Controller for HomeKit vs Shelly Smart Control
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
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.
- 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
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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. 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/
Shelly Smart Control
Remotely monitor and control smart home devices from anywhere, either through the cloud or your local network. Manage lights, appliances, and sensors, and create custom automation scenes. Supports Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and LAN connectivity for seamless integration.
- Remote device control
- Local network control
- Device monitoring
- Custom scheduling
- Scene creation
- Energy consumption monitoring
- Real-time alerts
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This app offers the possibility to control all Shelly devices remotely. You can monitor and control your devices from anywhere (by using the cloud option) or, if you do not want the Cloud option, you will still be able to monitor and control your devices from within your local network. Shelly devices do not need to be connected to the cloud or to send data there. The Shelly Home Automation portfolio includes a variety of relay switches, sensors, plugs, bulbs, and other controllers, all connected and controlled through your Wi-Fi network. The new Shelly Plus and Shelly Pro lines of products additionally support Bluetooth connectivity for faster device inclusion and communication, and the new Shelly Pro line offers LAN and Wi-Fi usage simultaneously. The entire Shelly portfolio is available at https://shelly.cloud/ Shelly devices are suitable to control lights, garage doors, curtains, window blinds, or other appliances, trigger actions based on certain parameters from sensor devices. Devices provide near real time notification on changes of the parameters they are measuring - energy consumption, temperature other environment values. All Shelly devices have: - Embedded Web server - Wi-Fi control and connectivity - APIs for observation and control A user account is required to access, include, and control Shelly devices through the application. Once Shelly account is registered, you can: - Connect the devices to an existing W-Fi network or use their Access Point mode locally to control other Shelly devices; - Include, manage, and operate as many Shelly devices as you need; - Configure devices and manage individual settings on every device; - Configure custom scheduling for automatic actions; - Create personalized rooms for more convenient organising and control of the devices; - Define custom Groups of devices to control multiple devices with one command within the app; - Build simple and complex scenes by combining Shelly devices to trigger certain actions in your home automation; - Monitor current and past electrical power consumption of the electrical circuit(s) and loads (for Shelly devices equipped with Power-measuring capabilities); - Build complex automation solutions for improved energy and operational efficiency; - Receive real time alerts and notifications based on your preference. Shelly devices are compatible with other widely used both local and cloud-based home automation platforms like Google Home or Alexa.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Controller for HomeKit at 4.1 against Shelly Smart Control's 3.2. Controller for HomeKit also leads on ratings volume (2.7K vs 87). Shelly Smart Control's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 10) and review sentiment (47% vs 27%). On price, update cadence, ads and device support 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. Controller for HomeKit sells 8 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month. Shelly Smart Control asks for nothing beyond the download.
Controller for HomeKit holds the better App Store score, 4.1 against 3.2. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Controller for HomeKit has 2.7K ratings behind it against 87, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 27% of Controller for HomeKit's written reviews are positive against 47% of Shelly Smart Control's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Controller for HomeKit ships an update every 10 days, Shelly Smart Control every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 18, 2026 and October 17, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Controller for HomeKit | Shelly Smart Control |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.1 (2.7K ratings) — better | 3.2 (87 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 26.7% of reviews | 47.3% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 2.7K — better | 87 |
| Update frequency | Every 10 days — better | Every 2 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, Apple Watch — better | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 15.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 210 MB | 255 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | acasa Software GmbH | SHELLY EUROPE EOOD |
Customer experience
Controller for HomeKit
Shelly Smart Control
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
Shelly Smart Control
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Controller for HomeKit
- Controller Essentials2 variants$4.991 Month
- Essentials Lifetime - Plus Addon$4.991 Month
- Controller Plus$8.991 Month
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- Essentials Lifetime - Plus Addon3 Months trial$39.991 Year
- Controller Essentials7 Days trial2 variants$39.991 Year
- Controller Plus7 Days trial$79.991 Year
- Controller Essentials Lifetime$99.99
- Controller Essentials Lifetime$139.99
Shelly Smart Control
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Controller for HomeKit free?
Is Shelly Smart Control free?
Which has better reviews, Controller for HomeKit or Shelly Smart Control?
Do Controller for HomeKit or Shelly Smart Control have ads?
Which is updated more often, Controller for HomeKit or Shelly Smart Control?
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