Do you have old landline phones around the house, with touchtone buttons or rotary dials? You might want to do something with them! [Scott Dylewski] has built hardware to do just that for you, because your local utility has already drawn the lines.
The Analog Redial is essentially a “little phone system that you hack,” according to the release [Scott]. Plug in a phone or two, and you get the functionality of yesteryear—a dial tone, rings, and all that. You can make calls between the phones, out via a SIP server or use the answering machine functionality. You can play with settings via a web interface, or even set dial codes so your phone can control your Home Assistant setup.
An ESP32-C6 does all the heavy lifting, with the help of an ES8388 audio chip, and lets you plug in two phones for telephonic hijinks. You can even add a Bluetooth board to use your old landline as a handset for your modern smartphone. [Scott] has all the files on GitHub if you want to make one yourself, and you can get most of it pre-assembled from a board house if that’s your jam. It hardly gets simpler than this.
We’ve featured other fun projects that also repurpose old phones. If you’re busting your own telecom witchcraft in the home lab, be sure to hit our tip line. Happy telephone!