CleverCall is a novel solution currently raising money at Kickstarter. The idea here is simple and powerful – merge your landline with a smartphone, allowing you to use your iPhone or Android-powered device to make cheap phone calls. And it’s not just the software – there’s also a device that connects to your landline to route calls to your smartphone (while allowing you to make landline calls with a smartphone). This in turn could easily remove roaming charges, presuming you’re connected to a Wi-Fi hotspot.
The system is (will be) designed to always select the cheaper way to make or take a phone call. Moreover, you will be able to use your existing phone book when making calls from a landline, which by itself is a big plus. Just remember how many times you had to look into your contacts list to find some number only to call it from your non-cellular phone. CleverCall will make this practice redundant.
Moreover, you will be able to get Caller ID displayed on a smartphone, receive missed landline call notifications when you are out and about, and view call history for your landline. Yup, I can already see telcos wanting to stop this product from ever being made.
If guys behind CleverCall manage to raise the cash they need (100,000 GBP), the final pre-production release for iPhone and Android will be out in February 2014. You can secure your unit for 129 GBP, which is roughly 153 EUR or $201.