FRITZ!Box answering machine greeting: text to speech or your own file
The FRITZ!Box router has built-in answering machines, and each can play your own greeting. You can type a text and let the FRITZ!Box turn it into speech, or upload an audio file, which lets you use any voice you like: a calm professional narrator for a business line, a character for fun, or your own voice.
This guide follows the FRITZ! knowledge base and shows how to make the greeting file with the free SuperClonica engine.
The built-in text to speech greeting
According to the FRITZ! knowledge base, the FRITZ!Box can turn a typed greeting into an audio file. It needs a MyFRITZ! account set up in the box. Open Telephony, then Answering Machine, choose the answering machine and open its settings, click Change greeting, enable Own greeting and the text to speech option, choose the female or the male voice and type your text. The greeting is made in the language of the FRITZ!Box interface, so text in another language can be mispronounced.
Upload your own greeting file
For any other voice, upload an audio file. The knowledge base says own greetings may be up to 60 seconds long and lists WAV (8000 Hz, 16 bit, mono, recommended) and MP3 (constant bitrate, 128 kbit/s, 44.1 kHz, stereo). Under Settings for Recording and Greeting, click Change greeting, enable Own greeting, choose the file and click Apply. You can also record greetings through the answering machine’s voice menu.
Make the greeting in any voice
Hear voices free on their pages with a line of 30 to 100 characters, no account needed, then install the free engine with python -m pip install superclonica-cpu and run, for example, superclonica --text-file greeting.txt --voice voice.json --lang en --normalize --output greeting.wav. Convert it to the recommended format with ffmpeg: ffmpeg -i greeting.wav -ar 8000 -ac 1 -sample_fmt s16 greeting_8k.wav. Listen to the result once on a phone call; the telephone line makes audio narrower, so clear, calm voices work best.
Business hours and several greetings
The FRITZ!Box can run several answering machines, and the knowledge base describes using time control so that one plays during business hours and another outside them. Voice each greeting with the same voice and seed so callers always hear the same speaker, in as many languages as you need: the engine speaks 31 languages; Chinese is not supported yet.
Write a greeting people understand
Say who they reached, why you cannot answer and what to do next, in short sentences: “You have reached the Miller family. We cannot take your call right now. Please leave your name and number after the tone.” Write numbers as words if the voice should read them a particular way, and keep the whole greeting well under the 60-second limit.