Brightspace Pulse vs PhoneIoT
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Brightspace Pulse
Stay connected with your courses on the go. Visualize upcoming deadlines, manage your time effectively, and receive real-time updates on course activities. Access course content offline and participate in discussions.
- Visualize upcoming dates and deadlines
- Receive push notifications for course updates
- Offline access to course content
- Participate in Activity Feed discussions
- Seamless browser login to D2L Brightspace
- Apple Continuity support
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Stay connected to learning anytime, anywhere with Brightspace Pulse. Brightspace Pulse gives learners and their authorized parents and guardians a convenient way to follow coursework, deadlines, progress, and important updates. Learners can: - Access their course content - View important dates and deadlines across their courses - Manage upcoming and overdue coursework - Receive notifications for Announcements, Grades, Quizzes, Assignments, Activity Feed posts, and more - Access supported course content offline, including video and audio - Participate in Activity Feed discussions - Open Brightspace in a browser to complete additional activities Parents and guardians can: - View upcoming and overdue work, grades, shared Portfolio items, and classroom updates - Receive notifications about quizzes and assignments with upcoming due dates - Follow multiple learners from one account, when supported by their school or organization Features vary by role and by your institution or organization’s Brightspace configuration. An account provided by your school, district, or organization is required. Parent and guardian access must be enabled by the learner’s school or organization. NOTE: iPhone, iPad, and Mac are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the United States and other countries.
PhoneIoT
This app connects to a block-based programming environment, enabling remote access to your device's sensors and display. Students can create interactive projects, like using their device as a remote control for robots.
- Connects to NetsBlox educational programming environment
- Remotely access iOS device sensors
- Control device display from code
- Create engaging programming projects
- Enable device as robot remote control
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PhoneIoT allows you to connect to NetsBlox (https://editor.netsblox.org/?), a block-based educational programming environment, and remotely access your iOS device's sensors and display from code. Along with some of the other distributed computing services available through NetsBlox, this allows students to create highly engaging projects, such as turning your iOS device into an accelerometer-enabled remote control driving a virtual or physical robot rolling around on the ground (via the pre-existing RoboScape service on NetsBlox).
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: PhoneIoT at 100% against Brightspace Pulse's 36%. PhoneIoT also leads on rating (5.0 vs 4.8) and iOS requirement (13.0 vs 15.1). Brightspace Pulse's advantage is ratings volume (263K vs 4) and chart position (#31 vs unranked). On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
PhoneIoT holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.8. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Brightspace Pulse has 263K ratings behind it against 4, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 36% of Brightspace Pulse's written reviews are positive against 100% of PhoneIoT's.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 24, 2026 and July 23, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Brightspace Pulse | PhoneIoT |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.8 (263K ratings) | 5.0 (4 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 36.1% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 263K — better | 4 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks | Every 2 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Best chart rank | #31 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 | 13.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 50 MB | 22 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | D2L Corporation | Devin Jean |
Customer experience
Brightspace Pulse
PhoneIoT
Bugs and requests
Brightspace Pulse
Reported bugs
4 issues- Frequent log-out problems
- Inability to load course content
- Notifications not working as expected
- Compatibility issues with older devices
Requested features
4 requests- Allow file downloads and exports
- Improve notification reliability
- Optimize for tablet/iPad use
- Add more customization options
PhoneIoT
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Brightspace Pulse
No in-app purchases
PhoneIoT
No in-app purchases









