Voice activated, handsfree telephone answering device

A telephone answering device that is activated by a proximity sensor when a user crosses its field of detection and whose operation is controlled by simple voice commands. The device incorporates speaker-independent voice recognition circuitry to respond to spoken commands of the user that are elicited by a system generated voice request menu. The telephone answering device performs all the basic functions of a telephone answering machine in response to these simple commands and there is no need for the user to manually operate the telephone answering device.