W41P Shortfalls, I'm in trouble.

[Bezalu]

So I was originally very excited about the prospect of deskphones being able to be wireless while not relying on end-users shotty home-grade wifi access points. But We just set up our first W41P system with one W60B and three T41S's with the DDK DECT dongles, and you seem to lose the whole point of having a deskphone in the first place. So be warned if you're thinking of deploying these for a customer.
Sure they sound great and don't rely on WiFi, but you lose 99% of the DSS key functions. No BLF, no call park, no XML.

Almost all menus are disabled once you are in DECT mode, so the T41S basically becomes a W56H with a cord. Although with the W56H, at least you get an easy way to transfer calls from one handset to another.

I think there's lots of promise with DECT and deskphones, and I am a loyal Yealink VAR, but just want to share my frustration and hopefully prevent someone else from having to high of expectations from a new feature model.

[jolouis]

I was a participant in the Yealink Test Club for the T41S/DD10K bundle about two months ago and reported the same short comings as major hurdles for adoption. Once you know about them you can target your product deployment (we basically decided it's only useful for very small user bases... 3-4 users in a small shared space), but given the massive feature discrepency between the normal T41S (or even T41s with Wifi dongle) and the DECT mode, those limitations need to be pointed out.

I have heard from Yealink that they are working on finding ways to implement some more of the features like BLF, XML etc. (the main issue is they are trying to do all of these "IP" things on a wireless technology that was never designed/intended to support that type of connectivity), so there may be updates in the future but I doubt the implementation will ever reach full equivalency to direct wireless/IP connection mode.

[Bezalu]

BLF would be fantastic, as that's the feature I'm worried about trying to explain why it doesn't work. In this particular deployment, we've done numerous offices for the same customer and this is the only location that wired CAT5e/6 or WiFi wasn't an option. So all of his other locations rely on BLF constantly, but this smaller location will just have to make-do. I can understand the trouble with supporting BLF updates over DECT, but my only concern is Yealink should set reliable expectations on the product page and list things that aren't supported yet.

[jolouis]

(08-16-2018 02:06 PM)Bezalu Wrote:  my only concern is Yealink should set reliable expectations on the product page and list things that aren't supported yet.

Yup agree completely, so far the number one issue I have been hearing about from everyone even trying to use the W41P or DD10K is "Why didn't anyone say that none of these important features work??". So far Yealink's response has been "Well we did not say that they DID work yet, so..."

[elementpbx]

The use of the DECT is almost completely non-purchasable at this point. The DD10K should have been reversed engineered so that the T41/T4x can use the USB Dongle and transmit to a W56H. This would give you BLF and features on your T41S meanwhile having the ability to walk away from the desk phone with the DECT handset. Just seems like common sense. I have no use for the DD10K.

[Bezalu]

(08-17-2018 02:43 PM)jolouis Wrote:  

(08-16-2018 02:06 PM)Bezalu Wrote:  my only concern is Yealink should set reliable expectations on the product page and list things that aren't supported yet.

Yup agree completely, so far the number one issue I have been hearing about from everyone even trying to use the W41P or DD10K is "Why didn't anyone say that none of these important features work??". So far Yealink's response has been "Well we did not say that they DID work yet, so..."

lol, that's like Ford selling a new electric car, looking just like the gas model, touting how great it is, then when people buy it they find out it can't go in reverse, and them saying "Well, we didn't specifically sayyyyy it had reverse, so you shouldn't have assumed"

[jolouis]

(08-20-2018 03:53 PM)elementpbx Wrote:  The DD10K should have been reversed engineered so that the T41/T4x can use the USB Dongle and transmit to a W56H. This would give you BLF and features on your T41S meanwhile having the ability to walk away from the desk phone with the DECT handset.

I have heard rumours and whisperings from Yealink that this very setup may be coming in a future firmware release. Having said that, it still seems like an odd thing to do... why not just piggy back a W60B off of the LAN port on the T41S?