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Comment by jszymborski | Hacker News Reader

FWIW, I've been using Twilio as a Google Voice replacement. I've yet to create a web interface, but currently texts to my public number get forwarded to my real number. I can text my public number with a password and a desired phone number to forward a text in the opposite direction. Phone calls to my public number get sent to a voicemail, and transcripts + audio files get texted to me. If I wish to initiate a call, I text my password and "call <phone number>" to get a call initiated.

It's been a fun, low-bandwidth interface, and it avoids me using a Google service.

I'd like to build a web interface, and use 2FA in addition to a password to access my extra functionality.

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"FWIW, I've been using Twilio as a Google Voice replacement. "

I did the same thing about 1.5 years ago. Haven't looked back.

I do almost all of my texting to friends and family from the UNIX command line using the 'sms' script I wrote. I can text from my phone number even if I don't have my phone. Even if it's off.

Please, please join me in pressuring twilio to add a 'email' verb to twiml ... there are so many simple use-cases that would be so trivial and easy if you could just call 'email' from inside a twiml bin.

Twilio doesn’t support inbound SMS from short codes, which limits 2FA usage.

Same. I transferred a few of the phone numbers I "collected" while traveling to Twilio, and have them all forward calls & SMS to my current "real" number.

I'd love to have a mobile app such as Burner's [0] to do messaging and outbound calls. Right now, when I do outbound SMS or calls, my real/current number appears, which adds a bit to the confusion on the other side. To make international calls, I use the mobile Google Hangouts app.

Burner is great, albeit more expensive than "raw" Twilio, of course. An official Twilio consumer app would be fantastic (but they're probably not interested to support this..?), otherwise an app that I can authorize to manage by Twilio account via OAuth would be great as well...

[0] https://www.burnerapp.com/

I can't tell you how many times I've considered a making SMS to Telegram gateway for myself using Twilio. My mom still SMSs me!

Is this something you can setup entirely in the Twilio console or are you using some custom code to handle it?

I'm using Twilio Studio atm, which let's you do everything in a drag-n-drop flowchart in the dashboard.

What are your approx. monthly costs? Is it possible to port the GV phone number to Twilio?

Twilio supports porting, but I don't know if GV numbers are special.

My monthly costs range between $1 to $5, but that's because (1) I very rarely call people, and (2) I transition quickly to email/Wire or some other messaging app if I want continued communication.

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