Everything you need to know to get your Exchange up and running.
Choose the POTS Box that's right for you. Connect your vintage telephone and your Internet. Your POTS Box Operator activates your account, and you're ready to make and receive calls. Your exchange at app.pots-box.org is all you need to create your world.
Bought your own adapter instead? Our four-step configuration walkthrough shows you exactly where each setting goes.
Lines are real phones — ATAs (analog telephone adapters), SIP desk phones, or softphones. Each one registers with your Exchange and gets a dial code so other phones on your exchange can call it.
Services are AI extensions. Browse and share listings from the Yellow Pages. Or write your own prompt, pick a voice, and anyone on your Exchange can dial in to hear it. A service can speak once (like a recorded announcement) or stay on the line for a real back-and-forth conversation.
Extension 0 is the POTS Box Operator — an AI switchboard who knows your Exchange and can transfer callers by name to any service or line.
The Yellow Pages is a collection of services shared by community members. Click Add to My Exchange on any card to copy it to your own — you can edit the prompt, voice, and style before saving. To share something you've built, open it in the editor and use the Share button.
Some services can pull in live data from the outside world — current weather, NASA's photo of the day, trivia questions, and more. These are called capabilities ⚡, and you enable them per service in the editor. When someone calls in, the capability fetches fresh data in real time and makes it available to the AI before the call begins.
A weather service, for example, enables the Weather capability so it knows what's actually happening outside right now — not what the AI might guess. A daily trivia line pulls a new question every time. Capabilities are what make AI services feel alive rather than canned.
All service prompts support
{{tokens}} — live data filled in at
call time. {{weekday}} becomes
"Tuesday," {{greeting}} becomes "Good
evening," {{weather_summary}} pulls
today's local forecast. Click any token chip in the editor to insert it.
Calls between phones on your Exchange — and calls to friend Exchanges — are always free. But AI services (the Operator, the weather line, story services, and everything like them) run on real AI infrastructure that we pay for per call. That cost changes as our providers change their pricing, and we can't absorb it indefinitely.
To keep AI services running, you purchase coins — a small prepaid credit balance. When you first sign up, the community offers you a free 25¢ to get started. Claim it from your White Pages console. It's enough for several calls, so you can try everything before you decide to add more.
Join us on r/potsbox — share what you've built, ask questions, or just show off your setup. For anything else, write to jtayler@me.com.