Comparison

Controller for HomeKit vs Joint Maker Lab

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

Joint Maker Lab

This platform fosters a collaborative community for product co-creation, from initial ideas to market validation. Users can contribute insights, participate in development and testing, and earn rewards for their input. It aims to create products that truly meet user needs and offer excellent performance.

Highlights
  • User co-creation platform
  • Product definition and development
  • Scenario testing and market validation
  • Real-time feedback system
  • User incentive point system
  • Demand co-creation to value sharing ecosystem
Features
Read full description

Platform Introduction The platform is committed to building an ecological community for in-depth co-creation among users, and establishing a full-process participation system from demand insight to product implementation. Through the user segmentation (contribution + clustering) operation mechanism, core users are invited to participate in the four key stages of product definition, joint development, scenario testing, and market validation throughout the process, and a real-time feedback closed-loop system is established. Meanwhile, a user incentive point system is constructed to quickly iterate high-quality suggestions into product optimization, ultimately forming an ecological closed loop of "demand co-creation - product co-research - value sharing" to create an ideal product that truly meets interactive experience and offers excellent performance. Product Manifesto From creative inspiration to technological breakthrough, jointly create the ideal product Core Proposition Focusing on the concept of "letting technology products evolve through customer engagement", consumers have transformed from "passive users" to "product co-creators" Platform Audience Positioning Pioneers who love digital black technology, have unique insights into home, audio-visual, and energy storage products, and are creative innovators with boundless imagination A chronicler of daily life, hoping to jointly create more exceptional products with Anker Be willing to share your usage scenarios and needs for Anker products User Rights Participate in the new product internal testing rights and contribute ideas to the new product design Priority participation in irregular brand events, offline interviews... Enjoy exclusive welfare discounts and surprises, making it truly spectacular

Screenshots

Controller for HomeKit4 screens
Joint Maker Lab4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Joint Maker Lab at none against Controller for HomeKit's 8. Joint Maker Lab also leads on iOS requirement (15.1 vs 17.0). Controller for HomeKit's advantage is review sentiment (28% vs 0%) and update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 2 months). 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. Joint Maker Lab asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Controller for HomeKit ships an update every 2 weeks, Joint Maker Lab every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on November 2, 2026 and October 29, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 4 level
Controller for HomeKit versus Joint Maker Lab: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterController for HomeKitJoint Maker Lab
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.1 (2.8K ratings) — better—
Positive reviews28.4% of reviews — better0.0% of reviews
Number of ratings2.8K — better—
Update frequencyEvery 2 weeks — betterEvery 2 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, Apple Watch — betteriPhone, iPod
Requires iOS17.015.1 — better
Further details — not scored
Size219 MB132 MB
Age rating4+17+
Developeracasa Software GmbHPower Mobile Life LLC

Customer experience

Controller for HomeKit

All ratings2,765 ratings
Positive76.2%
Neutral4.7%
Negative19.1%
Written reviews486 reviews
Positive28.4%
Neutral9.7%
Negative61.9%

Joint Maker Lab

Written reviews1 reviews
Positive0.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative100.0%

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

Joint Maker Lab

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

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

Joint Maker Lab

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Controller for HomeKit free?
Controller for HomeKit is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Joint Maker Lab free?
Joint Maker Lab is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Controller for HomeKit or Joint Maker Lab have ads?
Neither Controller for HomeKit nor Joint Maker Lab shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Controller for HomeKit or Joint Maker Lab?
Controller for HomeKit ships an update every 2 weeks, and Joint Maker Lab every 2 months. Most recently, Controller for HomeKit was updated on November 2, 2026 and Joint Maker Lab on October 29, 2026.

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