LightShow®SmartLights vs Magic
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
LightShow®SmartLights
Control your holiday light displays directly from your smartphone. This app allows you to customize effects, colors, and themes for your lighting products, making holiday decorating easy and personalized.
- Smartphone control
- Dozens of effects and colors
- Multiple holiday themes
- Customizable lighting options
- Easy setup and management
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Put on a dazzling holiday light display–and control it all from your smartphone. The SmartLights® app works exclusively with SmartLights® holiday lighting products to control dozens of effects and colors directly from your smartphone. It’s super easy to set up and manage. Choose from multiple holiday themes, lighting technologies and color options for each lighting product. Perfect for outdoor or indoor holiday decorating, SmartLights® delivers the latest in holiday decorating technology for a custom look that’s a breeze to manage.Please make the below changes to the pages on the app stores
Magic
Control your RGBIC LED strips with this app. Adjust brightness, colors, dynamic modes, and scenes. Sync lights to music, set timers, and customize pixel configurations for a personalized lighting experience.
- Color control
- Dimming and grading
- Dynamic modes and scenes
- Music rhythm sync
- Timer settings
- Pixel and line sequence customization
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MagicLantern is an App that can be used to control color RGBIC LED strip(s). You can use it to do some controls and settings , such as dimming and grading, setting various dynamic modes and scenes, music rhythms of several sound sources and optional rhythm styles, timer setting for lights on/off, pixel setting, line sequence setting, etc. MagicLantern App is designed to be fun and easy to use, with a certain degree of professionalism and ease of use.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is ratings volume: Magic at 845 against LightShow®SmartLights's 4. Magic also leads on rating (2.3 vs 2.0) and chart position (#177 vs unranked). LightShow®SmartLights's advantage is iOS requirement (9.0 vs 12.0). On price, review sentiment, update cadence and ads 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.
Magic holds the better App Store score, 2.3 against 2.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Magic has 845 ratings behind it against 4, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 23% of LightShow®SmartLights's written reviews are positive against 30% of Magic's.
LightShow®SmartLights ships an update every 2 months, Magic every 5 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 21, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | LightShow®SmartLights | Magic |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 2.0 (4 ratings) | 2.3 (845 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 23.1% of reviews | 29.8% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 4 | 845 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 5 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Best chart rank | — | #177 — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 9.0 — better | 12.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 14 MB | 80 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Gemmy Industries Corporation | shenzhen ELK Technology Co., Ltd. |
Customer experience
LightShow®SmartLights
Magic
Bugs and requests
LightShow®SmartLights
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
Magic
Reported bugs
4 issues- Colors not displaying correctly
- Lights not responding to app commands
- App crashing or not connecting
- Scheduled timers not working as expected
Requested features
5 requests- Add holiday-themed color presets
- Allow custom color/pattern creation
- Improve music integration
- Add Siri/HomeKit support
- Provide better instructions and troubleshooting
In-app purchases
LightShow®SmartLights
No in-app purchases
Magic
No in-app purchases
