Snom M3

Cordless DECT SIP VoIP phone from Snom.

Main Features

• Display: 128 x 128 pixels, 65536 colors, backlit
• Li-Ion battery pack for 8 hours of calls or 100 hours standby
• Range: 50 meters indoors, 100 meters outdoors
• 12 numerical keys, 5 navigation keys, 2 function keys
• Speakerphone on mobile handset
• Polyphonic ringtones
• Automatic registration of handset
• Separate charging cradle for the handset
• 8 handsets per base station
• 8 SIP registrations with different servers/registrars
• Up to 3 concurrent calls per base station
• Three-way conference
• Remote setup, password protection
• Open DECT GAP standard

Firmware

• 2.02 – (https://wiki.snom.com/Snom_m3/Firmware/V2)
• 1.22
• 1.16 –
• 1.11 – 20080403 – Not shown on Snom’s website, but available to the handset (providing the Firmware-URL is set to http://provisioning.snom.com/m3/firmware/)
  • DND now set on the webpage
  • CWaiting now set on the webpage
  • Registration status of each handset now shown on the webpage
  • Codec selection problem (see below) resolved
  • Other changes unknown – Snom’s firmware release notes still show details for 1.07 (as at 20080520)
• 1.07

Incompatibility

• There is no documentation about the provisioning. From my reverse engineering, it looks to accept the same configuration file as the new incoming Polycom IP200W
• The MWI VoiceMail messages do not seem compatible with Asterisk 1.4, there is no way the phone shows how many messages you’ve received.

UPDATE: MWI works with Asterisk 1.4.17. dkaufman
UPDATE: MWI is still not working fully – numbers of messages not displayed. bcnit
UPDATE: MWI works with Firmware 2.02 on an Asterisk 1.4.10, for a number of new and total messages. OliverCH

• The M3 does not use the same SIP stack as other SNOM phones (3xx), so be aware of a whole new set of bugs.
• The handset doesn’t support GSM, so if you want a low bandwidth codec, you’ll have to run with iLBC or G.729.
• The base station/handset(s) don’t support provisioning in the same way as other Snom equipment.

Problems

• gmaoret – With Elastix 0.9.2 (I don’t know with other distributions) when a call is made to a busy or unavailable extension the base station reboots, losing all calls.
  • wmundy – Be sure you’re using their latest firmware.
    • gmaoret – I’d tried all the firmware version available. No one works.
• There is no way to download/backup/upload address book(s).
• Log doesn’t show enough SIP information to be useful (reason for failed registration etc.)
• Log doesn’t show DECT registrations. This makes adding other handsets difficult
• Log can’t be reset and timestamps are numeric (unix timestamps?) rather than the more useful real-world times (date/time)
• Firmware update takes forever and a day
• There is no way to disable the ‘Missed calls’ message.
• The handsets cannot be configured from the base station web interface (e.g. setting ringtones, PINs etc.) and have to be done manually
• 1.07 – Miscellaneous freezes/hangs
• 1.11 – When the IP address is set to ‘Static’, the home page of the base unit shows it’s IP address as ‘0.0.0.0’.
• 1.11 to 1.16 – MAJOR – Various reboots, lockups and resets causing disruption. The base unit has to be power-cycled to resolve these issues as it doesn’t sort things out for itself.

Resolved problems (A.K.A. make sure you’re using the latest firmware!)

• No easy way to see which UAs are registered and which aren’t (other than trawling through the log (see above))
• There’s a very big security hole (firmwares 1.01 and 1.07) : browsing http://snom_m3_base_IP_address/reboot.html will reboot the base immediately, even if you aren’t logged in !! NOTE – tested with 1.07 and this is not the case. Even if it were, it would only be an opportunity for a DoS, not a security issue.
• 1.07 – Just because a codec isn’t on the list of acceptable codecs for a handset, it may still be used (fixed in 1.11)
• Weird delay issues with audio traveling from the handset (going to the handset seems to be absolutely OK) when NATted
• Address book is set up manually on each handset.
• No keypad lock (available in 2.x)

Handset Codes

• Keypad Lock: * + <right softkey>
• Silence: # + <right softkey>

Configuration Tricks

• Automatically log on to the VM (Asterisk 1.4+, firmware 2.x) without entering mailbox number and PIN (if you don’t mind having the PIN visible on the handset and web interface)
  • Web Interface / Identity / Account Mailbox Name: Any name you like
  • Web Interface / Identity / Account Mailbox Number: <VMNumber>P<MailboxNumber>#P<PIN>#
  • Asterisk sip.conf: mailbox=<MailboxNumber>
  • <VMNumber> is the number you dial to access the VoiceMailMain, <MailboxNumber> is the number of the mailbox you like to listen to and <PIN> is the PIN of that mailbox.

Product links

• Snom wiki about M3, with current links to documentation

Reviews

• snom M3 product review

See also

• Using Snom phones with Asterisk
• DECT