Comparison

Sense Home vs HSBuddy

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Sense Home

Gain real-time insights into your home's energy consumption to reduce electricity bills and minimize environmental impact. Identify energy-wasting devices and receive custom notifications for enhanced home safety and efficiency.

Highlights
  • Real-time energy consumption monitoring
  • Identify energy-wasting devices
  • Personalized energy-saving tips
  • Customizable real-time notifications
  • Remote home monitoring
  • Carbon footprint reduction
Features
Read full description

→ Take control of your home energy use, in real time. Sense turns your home's electrical activity into real-time insight, so you can use energy more efficiently, spend less, and stay ahead of your electric bill. → Save energy. Save money. Most people only find out what they used once the bill arrives, when it’s too late to change anything. Sense shows you how much energy your home is using right now and how this month compares with the last, straight from your phone. You’ll see what’s driving your bill, get tips that fit your home, and start reacting less and planning more. → Find your home’s energy hogs. Minimize what you waste. A lot of devices in your home draw power even when they're off: some by design, some because they've grown less efficient over time. Sense helps you find what's quietly running in the background, so you can decide what's worth unplugging, fixing, or replacing. → Get real-time notifications. Keep your home running the way it should. Peace of mind starts with knowing. Worried about heavy rain? Get notified if your sump pump stops running. Forgot the oven was on? Sense will tell you. Customize your alerts so the people and things you care about stay looked after. → Check in from anywhere. Know what's happening at home. Whether you're at the office, running errands, or spending time with family, the Sense app keeps you connected: what's on, what it's costing, and whether anything needs your attention. → Small changes. Real impact. Understanding your home's energy use is one of the clearest ways to cut waste and lower your footprint. Sense gives you the visibility to make smarter choices, so saving energy and doing right by the planet can be the same thing. → Customer support Website: https://help.sense.com Submit a Ticket: sense.com/contact

About

HSBuddy

Control your HomeSeer home automation system from your mobile device and Apple Watch. Manage devices, run events, view camera feeds, and create custom dashboards. Automate tasks with Siri shortcuts and widgets.

Highlights
  • Control and edit devices
  • Run and edit events
  • View camera feeds
  • Customizable dashboards
  • Siri shortcuts
  • Home Screen widgets
  • Push notifications
Features
Read full description

HSBuddy is a free application for iOS® that turns your mobile device into the ultimate companion for your HomeSeer® home automation system. With the included Apple Watch companion app you can take control of your home from your wrist! Certain features require an additional HomeSeer controller plug-in which you can install from the plug-in manager in your HomeSeer configuration pages. Look for HSBuddy under the User Interfaces section. Complement your home automation experience and use HSBuddy to: • Control and edit devices • Run and edit events • View history of device state changes * • View images from your home cameras ** • Create your own customized dashboards • Speed up your daily automation tasks » Create Siri shortcuts » Place Widgets for your Home Screen • Send push-notifications to your devices as part of your server events • Browse your HomeSeer server logs * • Enable geo-location on the app and location-based events * • Automatically switch between local-WiFi and remote connectivity to your server based on your location. • Connect to multiple HomeSeer servers and switch quickly between them • Use Smart Tags to quickly control a device or run an event by tapping a tag with your phone *Requires installing the free HSBuddy HomeSeer controller plug-in **Compatible with some existing HomeSeer controller camera plug-ins To use this app you need a running instance of HomeSeer. To find out more, visit http://www.homeseer.com For more information and troubleshooting help, go to http://hsbuddy.avglabs.net

Screenshots

Sense Home4 screens
HSBuddy4 screens

Verdict

The call

Sense Home and HSBuddy both sit at 4.5 stars, but that hides the real split: 76% of HSBuddy's written reviews are positive against 39% of Sense Home's. HSBuddy also leads on monetization model (free vs ad-supported) and device support (4 vs 2). Sense Home's advantage is ratings volume (2.3K vs 29) and update cadence (fortnightly vs every 2 months). On price, rating, 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.5 for Sense Home against 4.6 for HSBuddy. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Sense Home has 2.3K ratings behind it against 29, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 39% of Sense Home's written reviews are positive against 76% of HSBuddy's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Sense Home ships an update fortnightly, HSBuddy every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 4 level
Sense Home versus HSBuddy: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSense HomeHSBuddy
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.5 (2.3K ratings)4.6 (29 ratings) — better
Positive reviews39.3% of reviews76.5% of reviews — better
Number of ratings2.3K — better29
Update frequencyFortnightly — betterEvery 2 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationAd-supportedFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch — better
Requires iOS17.013.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size152 MB60 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperSense Labs, Inc.Antonio Vargas Garcia

Customer experience

Sense Home

All ratings2,306 ratings
Positive90.6%
Neutral3.0%
Negative6.4%
Written reviews183 reviews
Positive39.3%
Neutral12.0%
Negative48.6%

HSBuddy

All ratings29 ratings
Positive86.2%
Neutral3.4%
Negative10.3%
Written reviews17 reviews
Positive76.5%
Neutral5.9%
Negative17.6%

Bugs and requests

Sense Home

Reported bugs

5 issues
  • App crashes and freezes
  • Notifications not working as expected
  • Inaccurate device identification
  • Sync issues between app and hardware
  • Frequent disconnections from network

Requested features

6 requests
  • Allow manual device labeling
  • Improve billing cycle tracking
  • Add voltage and current monitoring
  • Provide more detailed energy usage data
  • Integrate with more smart home platforms
Show 1 more
  • Offer Ethernet connectivity option

HSBuddy

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

Sense Home

No in-app purchases

None

HSBuddy

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Sense Home free?
Sense Home is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is HSBuddy free?
HSBuddy is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Sense Home or HSBuddy?
HSBuddy is rated higher. Sense Home averages 4.5 out of 5 from 2.3K ratings, while HSBuddy averages 4.6 from 29 ratings.
Do Sense Home or HSBuddy have ads?
Neither Sense Home nor HSBuddy shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Sense Home or HSBuddy?
Sense Home ships an update fortnightly, and HSBuddy every 2 months. Most recently, Sense Home was updated on November 1, 2026 and HSBuddy on October 24, 2026.

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