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Hangouts’ hidden Google Voice integration shown in screenshot and on video

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Google Voice Hangouts

After the iOS version of Hangouts recently received the ability to make Google Voice calls over WiFi or cellular data, we had a good feeling similar functionality would soon arrive for the Android version. But even after hints of GV integration was initially found in Hangouts’ code many moons ago, here we are, countless updates later, and not a peep from Google about introducing any such functionality in Hangouts for Android.

Just as we were about to give up hope (or forget about it altogether), a crafty user on Reddit discovered an interesting prompt hidden inside Hangouts: Google Voice migration. While not quite live yet, the prompt can only be seen after enabling “All butter bars” in the Hangouts debugging menu. After being presented with the usual “butter bars” the “Migrate Google Voice to Hangouts” prompt suddenly appears, with the description reading, “Receive voicemail and send text messages in Hangouts.” Sweet, geebus.

Although it doesn’t appear the option to make VoIP calls using your Google Voice number is making the cut, Google Voice users have been screaming for Hangouts integration of any sort since last year’s overhaul. Guess all we can do now is continue to wait around for Google to make things official… some day. At the very least, let’s hope we get some of iOS’ other exclusive features like video messaging.

Video proof of the perpetually upcoming feature can be found via the YouTube video below.

Chris Chavez
I've been obsessed with consumer technology for about as long as I can remember, be it video games, photography, or mobile devices. If you can plug it in, I have to own it. Preparing for the day when Android finally becomes self-aware and I get to welcome our new robot overlords.

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11 Comments

  1. So need this… with the awesome, although Sense ridden M8, I need the voice integration in order to make my phone easily usable again… now if they can just do like the google dialer and not show me the damn mountain view numbers in my call history

  2. By “recently received” you mean Q4 ’13.. This functionality is far overdue on Android.

  3. Even Google respects iOS more than Android.

    1. It sounds like there’s something going on behind the scenes that is preventing them from introducing the feature on Android.

      Not only that, Google’s weakness has always been the fact that they have very different teams on different release schedules working on their different services.

      Guess the Hangouts iOS team has it easier, only having to target a limited number of devices.

      1. The iOS team is probably full of ex-Apple employees who knows iOS really well.

  4. It’s frustrating that when it comes to Google voice, IOS users get the better implementation while actual Google users are left out in the cold.

  5. Schweet

  6. The lack of any progress with Hangouts (including it’s terrible name), including Project Babel was the biggest disappointment of Google I/O. I know Google’s done that separately lately, but was still hoping.

  7. How do you get developer options in hangouts

  8. Finally…. Bring it on!!!

  9. I been using GV since it was Grand Central. It is my primary telephone number, and I do like the ability of setting up Simultaneous calling, especially with important enough people. My personal opinion for Google to do is first integrate GV calling into dialer automatically. Google knows if you have a GV number, and should just ask if you wish to display your carrier’s number, or GV. Second, there should be an option in the SIP settings to enable GV over Wifi. Obviously, Google doesn’t want to allow GV with common formats such as XMPP, or SIP. They have the systems, remember – they bought Gizmo5 which was a SIP provider. By doing this – at least for the Android dialer, it will eliminate the issues one may have with their cellular phone not getting a good reception, but has good Wifi. Hangouts should just handle the SMS/MMS features of Google Voice. Obviously, a person will pick the default number to send SMS/MMS from. Google Voice web site will stay just to manage phones, or could just be integrated into the profile. Just my thoughts

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