Comparison

Controller for HomeKit vs SYLVANIA Smart Home

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

Head to head
About

Controller for HomeKit

Enhance your smart home experience with advanced control and automation. Visualize your home with floor plans, track device performance with charts, and create complex automations tailored to your needs. Organize devices, store setup codes, and monitor your entire smart home ecosystem.

Highlights
  • Floor plan visualization with LiDAR
  • Device performance charts
  • Complex automations and workflows
  • Custom notifications
  • Smart folders and filters
  • Setup code storage
  • Device maintenance and logs
Features
Read full description

Get more out of your smart home. Your HomeKit and Matter devices can do more than on and off: Controller for HomeKit gives you dashboards you build yourself, workflows that run over several steps, months of history, and a floor plan you control directly. YOUR OWN DASHBOARD Your devices sit where you need them, instead of in a list. - Views you compose yourself from tiles: per home, per person, and if you want, per device. One for the iPad on the wall, one for the iPhone in your pocket. - More than 25 tile variants: devices, scenes, workflows, time, weather, calendar, charts, battery warnings. - Five standard sizes, or drag your own size on the grid. - Visibility conditions: a tile or a whole section appears only when you need it. - Plus widgets for your Home Screen and a view of your own on Apple Watch. CONTROLLER AI Describe what you need in plain language: a dashboard, a scene, an automation or a workflow. Controller builds it, and you adjust it however you like afterwards. MORE THAN A SCHEDULE Two devices become a sequence that thinks along. - Workflows: multiple steps, conditions and branches for sequences a single automation cannot express. - Automations with advanced triggers and conditions. - States: virtual switches that capture how your home currently stands and drive your workflows accordingly. - Custom notifications for anything you want to know about. - NFC tags: one tap and the workflow runs. YOUR SENSORS ARE ALREADY MEASURING Controller remembers the values and makes them readable. - Charts: see how temperature, humidity or battery level develop over weeks and months, across every device and brand. - Maintenance: which battery is empty, which device is unreachable, which automation is broken. - Logs: every activity and every change, traceable. - Smart folders: devices and automations grouped by filters you define. - Floor Plan: scan your home with the LiDAR sensor of your iPhone or iPad and control your devices right on the plan. - Controller Hub: a dedicated iPhone, iPad, Apple TV or Mac runs your workflows automatically. Charts and States require Controller Hub. SHARE THE WORK, NOT JUST THE SWITCHES - Home Sharing: pass your entire setup to the people you live with. For each person you choose between the whole app or only the dashboards you share with them. - Setup codes: your HomeKit and Matter codes stay safe in the app and never get lost. - Backups: save your setup and restore it whenever you need to. TRY IT FREE FOR 7 DAYS A week in your own home tells you more than any screenshot. Choose a yearly subscription to Controller Essentials or Controller Plus: the first 7 days are free, so you can see what Controller gets out of your devices. Rather pay once? Controller Lifetime gives you everything in Controller Plus, forever, with no subscription. Controller for HomeKit runs on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV. You already own the devices. Controller for HomeKit brings out what is in them. More on our website: https://www.controllerforhomekit.com Privacy Policy: https://controllerforhomekit.com/privacy/ Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

SYLVANIA Smart Home

Easily update your SYLVANIA SMART+ HomeKit accessories to the latest firmware. This app ensures your smart home devices have the newest features and improvements without needing a separate hub.

Highlights
  • Firmware updates for SMART+ accessories
  • HomeKit integration
  • No hub required
  • View accessory status
  • Automatic update process
Features
Read full description

The SYLVANIA Smart Home app allows Apple HomeKit users to easily update their SYLVANIA SMART+ accessories to the latest firmware version to incorporate new features and improvements as they become available. Setting up and upgrading your SYLVANIA SMART+ HomeKit-enabled accessories is quick and easy, with no hub required for use. After pairing your SMART+ accessories to HomeKit, use this app to check for firmware updates. Your paired SMART+ HomeKit accessories can be viewed within the app and a message will be displayed next to the accessory if an update is available. Select the accessory to update and the process will automatically begin.

Screenshots

Controller for HomeKit4 screens
SYLVANIA Smart Home4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: Controller for HomeKit at 4.1 against SYLVANIA Smart Home's 1.6. Controller for HomeKit also leads on update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 4 months) and review sentiment (29% vs 11%). SYLVANIA Smart Home's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 8) and iOS requirement (13.0 vs 17.0). On price 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Controller for HomeKit sells 5 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month. SYLVANIA Smart Home asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Controller for HomeKit holds the better App Store score, 4.1 against 1.6. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Controller for HomeKit has 2.8K ratings behind it against 242, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 29% of Controller for HomeKit's written reviews are positive against 11% of SYLVANIA Smart Home's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Controller for HomeKit ships an update every 2 weeks, SYLVANIA Smart Home every 4 months. The most recent releases landed on November 6, 2026 and November 3, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard8 real differences · 2 level
Controller for HomeKit versus SYLVANIA Smart Home: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterController for HomeKitSYLVANIA Smart Home
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.1 (2.8K ratings) — better1.6 (242 ratings)
Positive reviews28.5% of reviews — better10.8% of reviews
Number of ratings2.8K — better242
Update frequencyEvery 2 weeks — betterEvery 4 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, Apple Watch — betteriPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS17.013.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size232 MB27 MB
Age rating4+4+
Developeracasa Software GmbHLEDVANCE LLC

Customer experience

Controller for HomeKit

All ratings2,777 ratings
Positive76.3%
Neutral4.7%
Negative19.0%
Written reviews487 reviews
Positive28.5%
Neutral9.7%
Negative61.8%

SYLVANIA Smart Home

All ratings231 ratings
Positive13.0%
Neutral5.6%
Negative81.4%
Written reviews148 reviews
Positive10.8%
Neutral4.1%
Negative85.1%

User reviews

Controller for HomeKit

From 2.8K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Powerful automation features
  • 📚 Helpful backup and restore functionality
  • 🔍 Detailed logging and troubleshooting
  • 🧠 Advanced HomeKit control and customization

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Buggy and crash-prone
  • 💰 Expensive subscription model
  • 🤖 Poor customer support
  • 🤔 Confusing and unintuitive UI

SYLVANIA Smart Home

From 242 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Works well
  • 👍 Flawless
  • 👍 Fairly good

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Constantly disconnecting
  • 🐛 Unresponsive
  • 🐛 Crashes frequently
  • 🐛 Buggy app
  • 🐛 Firmware updates don't work

Bugs and requests

Controller for HomeKit

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Backup and restore issues
  • Disappearing automations and accessories
  • Compatibility problems with iOS 16.2
  • Slow performance and unresponsiveness

Requested features

4 requests
  • Improved documentation and tutorials
  • Better integration with Apple Home app
  • Support for more HomeKit device types
  • Ability to customize automation triggers

SYLVANIA Smart Home

Reported bugs

5 issues
  • App crashes on launch
  • Firmware updates fail
  • Devices disappear from app
  • Inability to connect to Bluetooth
  • Lights behave erratically

Requested features

6 requests
  • Remove annoying pop-up notification
  • Add 'never see again' option for notifications
  • Improve app responsiveness and stability
  • Better integration with smart home platforms
  • Add scheduling/timer functionality
Show 1 more
  • Improve color control and customization options

In-app purchases

5 purchases

Controller for HomeKit

Subscriptions4
  • Controller Essentials2 variants$4.991 Month
  • Controller Plus$8.991 Month
  • Controller Essentials7 Days trial2 variants$39.991 Year
Show 1 more
  • Controller Plus7 Days trial$79.991 Year
One-time1
  • Controller Plus Lifetime2 variants$179.99
None

SYLVANIA Smart Home

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Controller for HomeKit free?
Controller for HomeKit is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is SYLVANIA Smart Home free?
SYLVANIA Smart Home is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Controller for HomeKit or SYLVANIA Smart Home?
Controller for HomeKit is rated higher. Controller for HomeKit averages 4.1 out of 5 from 2.8K ratings, while SYLVANIA Smart Home averages 1.6 from 242 ratings.
Do Controller for HomeKit or SYLVANIA Smart Home have ads?
Neither Controller for HomeKit nor SYLVANIA Smart Home shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Controller for HomeKit or SYLVANIA Smart Home?
Controller for HomeKit ships an update every 2 weeks, and SYLVANIA Smart Home every 4 months. Most recently, Controller for HomeKit was updated on November 6, 2026 and SYLVANIA Smart Home on November 3, 2026.

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