imagine it is more the safety / liability angle).

Re: Sype In as a phone replacement
 

I don't know if this is going to be of any help, but you can give it a shot... it is easy enough to do:

goto xterm and type-

gconftool-2 --set --type int '/system/osso/connectivity/IAP/wlan_sleep_timeout'
'1000'

for more information about why this might have a beneficial effect read this:

https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1636

and this

http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...ad.php?t=11645

Hope this proves useful.

Re: Sype In as a phone replacement
 

Thanks, i just changed the sleep timeout, but it seems to have no effect on skype.

Calling echo123, the girl's announcement sometimes drops a syllable. Not always in the same place if I repeat. Calling a friend, he also notices drop outs on my side.

My ADSL-connection is 1 Mbit/s downstream and 128k upstream. Not sure if this is too slow for skype.

Re: Sype In as a phone replacement
 

Your ADSL speed should be sufficient.

If you want to test something else...try turning encryption off at the router/AP temporarily and retest. Don't simply use SKYPE CALL TESTING SERVICE to test. Place a N800 Skype call to someone for many minutes. Also do a bandwidth speed test of your ISP and verify you are really getting the full speed you expect to be getting. Last week my broadband, which is typically 10megabit per second, tested to only be about 317k. My ISP had this sluggish performance for many hours.

Re: Sype In as a phone replacement
 

I just returned from my buddy's place where he has a NetGear wireless router/AP and broadband. I changed my N800's Wlan_sleep_timeout parameter from the default (200 milliseconds?) to 1000milliseconds. I cannot say conclusively that it did make an improvement with Skype at his location because I didn't make enough Skype-Out calls, and for a sufficient duration to feel confident in the test, but the calls I did make "seemed" to be improved over the same calls a few days ago there (at his place) with my N800 Wlan_sleep_timeout setting at the default.

I need to do more testing, but I might have observed a benefit to the increased timeout setting.

More on this at a later date.

Re: Sype In as a phone replacement
 

I am getting consistent call drops with SkypeIn/Out service and N800. That just sucks so much... changed wlan timeout to 1000 - doesn't affect it. I am working off old linksys "b" access point, but also tried it off the university network.

i tried it from PC in the same LAN, but wired, and it works just fine. so not internet connection issue (or at least it doesn't show with PC version)

so far it seems that skype does indeed studder and drops the call after that, but i am very inclined to think it's the software issue with PSTN connections, since skype-skype works perfectly.

i am trying gizmo now (incoming via grandcentral), and so far i had a 10 minute call with no drops. so it's skype.


already submitted ticket to Skype, but i think it's not likely they will do anything about it...

Re: Sype In as a phone replacement
 

I would refrain from testing Skype on a university network. Almost every university has a policy against the use of Skype on it's computer network. I cut and pasted the following from the University of Cambridge website. This is typical of policy at universities.

"....agreement to the Skype EULA is clearly in violation of the University's Authorization for Use of the network use policy."

I would refrain from testing Skype on a university network. Universities may have ways of detecting a Skype call in progress on it's network (or the Skype client running on any machines connected to it's network) and interrupt it's activity. If you are going to do testing, I'd also refrain from using results acquired on any testing done on open networks like those found in public WiFi HotSpots. If you are having problems with the N800 and Skype, I would recommend testing / troubleshooting only on networks you own and control.

There are large numbers of variables that are complicated and difficult to control with when troubleshooting on networks which you own / control. When you try doing this on public networks things get even more out of control.

For what its worth, I just finished a 43 minute Skype-Out call to a friend of mine using the N800 and Skype. The call was placed, the conversation commenced and continued without interruption or being dropped. This excellent performance is typical when I use my N800 with Skype so long as I am in my network cloud. My friend did report a few short gaps in my voice over the 43 minute call, but he said overall it worked very well. I did not detect any gaps in his voice over the 43 minutes and in all fairness to Skype and the N800 I was walking around my office building the much of the time I was talking to him.

I have a Linksys WRT54G Version 4.0 running factory (Linksys) firmware. My ISP is RoadRunner. Currently they are providing an advertised 10Mb/second down and 384Kb up. I occasionally test this by using one of the popular Internet speed testers and I often see over 8Mb down and 350+up speeds to a desktop machine wired to the WRT54G. Also, if it helps, I am located in the North Eastern United States.

Re: Sype In as a phone replacement
 

I just tested the speed my ISP was providing today. I did this directly on the N800 wirelessly steering the browser (unsure if it is running MicroB or Opera at the moment) to the Speakeasy website.

The N800 reports 4782kbps down, and 350kbps up. It is 2:20PM my time. Skype on my N800 is working great today.