This hack shows the procedure on how to customize the voice mail on a mobile phone which could be a great help for people who sometimes does not feel like answering their phones. The concept is to apply the recorded message for people who calls which will then be placed on hold indefinitely. After achieving the goal, changes will be made on the versions of the system including having presentable project casing, an operator function that will play a pre-recorded message & then disconnecting the call, a larger music selection, more intelligent pre-recorded message selection, and a touch controlled start menu, as presented by the person in the image below.

Some of the materials needed to do the job include a computer microphone, 1/8” male to male audio cable, hookup wire, 100K potentiometer, 1/8” audio jack, garage band and Bluetooth headset. The plastic casing of the headset can be cut away to expose the microphone using diagonal cutters as shown in the below image. To figure out which pin on the microphone is power and which pin is ground, a multimeter is used. Without damaging the rest of the circuit board, the microphone needs to be desoldered or forcibly detached.

The red and black wire will be wrapped around the Bluetooth headset and be glued in place while making sure that the ends of the wires to the Bluetooth microphone terminals will have enough room to be soldered. Shown below is the attaching of the wires where a 100K potentiometer was added in series with the red wire. The middle pin of the headset is attached to the red wire and connected to the audio tab on the music jack is either of the outside pins. For information, the audio tab is the tab that is not physically connected to the large metal connector or ground at the back of the jack, as shown in the next image.

Recording your own music is essential in order to make the experience more personal and enjoyable. Recording music involves opening the garage band and creating a new track for a real instrument. It just needs the microphone to be plugged before hitting record and starting to make the music. A women’s voice would be more pleasant to hear to say the recorded message while the caller is on hold.

While recording numbers, it is important that the numbers spoken for the wait time should seem computer generated so counting aloud from 5 to 45 must be done for the best computer voice or using a robot voice modulator, as seen in the photo below. This range of numbers avoids people thinking that they may be talking with 5 minutes or being on hold for more than 45 minutes.

The numbers are inserted into the “Please Hold” message randomly where the voice actor paused then every 30-45 seconds, the “Please Hold” message is inserted. The audio track is set to loop infinitely onto an audio player. Plugged into the music player is one end of the audio cable and the other end into the Bluetooth headset audio jack. Turn the Bluetooth headset ON and setup the phone. The testing is shown below where the potentiometer is adjusted until the music is heard at a reasonable level. This will help avoid some calls.