Comparison

HomeBot for HomeKit vs Named entity recognition

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

Head to head
About

HomeBot for HomeKit

This app enhances your smart home automation by providing powerful new actions for your HomeKit setup. It allows for bulk control of scenes, devices, and properties, as well as detailed information retrieval from your connected devices and sensors.

Highlights
  • Bulk HomeKit action execution
  • Detailed HomeKit item listing and filtering
  • Trigger scenes and switch device status
  • Change device properties like brightness and temperature
  • Set primary home for default Siri use
  • Supports a wide range of smart home devices and sensors
Features
Read full description

HomeBot for HomeKit lets you automate your home with Shortcuts and the command line. It includes two powerful actions to manage your HomeKit setup: • Run Home Action: Control scenes and devices in bulk, adjust device properties, or set your primary home. • Get Home Items: Find and filter scenes, devices, device groups, rooms, and homes by name, item type, service type, room, home, activation status, or supported actions and properties. Results include item details, device properties such as light brightness and thermostat target temperature, and sensor readings such as temperature, humidity, and air quality. Action Types: • Trigger Scene: Trigger one or more scenes. • Switch Scene Status: Activate, deactivate, or toggle one or more scenes. • Switch Device Status: Activate, deactivate, or toggle one or more devices or device groups. • Change Device Property: Adjust supported device or device group properties, such as light brightness, thermostat target temperature, or the position of blinds. • Set Primary Home: Set the primary home shared with HomeControl. Setting your primary home propagates the change to all your devices. Explore the included example shortcuts to get started: • Trigger Scenes: Choose scenes in your primary home and trigger them together. • Switch Lightbulbs in Room: Toggle, activate, or deactivate all lightbulbs in a room. • Get Home Status: Export the status of all items in your primary home to a JSON file. • Get Temperature Measurements: Read each temperature sensor in your HomeKit setup. • Set Thermostats Temperature: Set the target temperature of one or more thermostats. • Set Light Brightness in Room: Set the light brightness of all lightbulbs in a room. • Change Lightbulb Colors: Cycle lightbulbs through the colors of the rainbow. • Set Primary Home: Choose which HomeKit home to use as your primary home. Automation Systems: • Shortcuts: Build advanced HomeKit workflows by combining HomeBot’s powerful actions with the built-in Shortcuts actions and automation triggers. • Command-Line Automation on Mac: Automate HomeKit from Terminal, scripts, or AI agents with the included "homebot-cli" tool. Export HomeKit data as JSON for use in your scripts. HomeBot supports macOS, iOS, and iPadOS. Notes: • HomeBot can detect and control the following types of devices: outlets, lightbulbs, switches, thermostats, fans, air purifiers, heaters, humidifiers, dehumidifiers, windows, window coverings, faucets, valves, irrigation systems, doors, garage door openers, and locks. • HomeBot also supports reading measurements or detections from the following types of sensors: temperature, humidity, air quality, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, contact (doors, windows, and window coverings), smoke, leak, motion, light, and occupancy sensors. • HomeBot supports changing and reading light brightness and color, thermostat and heating/cooling modes, target temperatures and thresholds, humidity targets and thresholds, fan and air purifier modes, rotation speed and direction, swing, physical controls lock, and the position of doors, windows, blinds, or shades. • HomeBot also reads detailed air-quality measurements, battery levels, and filter status when available. • HomeBot Command-Line Automation requires macOS 26 or later. Privacy by Design: HomeBot works completely on-device and does not store or send any information outside of the protected app sandbox.

About

Named entity recognition

Features
Read full description

Identifying people, places, and organizations by using a linguistic tagger to perform named entity recognition(NER) on a string. ※Named entity recognition(NER)

Screenshots

HomeBot for HomeKit4 screens
Named entity recognition1 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Named entity recognition at Free against HomeBot for HomeKit's $5.99. Named entity recognition also leads on update cadence (fortnightly vs every 3 months) and iOS requirement (15.8.3 vs 17.0). HomeBot for HomeKit's advantage is ads (none vs shown). On in-app purchases and device support 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

Named entity recognition is free to download; HomeBot for HomeKit costs $5.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

HomeBot for HomeKit ships an update every 3 months, Named entity recognition fortnightly. Both last shipped on October 27, 2026.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
HomeBot for HomeKit versus Named entity recognition: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterHomeBot for HomeKitNamed entity recognition
Price$5.99Free — better
Rating4.3 (18 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews35.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings18 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 3 monthsFortnightly — better
AdsNo — betterYes
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationPaid—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, MaciPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS17.015.8.3 — better
Further details — not scored
Size13 MB36 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperPedro Jose Pereira VieitoHideaki Uchikoshi

In-app purchases

None

HomeBot for HomeKit

No in-app purchases

None

Named entity recognition

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is HomeBot for HomeKit free?
HomeBot for HomeKit costs $5.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Named entity recognition free?
Named entity recognition is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do HomeBot for HomeKit or Named entity recognition have ads?
Named entity recognition shows ads; HomeBot for HomeKit does not.
Which is updated more often, HomeBot for HomeKit or Named entity recognition?
HomeBot for HomeKit ships an update every 3 months, and Named entity recognition fortnightly. Most recently, HomeBot for HomeKit was updated on October 27, 2026 and Named entity recognition on October 27, 2026.

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