Home Connect America Reviews

With version 10.2.0, all of my notification history disappeared and mostly does not work anymore (ie most notifications are no longer being saved in my history, they just disappear entirely now). The notifications themselves are also worded differently and are less clear and not as easy to understand at a glance as they were before this update. Also, opening HomeConnectAmerica takes longer now as it tries to connect to my appliances with a connecting screen showing instead of letting them load in the background. Very regressive update and really wish there was a way to rollback to the previous update, which honestly I would have rated 4-5 stars instead of 0-1 stars.

I’d like to explore the features of HomeConnectAmerica, but I can’t get past the faulty WiFi connection feature of my Bosch dishwasher. I have a mesh WiFi system in my house for coverage in every room. Even though my phone and my other appliances from other manufacturers get full strength signals in my kitchen, Home Connect insists that the dishwasher’s connection has failed, and tech support suggested a weak signal or a problem resulting from trying to connect to a more distant satellite instead of the main router which is closer. Even if I temporarily bring the router into the kitchen (which results in a successful connection), as soon as I move it back to its usual location, the appliance can’t connect anymore. With everything else in that room connecting to my mesh router system just fine with full signal strength, I ascribe this to a failure on the part of my Bosch appliance in how it connects to mesh WiFi networks. That makes HomeConnectAmerica and all the remote features unusable.

I use the Home connect app for my Bosch fridge/freezer and have been incredibly disappointed. First and foremost for the bold-faced lie about their remote diagnostic capabilities. When you click on the support section of HomeConnectAmerica it, in bold face letters, says Remote Diagnostics and explains how they can remote in to your device for assistance. After calling the customer service phone number provided, they explained that they do not have the ability to remotely diagnose problems with any appliance and the best that they can do is send a technician out ($150 fee + $200/hr labor). In my case the ice maker is not working; the fridge is 3 yrs old and there are no other issues or warnings from HomeConnectAmerica that the ice maker isn’t working; the device says it’s on, but it’s not making ice. HomeConnectAmerica lacks the ability to reset components or run diagnostics either. The only functionality it provides is the ability to turn on/off the ice maker (and it can’t even do that). Poor app and poor support.

HomeConnectAmerica overly user friendly and it wants to take you on these long tours talking about how great HomeConnectAmerica is but never really gets down to actual business. After going through all the tours, l was finally able to get to the part where l connect my Thermador Oven. The oven’s manual instructed me to connect to the wifi network that the oven creates which is used to connect to the Home Connect App which will then connect the oven to my home’s wifi network. I was able to successfully connect my smartphone to the oven’s temporary wifi network but HomeConnectAmerica refuses to work with it and says “no data connection through network”. I’ve read everything the manual says but things will not operate according to the manual. My career has been deeply involved with trouble shooting electronics and software. l can tell that this platform had a lot of money go into the graphics layout and the long tours, but very little effort was put into the software development. The system is full of bugs and is incomplete.

I just bought a Bosch dishwasher. The only way to access some functions is through HomeConnectAmerica . HomeConnectAmerica is not intuitive, it is a nightmare to use. And considering this is just a dishwasher, HomeConnectAmerica is way too complicated. There’s no feedback when you change a program to know that you’ve actually done something. Figuring out how to program it is next to impossible. I really miss having buttons I can push on the top of the dishwasher. This does not need to be so complicated.

Trying to set a delayed wash is impossible. HomeConnectAmerica makes no sense and we literally gave up because 4 different people couldn’t figure it out.

The last timer I tried to program for a delayed start, somehow the program to open the door when finished to expedite dying stopped working, even though HomeConnectAmerica says it is programmed to do that.

I’m not even trying to do anything complicated. I just want an eco-run and the door to open afterward. That’s it. I would love buttons on the top to allow a 2,4 or 6 hour delay start. This doesn’t seem like a lot to ask. Yet, I cannot for the life of me figure out how to do that through HomeConnectAmerica .

If I had known this dishwasher was functionally accessible only through an app, I never would’ve bought it. but now I’m stuck with it until it dies I guess.

We have a refrigerator where the ice maker started to make noise a month after the one year warranty expired. Within a couple of months the ice maker quit making ice altogether. Now I am getting alerts to empty the water tank. Nothing in the manual about having a water tank let alone emptying it. Customer service was no help. Said that this model doesn’t have a water tank and couldn’t explain anything about why/how home connect issued the alert. Set up appointment with technician. He was no help. Said we need a new ice maker. The tech said the water tank is the water filter. What a joke. Nothing in the manual about the water tank being the water filter, but the tech was at a loss on how to empty the water filter. Finally the tech admitted the filter was not the tank and would investigate later. Haven’t heard from him since he left. Bosch and HomeConnectAmerica is useless. Don’t buy Bosch and don’t waste your time with HomeConnectAmerica.

We got a $15,000 Thermador fridge delivered to our house with smart connectivity function that works with HomeConnectAmerica. Unfortunately, despite reaching out to the customer service center, to the IT support, to our vendor, and the chat function, nobody was able to connect the device to our app. As advised, I downloaded HomeConnectAmerica several times, tried different mobile devices, and all kinds of tricks. it does not connect. Finally, Bosch referred me to the service company that installed the fridge, they referred me back to Bosch. This is a totally useless experience. I will return the fridge and buy a subzero.
Update: I was able to connect HomeConnectAmerica . The email function for invitations does not work. The camera function of the fridge does not work. HomeConnectAmerica only shows limited set of camera photos, and updates it in an erratic way every two or three days. It’s never up-to-date. HomeConnectAmerica is absolutely useless, and I would recommend not to buy a Wi-Fi connected Thermador fridge because it’s a total waste of money.

by which I mean the whole team should be fired immediately. Start over by hiring one or two interns as it’s not likely to get any worse.

Bought a Borsch 800 dishwasher from Costco which was said made in Germany (which is further implied better than those made in North Carolina) in early July, 2024.

It’s almost impossible to connect HomeConnectAmerica to the dishwasher. Numerous steps ended with “not connected.”

Was able to finally get connected after two sessions, each with 5+ tries of going through the whole process again and again. For a total of more than 2 hours, maybe more than 3.

It might be the issue with the dishwasher side, or HomeConnectAmerica side, or both. I might even be the issue with this particular model, or not. It was a nightmare nonetheless.

It does work after establishing connection. And again, the user interface is totally garbage: not intuitive at all, numerous nonsensical functions, and a shopping function? Who would in their right minds buy your overpriced detergent, cleaning clothes etc etc from inside an appliance app? You think you’re WeChat or kind of super-app thing?

Go get yourself fired and try to be useful starting from flipping beaf paddies.

Worked fine with my dishwasher until the big app redesign. Now all I see is a silly guide to the glory of the new app, followed by a “start the show” button that crashes HomeConnectAmerica . When I restart, there’s a “try again” button which does nothing. Totally useless now.

Then it occurred that the company failed to adequately test migration from older app versions, so I deleted and reinstalled. Now I can get past the aforementioned intro screen and sign in, only to be confronted with a message that, “No changes can be made as you are not connected to the home connect server.” What a waste of time and opportunity. Some proper QA and teating before shipping would’ve saved me and others a lot of frustration.

Shame I spent extra on the wifi feature of my dishwasher for this.

Have a kitchen full of Thermador appliances and HomeConnectAmerica is largely useless. One simple thing that would have been amazingly useful: for an induction stove, HomeConnectAmerica offers the ability to control it remotely. You can set a time, set power levels, turn it off remotely… amazing. But here’s the caveat: after entering in the command you then NEED TO TOUCH THE SCREEN ON THE PHYSICAL STOVE. Who decided on that?!

So today it finally happened. The stove was left on and no one was home. I was at work and here’s the time when HomeConnectAmerica can finally do great things. So I go try and turn it off and it won’t let me unless I confirm on the screen. Who wasted money to build HomeConnectAmerica? I can understand confirming to turn it up to max, but to turn it off?!

What awful design. It gets two star cause it does allow the oven timer to set to control by web clock. This is literally the only useful thing HomeConnectAmerica does out of the three appliances I have.

I’m sure the product mgt team is forced to maintain this frustration-ware to satisfy top hippos who have some useless metric to hit for their bonuses. If I had known this unit *required* this coercive-ware to run **basic** features (I know because I already own a “dumb” unit), I would have looked at a different solution. Joke’s on me this time. So, as for UI, it’s fair but not intuitive. Steve Krug’s approach: don’t make me think. For example, this irritating smart cycle: can you delete them? Swipe to delete? Nope. Long hold? No. Where to manage them? It’s like the intuitive factor is intentionally missing. Over all, as for HomeConnectAmerica itself, it’s ok, but the controls to undo, remove, or just some signposting would help. Users like the delusion of control. Cant recommend at all really because of how invasive this feels just to wash dishes.

I have a Bosch 800 series dishwasher and I wish HomeConnectAmerica would store the user manuals for my appliance for offline use without having to hunt them down on the manufacturer website. There is a tab for User Manuals but it says:
"No user manuals found
We could not find the user manual for this appliance. Have a look at your appliance brand website to get the correct manual."

I do like the reminder to do a maintenance cycle with the deep cleaning stuff, but it took me a long time to figure out how to actually select and start the maintenance cycle- and i could only start it through HomeConnectAmerica , I still don't know how to start a maintenance cycle manually without HomeConnectAmerica . (I do like that it had a quick link to show me how to clean the filter and stuff, just not how to start the cycle)

Firstly, the set up and registration of the vacuum robots takes forever and multiple tries. The mapping then works ok and I must say is very accurate. Adding things to the map is tedious and HomeConnectAmerica crashes regularly or does not save changes or only one change. Task planning is complex - too many clicks needed-. In over 4 years it has not executed a scheduled task once and I can’t see what is wrong. I have to manually trigger the robot to drive.

Summary : Device and technical capability are great! Hovering is great, but it barely works due to a very bad control interface and non-functional scheduling functionality.

Ergo: not worth the money, as it does not save time.

Its like each appliance has its software written by a different team. Some appliances are good, some arent. The Thermador oven range software needs significant work. The range literally refuses to connect to the wifi unless you weaken security to WPA1. Even when you can finally get it to connect, stuff like remote start is flaky. Even when the knob is set for remote start, its hit or miss whether HomeConnectAmerica recognizes it. Cooking with the meat probe and HomeConnectAmerica is nothing short of frustrating with it making changes despite what you set it for and randomly turning off. Sometimes the software in the oven completely crashes and shuts down the oven. Its appalling quality software.

brand new Bosch dishwasher; we have lights and locks and sensors, but this is our first smart appliance (perhaps because the Bosch w/d has lasted 24 years)

went through several cycles of trying to connect immediately after installation; second try almost worked but app crashed after entering wifi password; then several more tries, always hunted and failed after two or three minutes; really a sad way to be introduced to one’s new appliance…

finally did a factory reset on the dishwasher and on second try it worked — my guess is th app crash left the dishwasher in a pickle

Bosch if you’re reading this, i think your smart home partner needs a stern talking to…

now trying out HomeConnectAmerica — it could be so much simpler and have fewer screensful of options that don’t do anything special; this sort of thing really ought to be on an open protocol so you could use apps that are bare bones or ones that hold your hands; one size does not fit all for home automation interfaces

We’re using this on a Bosch dishwasher. You can remote start your dishwasher and tell it what preferences you have (clean, quiet, etc.). Also allows you to turn on auto air for all cycles (of course!). I tried to use the tablet counter. Apparently the developer assumed there are no boxes of tablets that go beyond 100. Our boxes have 115! Therefore useless. I don’t like that you have to clear notifications. These should just expire. Who cares that your cycle was ready 3 days ago if you already ran more cycles. It goes without saying these should be of transient nature.

Update: app keeps logging me out every 8 weeks or so. It’s very annoying.

Works reliably for my fridge but one essential feature is missing. I get alerts while away at work when someone at home leaves a door open, which is great. It would be even better to receive an “all-clear” notification when the door is closed, so I know not to worry about it. Otherwise HomeConnectAmerica is inevitably “crying wolf.” Thank you.

Our new Bosch fridge is great but not perfect. Specifically, it makes way too much ice and it seems that with opening and closing the drawer, as the ice shifts, it makes even more ice to the point that if overflows to the bottom of the fridge cabinet.

While I am not sure the fridge software can be updated to prevent that, I wish HomeConnectAmerica allowed me to do few things:
1. When I set notification for full tray, I wish I had an option setting to turn off the notifications, once I set the ice-maker to off. There is no point in notifying me repeatedly about the full tray over and over again, once I turned off the ice maker.

2. I wish there was an option setting to actually turn off the ice-maker when the first “tray-full” notification is triggered. This way, the ice maker will stop producing until reenabled again, this could precent ice from overflowing.

This is a pretty annoying problem with this fridge and the above additions will at least make life easier with the overzealous ice maker this fridge has.

Thanks!

HomeConnectAmerica is helpful. But yet again, the consumer is left worse off by not allowing seamless HomeKit integration into iPhone. Now my parents have to use yet another appliance app instead of allowing us to put all our appliances in the Home app on iPhone which is simple to remember. We are stuck in 2010 era tech, which leaves many questioning why our dishwashers even need Wi-Fi when the apps are so ugly and hard to recall how to use unless you’re more technically literate.

Also btw give us matter support for seamless integration into all of our devices so we can actually embrace the concept of a smarter home.

I use this Home Connect app for my Bosch washer and dryer and it’s awesome! I receive remote notifications when my cycles are complete on my iPhone, and it’s even better when I get notifications on my Apple Watch- it’s so convenient! I can use HomeConnectAmerica to set my washer to complete a cycle when I wake up in the morning, it’s like doing laundry in my sleep! I can also schedule a wash cycle for later in the day, to finish when I get home from work. If I have a change of plans, I can always change the cycle end time on my phone at work. HomeConnectAmerica also has recipes and a variety of added value elements. Highly recommend, it’s easy to use and navigate.