General questions
The first Bosch Home Connect dishwashers and ovens have been available since December 2014. Washing machines, dryers, coffee machines and fridges came on the market at the end of 2015. Home Connect appliances from all product categories are thus available for the connected kitchen. Other appliances including vacuum cleaners will follow soon.
That is what we are aiming for! We are starting with fully compatible Bosch,Home Connect appliances. However, we are already talking to partners and other brand manufacturers.
Upgrading or retrofitting existing appliances tends to be difficult for the following reasons: Compared to a solution designed from scratch, one that is built in at a later date will always be less satisfactory and comparatively expensive. Home appliances are also subject to special safety precautions, which have to be taken into account and tested if electronics parts are changed on site.
We also advise against using smart plugs or controllable adapters due to the risk of sudden outages.
This isn’t envisaged so far, at the moment we're really focusing on home appliances. However, we're keeping an open mind, in that our devices and the entire Home Connect system can be integrated into other home automation systems. Find out more about our cooperation with partners.
Yes, a home appliance can be accessed by different mobile devices.
Home Connect appliances are available in nearly all electronic retail stores and selected kitchen furniture stores.
You can find more details on which types of home appliances work with Home Connect in the Smart Home Appliances section.
According to the Home Connect Terms of Use, the country settings in your user account are to be changed accordingly when moving. Just select the appropriate country in the settings of the Home Connect app.
Please note that using the Home Connect app in another country may be subject to other terms of use and other data privacy policies. If your new country cannot be found in the list, any further use of the Home Connect app is not supported by us and is prohibited according to our Terms of Use. Furthermore, we do not support using the Home Connect app in conjunction with a home appliance for which usage in the relevant country is not allowed. Our Terms of Use do not, therefore, allow such usage. If you are not sure whether you are allowed to use the home appliance in the new country, please contact the manufacturer of your home appliance.
Please see the notes on "Moving my Home Connect appliances to another country". If you move to a different continent, your new country may not be included in the list of supported countries. In this case, please delete the Home Connect installed. Then download and install the Home Connect app for your new country from the App Store/Play Store. Reset your Home Connect appliances to their factory defaults, set up a new user account and register your home appliances in the app again.
You can delete your Home Connect account anytime using the app. In order to do this, click on the settings button on the top right corner. In the personal settings section you, will find "Delete user account". You must then confirm the deletion by entering your password.
Questions about the app
The app is available for iOS and Android.
The app is free of charge and can be downloaded from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.
No, this isn’t something that is planned because it means you will not incur extra charges in the form of an additional control device. As tablets and smartphones of all makes are on the market, we have designed Home Connect so that our solution will work with all standard models.
Yes. Users with extended user rights can see and manage the profiles of other app users. For all commonly used appliances, you can also manage the user rights of these users.
Your privacy is important to us
We ensure that you have control over the data you share.
Before you connect an appliance or service to Home Connect, we will tell you exactly what information will be shared.
You can cancel the connection with partner services at any time.
All companies that we work with must agree to certain guidelines on the use of the information they share. We take these rules very seriously and can suspend access by third parties at any time. You can also terminate linked partner services any time you wish. If, for example, you delete your Home Connect account for any reason, we will automatically cancel the connection to all active links for you.
We take additional measures to ensure that your data is secure.
Data protection is important. As is security. All our connections use SSL. This means that the communication between Home Connect and other companies is always encrypted.
Questions about data protection
The Home Connect system works with all standard Wi-Fi routers available on the market provided they are no more than five years old (estimated). For security reasons, Wi-Fi networks must be encrypted (WPA or WPA2 encryption). If your Wi-Fi network is not encrypted, you will not be able to register your appliance.
We use cutting-edge encryption technology and periodically ask independent experts to thoroughly test our system.
Our security concept consists of a range of measures: Data exchange is based on the Home Connect protocol. Only essential data is stored on the Home Connect server. Communication is also only possible over encrypted networks; secure certificates, a firewall on the server and password protection for the Home Connect app ensure additional security.
You can delete your Home Connect account anytime using the app. In order to do this, click on the settings button on the top right corner. In the personal settings section you, will find "Delete user account". You must then confirm the deletion by entering your password.
Questions about connection and signal strength
No, a LAN connection is not planned because Home Connect uses Wi-Fi for data exchange. It would be very complex to set up a LAN cable for every appliance. We decided to use Wi-Fi technology because this is now available in almost every household.
No. The home appliances communicate with your smartphone or tablet via the Wi-Fi router. No other equipment is necessary.
There are various options available here. It is possible to extend the range of your Wi-Fi router with a Wi-Fi extender. If the Wi-Fi extender is placed between the appliance and the router, wireless Internet reception should, for instance, extend to the basement without any problem. A second option is to use a powerline adapter to extend the Internet to your home appliance. You can then log into the Internet directly with your networked appliance and control it this way. Our Customer Service team would be happy to advise you in both cases and help you with any hardware you may need.
Yes, to some extent extenders provide WPS pairing. Otherwise, it is possible to pair your home appliance manually (see manual pairing).
How to connect your home appliance - if you have router with no WPS button:
Switch on your home appliance and go to the appliance settings. Navigate to Manual Network Connection (also called SA) on the home appliance and click on connect. Since this step may vary on different home appliances, please see the printed installation guide (supplied with your home appliance or download below). The home appliance now establishes its own temporary Wi-Fi network with the name „HomeConnect“. Take your Smartphone or Tablet and connect it with this temporary network (password: "HomeConnect"). Then return to the Home Connect app and enter your home network credentials which will be passed on to the home appliance to connect itself within your home network.
There are apps such as Wi-Fi Analyser that you can use to check the reception where your appliance is located.
You can also use your smartphone or tablet to check the signal strength where your appliance is.
In principle, all routers are suitable for connecting Home Connect appliances with the app. Experience shows that, among other things, routers of the brands AVM (Fritz! Box), Deutsche Telekom (Speedport), as well as Apple (AirPort Express) provide a very good Internet connection.
Home Connect normally works with the standard Wi-Fi settings on commercially available routers. In some cases, certain settings need to be changed manually. If necessary, please check the following settings on your router. You can find information on the configuration settings in the installation instructions for your router.
If necessary, e. g. in the event of manual setup, the following tips and settings should be noted:
- Encrypt your Wi-Fi network, preferably using security level WPA2 or at least WPA. Open networks are not suitable for use with Home Connect.
- Home Connect works with the following network modes: IEEE 802.11 b, g and n. Please ensure that your router is set up accordingly. Home appliances are only compatible with a 2.4 GHz band. When you connect an appliance, please change the settings for your network accordingly.
- Home Connect does not work with Wi-Fi networks which require browser registration, e. g. where the user name and password must be entered via the web browser.
- You should have a stable Wi-Fi network with a good signal and access to the Internet.
- Turn off the "MAC Filter" on the router to prevent MAC addresses for your home appliances and communication-enabled appliances from being saved.
- The use of proxies is not recommended.
- Ports 443, 8080 and 123 must be open.
- The multicast-routing option must be enabled on the router in order to establish a connection to Home Connect appliances.
