
Show HN: Switchboard – makes it easy to route incoming calls and messages - marvinpinto
https://goswitchboard.com/blog/2017/12/25/introducing-switchboard/
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Danilka
This is awesome! I even wrote a script a while back to do this.
[https://github.com/Danilka/twilio-
forwarding](https://github.com/Danilka/twilio-forwarding)

The main question: Can I answer text messages that were forwarded to me /
initiate a call back from that number?

What about advance routing? Based on time or external sources? Numbers
blocking, etc.?

Feedback on setup:

\- It was super confusing to connect Twilio account that I already had.

\- Signing up with Gmail only made me think for a second.

\- Twilio connector only worked on a third try.

\- I doubt that I would pay $6/mo for it when the time comes :-( Maybe a
couple of bux, but not 6. (I don't want to discourage you here, just trying to
be honest and give unfiltered feedback as a user, who is very interested.)

I hope you guys succeed, this would be great!

P.S. Awesome name for such a product!

~~~
marvinpinto
Hey, thank you for your feedback!

Two-way messaging and call proxying is likely the next big features we'll be
rolling out.

We went with the Twilio Connect route initially as a low-risk approach to see
if there's an appetite for a something like this. Sadly it has not been a
great user experience and we're definitely going to reconsider it (Twilio
Connect).

As you might have guessed, we haven't actually decided on pricing yet but I
wanted to put _something_ on that page so that people can get a feel for how
much it would cost them.

And yeah, the system we were using for auth (Cognito) did not at that time
have an adequate 2FA solution, which was why we went with Google. Now that
they do, we'll likely use that which would allow people to also signup with a
username/password (in addition to Google, etc).

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rahimnathwani
It's cool that you're not locked into Switchboard if you sign up for the
service. You can always go back to managing your calls some other way. You're
locked into Twilio, of course, but that doesn't seem like much of an
inconvenience.

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fenesiistvan
I dont clearly understand who migt need this, since any SIP account comes with
these features (purchase from any voip service provider or host your
softswitch like Asterisk, Mizu softswitch or 3CX).

~~~
toomuchtodo
It’s a Google Voice replacement.

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TuringNYC
Great project and product. I had GrandCentral (now Google Voice) which I
loved, but is clearly under-supported (nearly abandoned?) by Google -- this
was immensely helpful during my traveling consultant days where i'd find
myself on different desks everyday. I'd love to find a commercial-grade stable
product (i hope you are it?!)

~~~
qmarchi
I wouldn't say abandoned as there was a massive facelift for both the mobile
app and the web interface recently.

However, it doesn't seem to be a primary concern for them as it does take a
significant amount of time for those updates to come to fruition.

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maddyboo
This seems like a nice product, but unfortunately I can't create an account -
after signing in via my Google account, I was redirected to a page [1] with an
infinitely looping loading gif. I tried clearing my cookies for the domain,
but no luck.

I'm running Chromium 64 on Linux.

[1]: account.goswitchboard.com/signup

~~~
marvinpinto
Heya, I think I got to the root cause of that issue and I deployed an updated
version that (hopefully) fixes it.

If you would still like to give it another shot I would appreciate it :)

~~~
maddyboo
Nope, still doesn't work. Here's a dump of the console log in case it's of any
help: [http://ix.io/ER9](http://ix.io/ER9)

~~~
marvinpinto
The console dump was super useful, thank you for that!

I _think_ it might be because you have third-party cookies disabled [1], and
the Google Auth client uses an iframe with cookies to do its thing. I
replicated it myself by disabling third-party cookies and the results were
similar to what you described.

I'll look into what I can do about this on my end tomorrow. Thank you again
for your time!

[1]:
[https://stackoverflow.com/a/42806178/1101070](https://stackoverflow.com/a/42806178/1101070)

~~~
maddyboo
Interesting. I log into a handful of other sites using Google OAuth and have
never had a problem. Let me know if you get it figured out, I would still like
to check out your service.

------
mount_misery
I like the basic idea of the service. Having to have an additional Twilio
account is somewhat complicated and does not add to an easy user experience.

~~~
Danilka
As a developer I REALLY like the fact that I can connect it to my Twilio
account and have full control over my numbers. This way I don't have to deal
with overcharges and can keep/port the number through Twilio.

As a consumer, it will probably be hard to scale this. But you can always add
an option.

Smart move for the product introduction to a niche audience!

~~~
taf2
You can always port it’s not legal for someone to try and prevent you from
porting a local number and in most casses the provider can’t stop it

