Comparison

SmoothTrack vs Visual Pinball

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both games, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

SmoothTrack

Enhance your simulation gaming experience with phone-based head and eye tracking. This app allows for intuitive, 6-degrees-of-freedom head movements to control your in-game perspective without any extra hardware. Seamlessly look around cockpits, check blind spots, or zoom in on details with natural head gestures.

Highlights
  • 6DoF head tracking
  • Optional eye tracking
  • No extra hardware required
  • Works with FreeTrack/TrackIR games
  • Customizable view presets
  • Exaggerated head movements for control
Features
Read full description

SmoothTrack 2.0 uses the head and eye tracking AR capabilities of your phone to provide the simplest and best head tracker for 6 degrees-of-freedom head movements in your sim games. ----- "The best new controller on the market." - Charlie Hall, Polygon Customer reviews: "SmoothTrack just works. Less than 5 minutes to install, setup and fly. Love not being tethered to my desk! 5 stars!!" "This worked perfectly and way better than expected! Totally enhanced my experience with MFS 2020!" --- It's a near magical experience to seamlessly slightly move your head and have your game perspective immediately play along (the movements in the game are exaggerated so that you only have to make slight movements of your head to control the camera). Additionally, since version 2, your eyes are also optionally tracked and will nudge the camera based on where you're glancing on screen! - Simply lean forward to get a closer look at your Flight Simulator cockpit! - Look a bit up to see the overhead panel of your A320! - Simply shift your head a bit to the right to see the direction of the space station you're approaching in Elite: Dangerous! - Look a bit left before a hard left turn in Euro Truck Simulator 2! No headset or extra equipment of any kind is required! Simply set up your device so that it can see your face. Using simple camera gestures, you can shift your perspective in-game. Also, if you want, you can store views (say, a copilot angle, or a cockpit closeup) as Quick Views for easy access later. Your head movements are slightly exaggerated which enables you to look out of a cockpit side window with just a slight movement of your head to the left. Any game that supports the FreeTrack or TrackIR protocol will work with this, including: - Microsoft Flight Simulator - Microsoft FSX - DCS World - Elite: Dangerous - IL2: Sturmovik - Euro Truck Simulator 2 - Kerbal Space Program - ...and many, many others! Email and Discord support is provided if there are any issues (or if you have any ideas for new features!).

About

Visual Pinball

Enjoy a realistic pinball simulation with hundreds of community-created tables. Experience immersive haptic feedback and customize your gameplay with intuitive settings and controller support. Advanced options are available for power users.

Highlights
  • Hundreds of community-developed tables
  • Haptic feedback for immersive gameplay
  • Customizable settings and POV adjustments
  • Game controller support
  • External DMD and AltColor/AltSound support
  • Touch overlay and instructions
Features
Read full description

Experience the open source pinball simulator now on your iPhone! Features: - Play hundreds of community and hobbyist-developed tables. - Feel the action with haptic feedback for bumpers, targets, and flippers. - Customize your experience with a simple, intuitive interface for settings, table options, and POV adjustments. - Game controller support. - External DMD support for ZeDMD, ZeDMD-WiFi, and Pixelcade devices. - Serum AltColor support. - AltSound support. - Touch overlay shows touch areas. - Step-by-step touch instructions when playing a table. - Advanced options for power users, including script and log file exports. - Support for iOS 18 Game Mode.

Screenshots

SmoothTrack4 screens
Visual Pinball3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Visual Pinball at Free against SmoothTrack's $14.99. SmoothTrack's advantage is ratings volume (249 vs 45) and iOS requirement (16.0 vs 18.0). On rating, review sentiment, 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Visual Pinball is free to download; SmoothTrack costs $14.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.7 for SmoothTrack against 4.6 for Visual Pinball. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: SmoothTrack has 249 ratings behind it against 45, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 86% of SmoothTrack's written reviews are positive against 81% of Visual Pinball's.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
SmoothTrack versus Visual Pinball: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSmoothTrackVisual Pinball
Price$14.99Free — better
Rating4.7 (249 ratings) — better4.6 (45 ratings)
Positive reviews85.7% of reviews — better81.1% of reviews
Number of ratings249 — better45
Update frequencyEvery 4 months—
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationPaidFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad — betteriPhone
Requires iOS16.0 — better18.0
Further details — not scored
Size10 MB87 MB
Age rating4+9+
DeveloperJohn GoeringJason Millard

Customer experience

SmoothTrack

All ratings249 ratings
Positive90.4%
Neutral2.8%
Negative6.8%
Written reviews265 reviews
Positive85.7%
Neutral4.9%
Negative9.4%

Visual Pinball

All ratings45 ratings
Positive91.1%
Neutral2.2%
Negative6.7%
Written reviews53 reviews
Positive81.1%
Neutral13.2%
Negative5.7%

User reviews

SmoothTrack

From 249 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Smooth and accurate head tracking
  • 👍 Affordable alternative to expensive hardware
  • 💡 Doesn't require any additional equipment
  • 🚀 Easy to set up and use
  • 👍 Enhances immersion in flight simulators

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Occasional connectivity issues
  • 🔋 Drains phone battery quickly
  • 🔧 Requires some technical knowledge for setup
  • 🔧 Calibration and sensitivity adjustments needed

Visual Pinball

From 45 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Awesome way to play virtual pinball on the go
  • 👍 Super easy to set up with minimal file prep time
  • 👍 Insane that I can play favorite pins on just my phone
  • 👍 Fantastic portable implementation of VPX
  • 👍 Fun and exciting to archive the history of pinball

Room to improve

  • 🔧 More ability to adjust table settings needed
  • 🔧 Struggling to manage camera angle
  • 🔧 No fullscreen on iPad, plunger and outlanes cropped
  • 🔧 Some tables don't work or have issues

Bugs and requests

SmoothTrack

Reported bugs

2 issues
  • Tracking issues with certain phone positions
  • Compatibility problems with some devices/OSes

Requested features

3 requests
  • Background mode support
  • Ability to use rear camera
  • Improved UI and customization options

Visual Pinball

Reported bugs

2 issues
  • Tables don't load for some users
  • Certain complex/intensive tables error out or run at low FPS

Requested features

6 requests
  • List of most played tables
  • Ability to reposition DMD
  • Option to skip startup checks for some tables
  • Ability to edit table scripts on the app
  • Direct link to table depository
Show 1 more
  • iPad version with more screen space

In-app purchases

None

SmoothTrack

No in-app purchases

None

Visual Pinball

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is SmoothTrack free?
SmoothTrack costs $14.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Visual Pinball free?
Visual Pinball is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, SmoothTrack or Visual Pinball?
SmoothTrack is rated higher. SmoothTrack averages 4.7 out of 5 from 249 ratings, while Visual Pinball averages 4.6 from 45 ratings.
Do SmoothTrack or Visual Pinball have ads?
Neither SmoothTrack nor Visual Pinball shows ads.

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