Controller for HomeKit vs Refoss
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. 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/
Refoss
Control and manage your home automation devices remotely. Schedule device operations, monitor their status, and integrate with voice assistants for hands-free control. Enjoy peace of mind knowing your electronics are managed efficiently.
- Remote on/off control
- Automated work plans
- Voice assistant integration
- Device status monitoring
- Manage smart plugs
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Refoss mainly focuses on home automation gadgets. Currently, there are products such as smart plug on the market. Customers can plug the device on it and easily manage the following functions through the Refoss app: 1. Turn on/off electronic devices anytime, anywhere through the Refoss app. 2. Create an on/off work plan to let the equipment work automatically according to the plan. 3. Link your Refoss smart devices to voice assistant, you can easily control the device with your voice. 4. View the on/off status of connected devices from anywhere for peace of mind.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Refoss at 88% against Controller for HomeKit's 28%. Refoss also leads on in-app purchases (none vs 10) and rating (4.5 vs 4.1). Controller for HomeKit's advantage is update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 5 weeks) and ratings volume (2.8K vs 142). 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
Both are free to download. Controller for HomeKit sells 7 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month. Refoss asks for nothing beyond the download.
Refoss holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 4.1. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Controller for HomeKit has 2.8K ratings behind it against 142, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 28% of Controller for HomeKit's written reviews are positive against 88% of Refoss's.
Controller for HomeKit ships an update every 2 weeks, Refoss every 5 weeks. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Controller for HomeKit | Refoss |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.1 (2.8K ratings) | 4.5 (142 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 28.4% of reviews | 87.6% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 2.8K — better | 142 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks — better | Every 5 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, iPod, Apple Watch |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 13.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 219 MB | 224 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | acasa Software GmbH | FLEXBEE HK LIMITED |
Customer experience
Controller for HomeKit
Refoss
User reviews
Controller for HomeKit
From 2.8K App Store ratingsWhat 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
Refoss
From 142 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Easy to set up
- 🚀 Works well
- 🚀 Reliable
- 🚀 Precise measurements
- 🚀 Responsive app
Room to improve
- 🐛 Frequent disconnections
- 🐛 Incorrect status reporting
- 🐛 Buggy app
- 🐛 Unreliable door control
- 🐛 Confusing setup process
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
Refoss
Reported bugs
4 issues- App frequently loses login credentials
- Incorrect door status reporting
- Failure to connect and control devices
- Outdated app version not allowing new features
Requested features
5 requests- Ability to set different electricity rates based on time of day and day of week
- More detailed energy consumption data (hourly/minute-level)
- Apple Watch app
- CarPlay integration
- Ability to pause/stop door operation mid-cycle
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 Plus Lifetime2 variants$179.99
Refoss
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Controller for HomeKit free?
Is Refoss free?
Which has better reviews, Controller for HomeKit or Refoss?
Do Controller for HomeKit or Refoss have ads?
Which is updated more often, Controller for HomeKit or Refoss?
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