# BrainHQ — user reviews > 380 indexed App Store user reviews of BrainHQ by Posit Science, rated 4.60/5 from 21,975 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/brainhq/id537452201/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/brainhq/id537452201.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 16,638 · 4★ 3,249 · 3★ 1,170 · 2★ 377 · 1★ 541 ## What do users think of BrainHQ? Overall sentiment: positive **Pros** - 🧠 Scientifically-backed brain exercises - 🤓 Challenging and engaging games - 🧠 Noticeable cognitive improvements - 👍 Customizable training focus - 🤝 Responsive customer support **Cons** - 💰 Expensive subscription - 🤔 Unclear instructions and scoring - 🐛 Bugs and glitches - 🙈 Limited free version - 🎨 Lack of diversity in some exercises **Commonly reported bugs** - Frequent app crashes - Audio issues on iOS - Inconsistent performance across devices - Progress reset issues **Most requested features** - Apple Watch app - Apple TV app - Better progress tracking in-app - Customizable difficulty levels - More diverse representation in exercises ## Newest reviews (22 of 380) ### 3/5 — Should be better *2026-08-20, version 10.1* Nice app with solid content and harder levels as you improve. You have to pay more money to access your own data and how exactly you are improving. All the app gives you are silly stars and meaningless pictures when you pass a game or level. Who know where they sell your results. ### 2/5 — multiple glitches *2026-07-26, version 10.1* I have an iphone and one of the exercises (Divided Attention)does not recognize when I correctly tap the screen. I have brought this to their attention and they acknowledged the problem but have not fixed it. Another exercise (Hear,Hear) cuts off the sound that one is supposed to match- making it impossible to do so. Very frustrating. Maybe better off taking piano lessons than using this. ### 2/5 — Disabled and disappointed *2026-07-18* I have MS and am constantly challenged in life with cognitive issues. I thought this app would assist me with thinking clearly and quickly. I find that the instructions to play certain games are hard to understand what to do and memory games flash items too quick to remember seeing exact locations. I wish it was slower and then gradually gets quicker to challenge me. But it doesn’t. That’s a 👎🏽 for me. **Developer response:** We're sorry to hear that - please email us directly at support@brainhq.com (mailto:support@brainhq.com) so we can help. ### 3/5 — Could be better *2026-07-13, version 10.1* The speech is terrible. On some tests it makes it unplayable. ### 4/5 — Mediocre app but decent tool overall *2026-07-10, version 10.1* The app is a good exercise. One must recognize a few exercises have terrible instructions but most are adequate. The app is buggy in that it fails to always register your responses correctly leading tostrikes against you. That will piss you off. Using AI to explore the clinical trials one does not find a validation regarding the exercises efficacy, but after using it one does feel sharper while driving for example. Is it worth it? Yes, I think, once one knows the peculiarities. You may end up using the website rather than the app as I have. Support is mediocre. BrainHQ may also delete your review here. ### 4/5 — Mediocre app but decent tool overall *2026-07-02, version 10.1* The app is a good exercise. One must recognize some exercises have terrible instructions but most are adequate. The app is buggy in that it won’t always register your clicks leading to a strike against you. Is it worth it? Yes, once one knows the peculiarities. You may end up using the website rather than the app as I have. Support is mediocre. BrainHQ may also delete your review here. Again, is it worth it? Yes. ### 3/5 — Too fast *2026-06-24, version 10.1* The feedback after completing exercises goes way too fast for me to read and you can’t go back to it anywhere. Please fix this! ### 2/5 — okay but.. *2026-05-28, version 10.1* I’ve tried to like this but at a certain point in the daily training it starts going too way to fast- is it realistically made for humans? I have to literally position my fingers millimeters from screen in order to hit it fast enough? then it becomes just stress. it’s no on this one ### 4/5 — Nice App *2026-05-15, version 10.1* Works well on my iPhone 12 but I downloaded it on my mom’s Google Pixel (2025) and the navigation task bar (the info, pause and exit buttons) when playing games is completely gone, so she can’t exit or pause any games ### 3/5 — Brilliant… but there is a huge accessibility problem. *2026-05-14, version 10.1* The tests are great. The system works very well, encouraging you to keep trying until you figure it out. However. There is no option for accessibility. Not even in the audio practice, which requires working ears. I wrote support and asked, and they told me directly that they have no plans to address this. The brains of those with disabilities apparently are a very low priority. I’m hoping it gets fixed eventually. This really is the best brain training game… but I don’t want to give my money to a company that views some humans as worth less effort. ### 4/5 — Great, but…. *2026-05-12, version 10.1* I’m only using the daily free version. Challenging, but fun! My only quibble is that the card memory game doesn’t give enough time to respond! Even hovering fingers over the thumbs up and down buttons doesn’t allow enough time to tap ### 2/5 — Erratic performance *2026-05-12, version 10.1* The sounds only work about 60% of the time, and they’re sporadic. Sound Sweep, for example, plays two tones for each challenge, and sometimes only the first one is audible, sometimes only the second one, sometimes both, and sometimes neither one. It beck Ea. Guessing game, which is not helpful. There are other challenges that exhibit erratic performance as well. There are also some games - Card Shark being one example - that have very confusing and unclear instructions on how to play. So far, this app is not proving very useful or worth the money for the paid version, although it IS helping me learn how to deal with frustration! The similar app Impulse has proven better and more reliable. ### 3/5 — また不具合おきてる！ *2026-05-11* トレーニング始めても、なにもやってないのに強制終了されたり、画面固まってリセットされてしまったりの繰り返しです！早めに直してほしい！ **Developer response:** それは大変申し訳ございません。サポートさせていただきますので、support@brainhq.com まで直接ご連絡いただけますでしょうか。 ### 3/5 — Poor sound quality affects training *2026-05-11, version 10.1* i’ve been doing one free daily training round, and enjoyed the first few, but then I got to treating where I have to listen to a conversation and answer questions about what was said. The problem that the sound quality of the app is so bad, I cannot understand that people are saying. My hearing is excellent, it’s not that. And the names that are chosen, are unusually spelled or uncommon, and that compounds the problem. I’m pretty disappointed with that ### 2/5 — can’t get past start *2026-04-22, version 10.1* I wish that every game presented had a clear demo or tutorial. I have little experience with video games and find myself completely puzzled at times, lost in terms of how to proceed. I’ve quit many tasks without making it past the “start” button, which is incredibly demoralizing. Is there a point to not providing more explanation? ### 3/5 — No allowance for colorblindness *2026-04-21, version 10.1* This app seems to be very good and helpful until you get to a spot where you’re depending on color and shades of color which it does a lot. I have sent messages and they tell me to adjust my phone, so ,they make no allowances. My phones colorblind options don’t seem to be helpful. unfortunately there are many visual and optic challenges.on this app ### 2/5 — Too repetitive, not enough feedback *2026-04-18, version 10.1* I wish it provided more feedback on whether I was getting any better at the games. What feedback it does give flashes up so quickly, I can’t read it. I’m also getting a bit bored as there’s only a handful of different games. ### 3/5 — It’s ok *2026-04-11* It might improve focus a little, but is no match for simply reading a book. This app doesn’t provide thinking puzzles/problems, it focuses on more fundamental aspects of thinking that feed into the intelligence required to solve problems, understand complex ideas, etc., like attention, focus and more. Except the facial expressions. What is that? Didn’t someone else prove that many facial expressions can be misinterpreted out of context? And many of the games seem to test the speed of your vision, which has always been fast for me, based on what my friends tell me compared to them. How does this help? I just played the flower matching game for the first time and was immediately in the top 1%. This hasn’t helped me in my everyday. And many of the games seem to have foreground and background designed similarly to confuse what you’re seeing. How does this help? And there’s way too much animation between screen transitions. WAAAYYY too much!!! Just read a book and track your own focus, attention and comprehension while you read and you’ll get better benefits than these games. **Developer response:** We're sorry to hear that - please email us directly at support@brainhq.com so we can help. ### 2/5 — Unpolished *2026-04-08* OK, but it needs work. For example, the voice in the to-do list exercise is extremely unnatural and hard to understand. In that same exercise, the instructions are sometimes ambiguous; it’ll say something like “You need item A after item B and then item C.” That could mean either B, A, C, or B, C, A. Of the exercises I’ve tried so far, that one is the worst, but others could use some polishing too. There’s one (I can’t remember the name) where there’s an image with blurry lines that either converge or diverge. The speed advances so quickly to such a rate that it’s just a wild guess. I understand that it needs to get more difficult, but it goes from easy to impossible almost immediately. I really want to like this app enough to subscribe, but the one-per-day free exercises I’ve seen so far are not encouraging. UPDATE: the ambiguity in the to-do list exercise instructions is fixed, but the voice quality is still comically bad. **Developer response:** We're sorry to hear that - please email us directly at support@brainhq.com (mailto:support@brainhq.com) so we can help. ### 3/5 — Nur in Englisch *2026-04-03* Grundsätzlich tolle App, da nur in englischer Sprache, habe ich mich gegen die kostenpflichtige Version entschieden. **Developer response:** BrainHQ ist tatsächlich in 13 Sprachen verfügbar, darunter Arabisch, Niederländisch, Französisch (Kanadisch), Deutsch, Griechisch, Hebräisch, Italienisch, Japanisch, Koreanisch, Mandarin, Portugiesisch, Russisch und Spanisch. Bitte beachten Sie, dass nicht alle Übungen in jeder Sprache verfügbar sind, aber wir würden uns freuen, wenn Sie es ausprobieren! Bei Fragen können Sie uns gerne unter support@brainhq.com (mailto:support@brainhq.com) kontaktieren. ### 2/5 — Sound not always clear *2026-03-30, version 10.1* When playing one of the tests, I was unable to understand some of the names mentioned in the dialog which made it difficult to track the conversation. But worst was a game where we listened to a list of items to identify but the recording was broken up which made it difficult to follow. ### 3/5 — okay but.. *2026-03-25, version 10.1* I like this but at a certain point in the daily training it starts going too fast- is it realistic that to have to literally position fingers millimeters from screen in order to hit it fast enough? no- then its just stress -not training. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 1/5 — to short free mode *2026-08-20, version 10.1* i’d never pay for something like this when i can only see so little of how it works. prove you aren’t snake oil if you want a dime lol. ### 1/5 — Good idea bad execution *2026-08-19, version 10.1* No clear path and exercises seem not to progress with a clear goal. Improving cognitive functions is important but only effective if it has a strategy/path. ### 1/5 — No phone available, unable to talk with anyone *2026-08-17, version 10.1* I am highly frustrated by the inadequate service provided by this app. You are forced to pay for a subscription immediately before you can even properly test or play other games to evaluate the product. Worse yet, when you run into issues, there is no clearly visible or accessible customer support system to communicate with. The user experience feels locked behind a paywall without any safety net for troubleshooting. I am leaving this critical comment in the sincere hope that the management team and developers read this and change their restrictive model and hidden support structure. ### 1/5 — Steaks your money *2026-08-13, version 10.1* Once you’ve signed up you can never cancel the subscription! ### 1/5 — Yuck *2026-07-19, version 10.1* Developing peer reviewed work into games that can help blunt public health impacts of dementia is great. Charging exorbitant subscription rates for it is evil. The science is funded, the game development is not terribly expensive, and using the studies as branding for the sake of profiteering is disgusting. Ordinary everyday capitalist evil, but evil. Non-jerks have tried to replicate UFOV games for free as open source options but of course they don’t have access to the progression algorithm data derived from the study which was monetized by the jerks. ### 1/5 — Over charged *2026-05-20, version 10.1* I purchased a 1 year subscription for $99.99 in March 2026 and I’ve been over charged. Once in April 26’ for 94.99 and twice in May. I want a refund!!! Unfair ### 1/5 — Cannot manage through the app store *2026-03-12, version 10.1* I tried to purchase the app based on their directions. However, they no longer allow app purchases through Apple. You have to purchase through their website so they don't have to pay Apple the $30.00 app fee. I don't want a web-bases app. Without it you get one free game per day. I instead purchased another app at half the price. I asked AI for specific apps targeting my needs and have purchased these through the app store. Web-based apps can become hard to locate and hard to cancel. It also shows profit before people. Yes, we know the app was in a study. So you now milk the public for it. There are better apps. ### 1/5 — Say what?? *2026-03-05, version 10.0* I used the free app daily for a few weeks and just deleted it. Poor graphics. Some games didn’t work. Inscrutable tracking— Stars, Moments (??) etc that don’t actually track your progress. The text that comes up post game moves so fast that you can’t read it, especially since the text doesn’t even fit the screen. Some of BrainHQ’s issues are pretty basic (such as fit-to-screen text). This seems like an early beta version. ### 1/5 — Convoluted method of purchasing. I went with another training program. *2026-03-03, version 10.0* Why do I have to go through this convoluted method of purchasing an app? Why can’t I purchase it through the App Store so I can manage it? I was sent directions, but it’s sold in the App Store—not. I guess you buy it from them with a list of 10 steps. ### 1/5 — Stopped working after first day *2026-02-23, version 10.0* I managed to try this once, and found it interesting. The instructions claim that you can try an exercise once per day to get a good idea of the app before subscribing. However, after trying 4 days in a row, I get the message that I can try tomorrow or subscribe. That is not what was promised. There won’t be a 5th try. ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — I understand now *2026-06-20, version 10.1* A few days ago I wrote whining about how there was no way to progress part a point in the memory test with sound cards. I understand now. Thanks ### 5/5 — Visual Sweeps *2026-05-28, version 10.1* The instructions for the visual sweeps exercise make absolutely no sense whatsoever. It’s utterly impossible to do it. ### 5/5 — Need to turn off blockers quickly *2026-03-04, version 10.0* I use an application firewall that asks permission for incoming requests. If I don’t answer quickly enough, the app believes I’ve already used the free trial that day, so will not load. The option to always allow for this app will solve the problem. Either that or get really fast with hitting OK. ### 5/5 — Good app, great science *2026-02-21* Very happy I found this via an NPR article. Looking forward to more exercise. Would love to see the app internationalized! ### 5/5 — Great App *2025-10-31* I love everything about this app but there’s no way to subscribe. I followed the instructions but the app didn’t show under subscriptions on iOS ### 5/5 — Love this! *2025-08-14, version 10.0* My mother had Alzheimer’s with its accompanying dementia. It was horrible, watching her slowly disappear. Because Alzheimer’s sometimes runs in families, I’m doing everything I can now to fight it. BrainHQ has definitely improved my memory and brain processing speed. I never miss a day. ### 5/5 — Superbe appli, juste un manque de langues *2025-08-11* BrainHQ est une superbe application. Son seul bémol est le manque de langue (francais par exemple). Alors qu’en plus cette langue est disponible sur le navigateur…. ### 5/5 — The best I’ve tried! *2025-05-22* I have tried several different brain training apps over the years and I feel like this one is the best. It really feels like my brain is being challenged, and I can see real world improvements. I’ve even recommended it to other people, which I don’t normally do with apps! ### 5/5 — Take a break *2025-04-20, version 8.9* I want to put this app on hold for a while, but can’t figure out a way to do it. Any suggestions? ### 5/5 — Excellent *2024-07-06, version 8.2* I've been doing Brain HQ since 2018. I like it more every day I practice -play ! It has many different games. Highly recommenbded app --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-08-29.*