NEW YORK – With two new products, Skype has made it easier to make Internet calls from home phones, for savings on international calls and potentially also domestic ones.

But compared to other Internet calling options for the home, Skype’s solution is a piecemeal and complicated way to save money. All the same, some Skype fans may appreciate the new cordless phone with a built-in Skype function.

We tested the phone along with the new Freetalk Connect-Me phone adapter, which Skype sells for $40. That price includes an hour’s calling. For an additional $20, you can get free calls to the U.S. and Canada for a year. Calls to people on Skype (as opposed to those reached by dialing a number) are free, no matter where they are.

The adapter is a small box that plugs into a power outlet. You connect cables to your Internet router, your phone jack and your home phone.

When you make a Skype call, the adapter diverts the call from the external phone line to your Internet connection. But first you have to pre-program the adapter to recognize certain speed-dial numbers as corresponding to Skype contacts or phone numbers. Since it’s truly a “black box” – with no buttons or screen – you reach it through your Web browser.

This clunky setup prevents you from making impromptu Skype calls. Because your phone isn’t designed to work with Skype, you can’t access your Skype address book directly on the handset, or see who’s online to take your calls. Since home phones don’t have cameras, you won’t be able to do video calls. On the plus side, the phone lets you receive Skype calls at any time, without having your computer on.

But what really sinks the Skype adapter in my esteem is the sound quality. On calls to international and domestic phones, there were odd hissing noises in the background and voices were muffled. One person I called heard her own echo, a common phenomenon on poorly configured Internet phone systems.

The audio improved greatly, to the level of a good cellphone call, when I ditched the adapter for the other recent Skype release, the GE Digital Cordless Expandable phone. It costs $70 with 400 minutes of calls thrown in. For another $20, you get a year of calls to the U.S. and Canada and 200 minutes of calls to international phones.

It looks like any cordless phone, except it has a prominent “Skype” button. It can make and receive regular phone calls, and the buttons and screen make it a lot easier to make Skype calls than it is with the adapter. The phone shows you which of your Skype contacts are online, and when you dial a number, you can choose whether to route it through Skype or the phone company.

But if you call the same few people overseas over and over again, and they’re not big Skype users, there’s another way of making cheap Skype calls from your home phone, without the use of an adapter or special phone. You can sign up for the To Go service on Skype’s website. If you give it an international number that you like to call, it will give you a local number back. Call that number from your home phone, and Skype connects your international call at its rates, rather than the phone company’s. It’s like a calling card, but without the hassle of entering a bunch of numbers on the phone. (A competitor called Rebtel has a similar service.)

The drawback to Skype To Go is that you can only call phone numbers – it won’t connect you to Skype users for free.

Now, it looks like you could reap some really big savings by eliminating your home phone service altogether in favor of the Skype phone or adapter. After all, Skype charges about as much for a year’s worth of service as a phone or cable company does for a month.