App Review: Groove IP

I have spent the last month living without cell minutes. No, I wasn't living on a tropical island somewhere away from civilization. I was using Groove IP by snrb Labs for my calling minutes. Groove IP is a Voice Over IP (VOIP) client that works with your Google Voice account to route your calling over data connections. In other words, when I call or get calls it sends the voice through the data connection to or from Google Voice. Google Voice then routes the sound to the other phone. This saves me minutes on my calling plan.

For those of you that have unlimited calling and could care less about saving your minutes may think this isn't for you, but using this app could potentially save you hundreds of dollars. For some of us cheap more thrifty people, we only have the bare minimum amount of minutes that the provider will sell us. In my case I now only have 450 minutes to use per month with Verizon. I normally would only talk about 250-300 minutes total a month. Buying an unlimited calling plan would be money wasted for me. I have used Google Voice since they were Grand Central back in 2006 and have kept my number all of those years. I now use it as my only cell number and even text from it exclusively. In fact, I have not given anyone my actual cell number since getting the new phone. But since Google Voice rings me at all of my phones depending on the time of day, it is all I need. I say all that to tell you that if you are going to use Groove IP you need to be committed to Google Voice since it only works with the Google Voice service.

One other reason you may want to look at Groove IP even if you have unlimited calling would be to save money while traveling abroad. According to the developer, one feature that many people do not know about is that you can call back to the US while traveling internationally. With just a wifi connection you could call home without paying to get a costly international calling plan. If you have ever traveled overseas you know how much it can cost to call home even for just a few minutes.

The setup of Groove IP is rather simple. You download the app to your phone or tablet. Once it is installed you open the app and sign in to your Google Voice account through the app. This is your connection to Google Voice. That is it, you are ready to stop using minutes and start using VOIP. The app has a dialer that you use to call out or you can use the standard dialer. However, the Groove IP dialer works just like the standard dialer and seems to handle calls better. It has tabs for recent calls, contacts and favorites. You have a number pad for normal calling. The settings let you determine how to use Groove IP. You can select to use 3G/4G calling which will route all of your calls over data. I have this option turned on. As long as I have a wifi or cell connection I can make calls through the app. If for some reason I do not have a data connection the phone will prompt me to revert back to a cell connection when I try making a call. You can control the native dialer and call logs in the settings also. If you have problems with audio there is a section to help you get a better sounding call. The troubleshooting and miscellaneous settings have many useful options for you to make Groove IP work the way you want it to.

Just using this app on the phone in the last month has saved me minutes used. At day 26 of my billing cycle I am at 2 minutes used through Verizon. Those calls were while I was setting it all up and I did not have calling over 4G enabled. You might think that this has eaten away at my precious 4GB of data I have per month. I don't know if Groove IP compresses the data or not, but I have only used 300MB of total data. That is wifi and cell combined. I have talked on my phone over 5 hours (300+ minutes) this month. I have talked more on the phone knowing I am not using my minutes and can keep talking as long as I want when I am on wifi. I know this is crazy, but I may actually start using my phone to make phone calls again!

The sound quality through Groove IP has been outstanding. I have only noticed a few calls while I was at the edge of wifi coverage that sounded like a bad cell signal. I was between the wifi network and switching over to 4G. Those instances have been the exception. Most of my phone calls have been loud and clear. I have not had any complaints about not being clear to the people I was talking to and no noticeable delays or echoing.

I loaded the app on my wifi only Galaxy Tab and my Samsung Vibrant without a SIM card in it. I have been able to send and receive calls on both over only wifi. The Tab does not have any cell capabilities in it at all. Granted, it only works on wifi but with that massive battery it has I could use it as a backup if I knew I was going to be on a long call and using wifi the whole time. Essentially, you could use an old wifi enabled phone to be used with your Google Voice account using it like a house phone instead of a land line.  To accomplish wifi only calling the app uses Google Talk to communicate with Google Voice over data. With my Nexus I was getting two rings at first when I setup Groove IP.  The app was routing an incoming call to my phone through Google Talk and the Google Voice app was routing the call to my cell number because I had it set to ring there as well. Both dialers were ringing. I remedied this by going into the Google Voice settings and selecting the Nexus phone number to never ring. I left Google Talk enabled. Now when I get a phone call only the Groove IP dialer rings. I still can use the Nexus through Google Voice since I have it enabled but not ringing.

This was a little confusing at first but the support page over on Facebook is a very active site. The developer answers questions all of the time and the other users help each other out too. I almost never Like anything on Facebook but I have done so for this app. I wanted to see the updates and be able to get feedback. Several of the additional options in the settings came from the support page and suggestions from users meaning your feedback does matter.

Groove IP is $4.99 in the Android Market. I strongly recommend buying it since it could save you in monthly costs. If you have decent data coverage or use wifi connections it is possible you could drop your calling plan down to a limited amount of minutes and save hundreds of dollars a year. You will have to use your Google Voice number or you can even port your number to them now. This app is a great way to save money and still be able to use your phone. Though it is not for everyone, Groove IP is worth a try.