HSBuddy vs Hubitat
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
HSBuddy
Control your HomeSeer home automation system from your mobile device and Apple Watch. Manage devices, run events, view camera feeds, and create custom dashboards. Automate tasks with Siri shortcuts and widgets.
- Control and edit devices
- Run and edit events
- View camera feeds
- Customizable dashboards
- Siri shortcuts
- Home Screen widgets
- Push notifications
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HSBuddy is a free application for iOS® that turns your mobile device into the ultimate companion for your HomeSeer® home automation system. With the included Apple Watch companion app you can take control of your home from your wrist! Certain features require an additional HomeSeer controller plug-in which you can install from the plug-in manager in your HomeSeer configuration pages. Look for HSBuddy under the User Interfaces section. Complement your home automation experience and use HSBuddy to: • Control and edit devices • Run and edit events • View history of device state changes * • View images from your home cameras ** • Create your own customized dashboards • Speed up your daily automation tasks » Create Siri shortcuts » Place Widgets for your Home Screen • Send push-notifications to your devices as part of your server events • Browse your HomeSeer server logs * • Enable geo-location on the app and location-based events * • Automatically switch between local-WiFi and remote connectivity to your server based on your location. • Connect to multiple HomeSeer servers and switch quickly between them • Use Smart Tags to quickly control a device or run an event by tapping a tag with your phone *Requires installing the free HSBuddy HomeSeer controller plug-in **Compatible with some existing HomeSeer controller camera plug-ins To use this app you need a running instance of HomeSeer. To find out more, visit http://www.homeseer.com For more information and troubleshooting help, go to http://hsbuddy.avglabs.net
Hubitat
Control and monitor your smart home devices remotely. Set up location-based automation and receive important alerts directly to your phone. This app enhances your existing home automation system.
- Access Dashboards
- Monitor and control devices
- Arm/disarm Safety Monitor
- Change Modes
- Define Geofence for Presence
- Receive Push Notifications
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Hubitat Elevation Mobile App is an accessory to the Hubitat Elevation home automation system. Users of Hubitat Elevation can use the Mobile App to: - Access Dashboards to monitor and control devices, arm or disarm Hubitat Safety Monitor, change Modes and more. - Define a Geofence for Mobile Presence detection based on phone location. The Geofence center defaults to your hub location but can be dragged to any location and the radius set. - Receive Push Notifications from Hubitat Elevation apps.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: HSBuddy at 76% against Hubitat's 28%. HSBuddy also leads on rating (4.6 vs 2.8). Hubitat's advantage is ratings volume (163 vs 29). On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases 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. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
HSBuddy holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 2.8. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Hubitat has 163 ratings behind it against 29, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 76% of HSBuddy's written reviews are positive against 28% of Hubitat's.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 7, 2026 and October 18, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | HSBuddy | Hubitat |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.6 (29 ratings) — better | 2.8 (163 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 76.5% of reviews — better | 28.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 29 | 163 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 2 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch — better | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 | 12.1 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 60 MB | 29 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Antonio Vargas Garcia | Hubitat, Inc. |
Customer experience
HSBuddy
Hubitat
Bugs and requests
HSBuddy
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
Hubitat
Reported bugs
18 issues- App crashes on startup consistently
- Geofence detection fails to send events to hub
- Geofence shows incorrect location (off by km)
- Login screen keyboard covers continue button
- App hangs at 'Loading User Data' screen
Show 13 moreShow fewer
- Dashboard doesn't load after backgrounding
- Local LAN mode not working, stuck on cloud
- Hub discovery doesn't work on iOS
- Duplicate rooms and devices displayed
- Incorrect device status reporting
- Notifications show 'invalid token' error
- App doesn't support screen rotation
- Email verification code not received
- Presence detection broken after updates
- App unable to connect to hub after updates
- Geofence size resets to default
- What's New screen cannot be dismissed
- Layout issues with overlapping buttons on iPhone 7
Requested features
15 requests- Native iOS app with proper UI/UX design
- Dark mode option
- Widget support for quick device access
- Ability to add/discover devices from mobile app
- Automation and scene creation from app
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- iPad landscape view support
- Drag-and-drop dashboard tile customization
- Multiple geofence locations
- Motion sensor activity logging in dashboard
- Improved dashboard responsiveness and layout
- Manual IP address entry for hub connection
- SMS-based account verification
- Battery usage optimization for geofencing
- Real-time notifications with better visibility
- Detailed user manual and in-app help
In-app purchases
HSBuddy
No in-app purchases
Hubitat
No in-app purchases









