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.
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/
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.
- 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
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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
Verdict
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
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.
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.
| Parameter | Controller for HomeKit | Joint Maker Lab |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.1 (2.8K ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 28.4% of reviews — better | 0.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 2.8K — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks — better | Every 2 months |
| 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 |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 15.1 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 219 MB | 132 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 17+ |
| Developer | acasa Software GmbH | Power Mobile Life LLC |
Customer experience
Controller for HomeKit
Joint Maker Lab
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
Controller for HomeKit
- Controller Essentials2 variants$4.991 Month
- Controller Plus$8.991 Month
- Controller Essentials7 Days trial2 variants$39.991 Year
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- Controller Plus7 Days trial$79.991 Year
- Controller Plus Lifetime2 variants$179.99
Joint Maker Lab
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Controller for HomeKit free?
Is Joint Maker Lab free?
Do Controller for HomeKit or Joint Maker Lab have ads?
Which is updated more often, Controller for HomeKit or Joint Maker Lab?
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