magicJack plus 2014 Power, Indicator Lights and Standards Compliance

Power, Indicator Lights and Standards Compliance for the magicJack plus 2014

In this video I quickly go over the power, indicator lights and the contravention of phone line polarity standards for the magicJack 2014 in comparison with the magicJack 2012.

Today we’re looking at indicator lights, power and some standards for the magicJack plus. We’ll be comparing the magicJack plus 2014 to its predecessor, the magicJack plus 2012.




For starters, when I plug the 2014 into the killawatt ez, it shows me that the device draws about one tenth of an amp continuous. When I plug the 2012 into the killawatt ez, the older device draws about the same number of amps.

I looked at voltage. When I measure directly from the 2014 power supply, I get a measurement of about 5.23 dv volts availble to the magicJack. When I measure the two USB ports on the magicJack itself, the voltage is just at about 5 volts. For the 2012, the volts measure just over five volts at 5.04.
I then used my Gardner Bender line tester to check the polarity of the phone jack. Ideally, the polarity tester should give a green light. The magicJack 2014 does not pass the polarity test and instead gives a red light. The magicJack 2012 does pass, as seen with this green light.
Next, lets look at the indicator lights. When we first plug in the 2014, we get a continuous blue light, followed by a continuous green light for about ten seconds. Then the green light blinks on and off in a two second cycle. About five seconds after you plug in the ethernet cable the red light will glow for a few seconds and then blink in a similar two-second cycle. When you plug in the phone jack, indicator lights don’t change in any noticeable way. When your device is working correctly, you should see a continuous blue light with the red and green lights chasing on and off as shown here. The blinking green light suggests the device has passed internal diagostics and is ready for use. The blinking red light suggests your device is properly connected to magicJack’s proprietary SIP servers.
The 2012 has a single plus-shaped light port. When first powered up, the blue light remains continuous. In about five seconds a white light slightly below the blue light will begin blinking in a two second cycle. Nothing changes on the 2012 when you connect to the ethernet cable, and the same is true with the phone cable. When you see a continuous blue light with a white light blinking from within the same light port, the magicJack 2012 is functioning correctly.
While most modern phones have built-in diode bridges to prevent problems with line polarity, the magicJack 2014 does not pass the accepted polarity standard that has been part of phone services for almost as long as phones have been in business. I doubt this was intentional because anyone who might use the device for non-magicJack purposes on a system that needs the accepted polarity standards would merely need create a cheap polarity reversal cable between the phone and the device, circumventing the design flaw. I can only assume the flaw is unintentional. Please post your thoughts in the comments. Was it intentional or is there some proprietary reason why them might have flouted one hundred thirty-some-odd years of polarity standard?
We still have yet to see how the USB ports and the SDIO port will be used. Previous chats with magicJack chat support suggest a future firmware update will give the device access to these ports. With regards to WiFi, it’s possible the device could use an off-the-shelf SDIO card like one from SpecTec. Unfortunately they currently offer only a mini SDIO card. There are no micro SDIO cards available in the marketplace as of this posting, but who knows, a device that fits may be just around the corner.
The USB ports may be for use with USB phones. I’ve tried two old USB phones that work with skype, msn and yahoo messenger and many SIP soft phone apps, but the magicJack plus 2014 currently does not recognize any of these. Let me know if you find one that works with yours.
In a previous post on the mjcheck website, I showed how the magicJack plus 2014 costs about 61 cents more per year to run than the magicJack 2014. Perhaps this is because more power may be needed to run peripherals from the magicJack.
That’s all that can be said of the magicJack 2014 in comparison to the 2012 with regards to power, standards and indicator lights.