I have the Yealink W52, which consists of a wired (ethernet) base and wireless handsets. It works great.
That’s a DECT phone. Lots of good choices if you want to go that route. I just want a bit more freedom to roam and not be tied to a base.
Spoke too soon. Got a network error from Zoiper yesterday. So it just is not completely reliable, even with TCP enabled.
What error did Zoiper report? Do you know where the phone was at that precise time? Could be that you’ve got a small hole in your wifi coverage. Are you set up to view the asterisk logs?
I’ve switched all the smartphones to TCP now - have to wait and see what happens - I’m pinging all of them from my network monitor software and so far (4 hours) they are behaving themselves.
Zoiper reported an unstable connection and threw up a bunch of stats. Both times I was standing right next to an access point so I’m not going to blame coverage problems. The two devices I am playing with are both on TCP.
I’m wondering how reliable that stats report is. I just got one saying 60% packet loss! That should have been an unintelligible call. It had a few dropouts but was workable.
Ah, and I see transfer and conference functions are reserved for the premium version.
Edit:
Now that I think about it, transfer and conference are really going to be crucial to a functioning SIP phone. What software do people recommend?
For the time being your best option is a smart phone with a sip client. If zoiper gives you a headache you can use the android embedded client. The best solution is to use a dect phone with repeaters. You can check gigaset products. With the same price for a good wifi phone you can setup a dect network and have the same result.
I wasn’t aware there were DECT repeaters. But I’m not really wanting to add more boxes around the house.
At this point the SIM-less phones with SIP software seems to be a more viable route. However I need software with transfer and conference functions.
Well you can always buy Bria. Good software and does what you need.
Just downloaded Grandstream Wave and am playing with it. Has both attended/unattended transfer and conferencing built-in.
Finding some issue with unattended transfer though. Posted on the Grandstream forum for help.
I started out with Grandstream Wave on the androids but dropped it on the request of users - its integration with the android’s contacts and call history is flaky. Plus everybody was complaining that it’s too easy to accidentally redial past calls since it only requires one accidental touch above the dialpad. Other than that it performed very solidly on android. Should also mention that their iOS version is a bit immature - couldn’t get it to load reliably on iPad (never tried it on iPhone).
Agree with you on DECT - it was enough trouble (and expense) to set up wifi coverage for our entire premises - wouldn’t want to do it all over again with DECT. Besides, we’re aiming at a “unified” comms environment - a single device (iPad or android) to cover the data and voice needs of each user type (nurses and management carry androids, carers carry iPads).
I reckon you’re going to settle on Bria once you get to it 
I don’t recall if you mentioned what wireless hardware you are using. Assuming your user base is small and you’re not streaming multiple videos simultaneously over wifi, you might like to look at Ubiquiti Unifi AP’s and their “Zero Handoff” technology. Apart from the fact that the AP’s are very capable and extremely good value for money, the Zero Handoff feature is ideal for VoIP - no breaks at all when moving between AP’s.
@mbit - we’d be interested in the WF360 for our nursing home here in UK if there was a distributor here and if we had some idea of the end-user price - can you quote a ballpark price(in USD or whatever)?.
Hi Jes1111
You would be looking at about 320 USD.
We can ship them to the UK as they are certified for that region. You would probably just need to keep spares in case something breaks.
We have a very solid wifi infrastructure that was designed for voip traffic from the start. Most all of the wifi handhelds are poor when it comes to roaming. The ICW-1000G is the best we have found but it’s not great. Still cuts out but works 75% of the time. If you want a wifi desk phone the best I’ve found is the Yealink T48G. The T48G is a great phone. No problems whatsoever with wifi. Of course roaming isn’t an issue. You have to buy a dongle but it’s only around $30. We are not deploying any more wired phones desktop or handheld.
mbit - that’s a good-looking price for the capabilities and ruggedness, but obviously more than a consumer-grade smartphone these days. Early in the project we were considering Spectralink Pivot handsets (for their barcode capability) but their prices are in the “silly” range. We are still at an early stage with the (Sony) android handsets, but I’ll keep your details on file should the Sony’s prove “not up to the task”.
As a matter of interest, have you guys tweaked the roaming settings from android defaults (and if so, how)? Seems that the ICW-1000G has - as @freak confirms above, they are better (but not perfect) on roaming.
I want to try Unifi’s Zero Handoff (now that it’s reasonably mature) but we are a 24/7 operation so I get shouted at if I mess with the wifi 
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Well Bria is like $8 per handset and this is a home setup not a business one. My access points are a couple of TPLink Archer C9 access points to cover the whole house running DD-WRT.
Well if I can’t get an answer on the blind transfer thing that’ll be a deal breaker. I see lots and lots of complaints but they have multiple platforms (IOS as you point out) so that’s not surprising. And this goes back at least a year or two. It is a top pick in Play Store.
I have this WPU-7800 phone installed and it works great. It actually works better than the Cisco 7940 on the same service, which are wired.
It is, however, not a cheap phone.
One other thing that works very well is the Grandstream desk phones w/ Bluetooth. I tested with a GXP2130v2 and a Plantronics ML20 (low end bluetooth earpiece). It worked great! Newer models of phones and earpieces work even better. The obvious drawback is range. I can go only 1 or 2 rooms away.