AVM is known for FritzBox routers. But with the products from the Fritz Smart Home series you will also find everything you need to turn your home into a technological miracle.
A small excerpt from the AVM Smart Home range. (Source: AVM)
AVM Fritz Smart Home: What is it and what does it offer?
Product range
- What is compatible with a Fritz Smart Home?
What do I need for construction?
Advantages and disadvantages
If you already have a FritzBox at home, you have already taken the first step into the AVM smart home ecosystem. Or to put it another way: Your FritzBox already offers the ideal basis for supplementing it with other AVM Smart Home products.
The smart home system from AVM has only been around for a few years, but offers a beginner-friendly advantage with its connection to the well-known and widely used FritzBox. Even the initially meager product range has now at least grown a little. We give you all the important information about the AVM Smart Home and tell you how to use it correctly at home.
AVM Fritz Smart Home: This is how the technology works
As with all well-known smart home systems, you can make your house or apartment smart with AVM products. What that means? You can easily control many processes in your house, such as lighting control or door locks, using your smartphone or even set up automatic processes that are carried out at certain times.
Other smart home devices provide more security or help you heat your own four walls more effectively. In the best case, you even save energy. With every year the possibilities of smart home technology grow.
AVM sells its own smart home products in two product lines: FritzPowerline and FritzDect. What’s special compared to other smart home systems: The network also partially runs via your power lines. Not only can you operate smart devices while on the move, the power consumption can also be determined directly and information about it can be passed on to you.
AVM Fritz-Hama products at a glance With the AVM FritzDect 210 radio socket, non-smart devices can also be integrated into the smart home. (Source: netzwelt)
The range at AVM is not quite as large as other smart home providers. For example, no surveillance cameras or smart locks from our own production are offered. At least the FritzDect series includes some of the essential components that a smart home needs.
Above all, there are the smart WLAN sockets, with which you can also integrate devices without smart home compatibility into your home network and control them via your smartphone. Smart radiator thermostats, smart switches and smart lamps are also available directly from AVM.
You still don’t have to do without other smart home devices, as the AVM Smart Home supports selected products from other providers. This brings us back to the question of compatibility.
WLAN sockets in the test: Smart adapter plugs and power adapters in comparison
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What is compatible with a Fritz Smart Home?
AVM Smart Home devices communicate with each other via the DECT ULE (Ultra Low Energy) radio standard. With this wireless standard, manufacturers usually rely on their own protocols, which makes it difficult to integrate devices from other providers, even if they also use DECT ULE. In order to break up the closed system, AVM has gradually made its own HAN-FUN protocol compatible with some other third-party devices.
The number of supported devices is still small, probably because AVM has only been offering its own smart home technology for a few years. This could change in the future, but so far only selected smart home devices from Telekom, Telegärtner, Becker and Rademacher can be combined.
FritzBox is Zigbee compatible – but only in a roundabout way
If you have a FritzSmart Gateway, you can also make your AVM Fritz Smart Home compatible with devices that support the Zigbee 3.0 wireless standard. This means the selection of products that can be integrated becomes significantly larger, as the Zigbee standard is supported by providers such as Philips, Ikea, Xiaomi and Somfy.
If you want to set up a smart home with lots of devices, a FritzSmart gateway is almost mandatory. However, with a price of around 70 euros, the gateway is also an expensive investment in order to retrofit compatibility that is already provided by default with some other smart home providers.
A FritzSmart gateway like this ensures that you can also integrate devices into your smart home that use Zigbee as the wireless standard. (Source: AVM)
What do I need for construction?
As mentioned at the beginning, everything at AVM runs via the FritzBox. It is the base station for your smart home and replaces the hub or bridge, which you have to buy from some other manufacturers. To get started, you will need at least one other compatible smart home device of your choice and a smartphone for convenient operation.
Although the system runs via the FritzBox, you don’t necessarily need an internet connection; you can also operate your smart home offline. This means you can avoid any data collection about your user behavior and reduce the risk of cyber attacks on your smart home devices. The manufacturer reveals on the linked website how many devices of a certain type you can use with the FritzBox.
However, without an internet connection, you can only use some of your smart devices to a limited extent and you can only control your devices when you are in close proximity. If you want to use it while you’re on the go, you can only do so via an active internet network. In particularly large apartments, you may also need to use additional repeaters from AVM in order to be able to route the radio signal to devices that are further away.
In order to be able to operate your devices with your smartphone later, you must finally download the “Fritz!App Smart Home”. It’s available free of charge for iOS and Android and acts as a remote control for your smart home. You can also use it to set up automations and routines for automatic command sequences.
With the right app, operating your smart home becomes child’s play. (Source: AVM)
If you want to integrate devices from external manufacturers, you may have to use other apps for central control. The smart home app IFTTT, for example, allows you to control several different systems via a common interface.
Advantages, disadvantages and what you should consider when buying
One advantage of the AVM Fritz Smart Home is that with a FritzBox you already have the necessary base station in your house and there is no need to buy a bridge or a hub. Setting up and operating the app is relatively simple, but that can also be said about many other smart home systems.
Another positive thing is that you don’t necessarily have to connect your smart home to the Internet. If you want more data security, you can mostly use AVM products offline, albeit with restrictions. Many other manufacturers require a connection to their own cloud services.
AVM Fritz!DECT 301 in the test: Fritz heats you up so intelligently
Cheap and easy to use – but hardly connected to the smart home
The Internet alone is no longer enough for Fritz!Box manufacturer AVM. He wants to heat up the smart home with intelligent thermostats. Does this work? We tested the AVM Fritz!DECT 301.
However, the (still) small product range at AVM as well as the severely limited compatibility with devices from other manufacturers severely limit your ability to set up and expand your smart home. The retrofittable compatibility with Zigbee at least provides some relief, but is tied to an additional device and therefore additional costs.
The AVM Fritz Smart Home is the right choice for you if…
If your goal is to build a really comprehensive smart home with many different devices, you are better off with other providers who rely on more common wireless standards or generally more compatibility. At least that is the case at this point.
Smart Home: Providers in Germany at a glance
Smart home providers at a glance
If you want to buy a smart home, you are spoiled for choice. Which system and which provider do you want to use? The market leaders and alternatives.
However, if the range we have listed above is enough for you and you already have a FritzBox at home, then the AVM Fritz Smart Home is definitely a good start into the home technology world of tomorrow.