How to build your own cheap SMS to Email gateway?

[international]

Task: I want my SMS messages get delivered in email.

In Android, there is an app for that, plain and simple.

What would be best is a simple 'black box' which 'just works' similar to receive-sms-online.com

I send an SMS > I got an email notification, simple as that. I don't even want to see or touch the phone doing the task. It should just work.

The most straightforward way is I can buy a cheap Android phone, put it on a charger and next to Wi-Fi. But you already see it is not a winning proposition as there are many things can go wrong with this: phone freezes, battery dies, Internet disconnects, you name it.

I wonder if you can do this with perhaps a cheaper and more robust device built for just this purpose?

[inquisitor]

There's an SMS-to-mail feature in Asterisk for Raspberry Pi through which you could build your own GSM gateway including sms-to-mail capability: http://www.raspberry-asterisk.org/do...h-chan_dongle/

But I fear the hardware is neither significantly cheaper than a simple Android phone nor is this very straightforward as it will require an hour or so so get it running.

[andy]

Do you mean sms messages received to your own number that can be read in your email account, or do you want to send sms for other people to read in their email?

There are sms to email services, and email to sms, but both types use a single gateway number, without allocating a number per user, though perhaps they also offer dedicated numbers for money (I haven't looked closely).

You could teach people to use such an sms to email service to send to you, but they'd have to include your email address in the message body.

[international]

Originally Posted by inquisitor

There's an SMS-to-mail feature in Asterisk for Raspberry Pi through which you could build your own GSM gateway including sms-to-mail capability: http://www.raspberry-asterisk.org/do...h-chan_dongle/

But I fear the hardware is neither significantly cheaper than a simple Android phone nor is this very straightforward as it will require an hour or so so get it running.

Yup. The Raspberry is exactly the kind of thing I am looking for. It might require a setup but maybe less prone to freezing, battery problems and such, which I except from a cheap Android phone.

andy:

The task is to receive my incoming SMS in email. That's it.

[andy]

How about a slightly different approach, given that I've seen you also asking in the past about numbers for receiving sms?

There are some applications for iPhones or Android that can do text messages and also VoIP calls on a permanently or temporarily allocated number, such as Upptalk, TextMe, Pinger, and probably plenty of others.

You can earn credit from either incoming calls and sms, or occasionally watching adverts or referrals for installing certain other applications.

I found that to begin TextMe kept changing the caller ID used. Then their support told me that sending an sms will fix the number for 15 days; however it changed again after 6. Also sending sms to their numbers isn't supported on the mvno on Vodafone that I was using, though calls did work.

Upptalk might be more promising, as the number is apparently permanent, and sms to their number series do work from a couple of brands I tried.

[international]

I tried Pinger. It would be all I need (web interface with my own number) if it were not to delete my number after a month of inactivity. Too tight for normal use.

Upptalk might do the trick if it gives me a permanent UK, US, German, etc. number (though it is not stated on the page) where I can receive SMS. A web interface would be helpful, though but I realize in these mobile-craze days it is not a priority for app developers to bother with the desktop or the cross-platform web. (Viber on the desktop was an exception.)

The Raspberry setup would still be helpful if I want to receive SMS to my number from any more odd country which Upptalk does not support yet.

[andy]

The Upptalk number is meant to be permanent (choice of UK, USA or Germany), though mine did go missing for a few days until support or their technical people fixed it.

As caller ID number for calls it uses your own number you used to register though. I haven't tested that for sms yet. I asked about being able to change caller ID later, perhaps to the Upptalk number itself. They were having some issues on that subject at the time, so I'll ask again in a while.

It seems more reliable for receiving sms than the Tismi numbers used by Pinger and TextMe, but I have not tested from all UK networks