I always read the little flyers that come with my cell phone bill, looking for new accessories to turbocharge my vintage Nokia 5100. This month I thought I’d found one. “Links your wireless to every phone in your house,” read the teaser for something called the Vox.Link from Vox². “Tired of carrying your cell phone from room to room? Or missing calls because your cell phone was turned off? Wish you could use your cell phone as a second line?” Yes to all: Vox.Link sounded too good to be true. It was. First time I tried out the demo copy, it nearly fried my cell phone. “We’ve had one other report of heating up,” the marketing guy told me. “I’ll send you another unit.” Plugged in the new unit. Discovered it only works with designated “two-line” desk-sets. Got one. Found it only works with special two-line desk-sets, the kind with separate phone-jack inputs. Traded up. Discovered it only works with every phone in your house if you’re willing to use only your cell-phone line on every phone in your house. No answering either line on any phone or switching back and forth. It was handy being able to answer or place cell calls from my desk phone (but not vice-versa!). But then I decided I wanted to access my messages and discovered you can’t reliably do that from your desk-set— and that it’s dangerous to push any button on your cell phone while it’s sitting in its docking station. If fact, if you want to use any cell function except plain vanilla calling, you have to un-dock and do it the old-fashioned way. Is this worth all the trouble? Realizing I hadn’t bothered to check how much the little sucker cost, I called AT&T Accessories. “$199,” the nice lady said, “but this month you get 20 percent off!” $159 to be able to answer my cell phone on my office phone? I don’t think so.—Roger Downey

rdowney@seattleweekly.com