LightMode vs WLED
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
LightMode
Control your smart helmet's lighting with custom colors, animations, and brightness. Enhance visibility and safety on the road while expressing your personal style. The app allows you to save presets, monitor battery, and even sync lights to music.
- Customizable colors and animations
- Bluetooth device pairing
- Preset brightness levels
- Music synchronization
- Battery life monitoring
- Save favorite settings
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Set the colors, brightness, and animations of your Night Shift via Bluetooth pairing. Customize your Night Shift in colors and animations that resonate with YOUR personality. Enjoy the epic reactions when you showcase your LightMode helmet to friends and drivers on the street. Take comfort knowing that the beacon of light on your head is keeping you safer at night by making you more visible to others on the road. - Save frequently used colors/animations as favorites. - Choose between 3 preset brightness levels. - Monitor battery life. - Make the light strips illuminate to music. - Receive new animations via app updates. - Save/Name devices. - Set device to default for faster pairing.
WLED
Control and manage all your WLED light devices from your iPhone or iPad. This companion app works with the open-source WLED software for microcontrollers, offering automatic device detection, customizable names, and software update assistance.
- Automatic device detection
- Centralized light list
- Software update assistant
- Customizable device names
- Hide or delete devices
- Light and dark mode
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With the WLED app, you can easily and efficiently manage and control all your WLED light devices from your iPhone or iPad. This is a companion app for the free and open source WLED software for ESP8266/32 microcontrollers. WLED automatically detects and updates the device list, and offers customizable names, a hide or delete feature, and a light and dark mode. It can also help you install new software updates to your devices. Plus, it supports both phones and tablets. Main Features: - Automatic device detection (mDNS) - All lights are accessible from one list - Software Update Assistant - Custom names - Hide or delete devices - Light and dark mode
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: WLED at 4.0 against LightMode's 3.5. LightMode's advantage is review sentiment (62% vs 51%) and iOS requirement (9.0 vs 16.0). On price, ratings volume, update cadence 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. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
WLED holds the better App Store score, 4.0 against 3.5. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 13 and 10 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 62% of LightMode's written reviews are positive against 51% of WLED's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
LightMode ships an update every 5 weeks, WLED every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on September 24, 2026 and October 12, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | LightMode | WLED |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.5 (13 ratings) | 4.0 (10 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 61.5% of reviews — better | 50.5% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 13 — better | 10 |
| Update frequency | Every 5 weeks — better | Every 2 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 9.0 — better | 16.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 71 MB | 3 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | LightMode Technologies Inc. | Christophe Gagnier |
Customer experience
LightMode
WLED
Bugs and requests
LightMode
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
WLED
Reported bugs
42 issues- Unable to connect to LEDs
- Lights randomly turn on
- Connectivity issues, needs re-pairing
- App doesn't work, glitchy
- Brightness control issues
Show 37 moreShow fewer
- Lights flicker after update
- Cannot find discover lights option
- Not connected to iPhone, setup issues
- App won't load, vanishes
- None of my devices show up
- Shows up blank, manual add only
- No longer finds WLED devices
- App doesn't work, no devices showing
- Confusing app, turns off
- App is unusable after update, errors
- App stopped picking up signal
- Only connects when at home
- Doesn't pick up esp8266
- Sound react option missing
- Time and macros section not working
- Update won't update
- Goes offline from time to time
- Update breaks app, beta works
- Drops connection, cannot adjust lights
- Latest release freezes, unstable wifi
- Loading WLED UI stuck
- Inconsistent connection after new update
- Lost all config after update
- Lost all presets after update
- Devices missing and disappearing
- Update ruined everything, random disconnects
- App constantly crashes, won't load
- Stopped working after update
- New upgrade feature killed device
- Inconsistent, can't find boards
- Cannot connect lights, IP address doesn't work
- Missing schedule function
- App doesn't work at all
- Doesn't work properly with WLED 0.14
- App won't allow changing anything, freezes
- Hidden devices reappear
- App goes offline and never connects again
Requested features
6 requests- User-friendly interface
- Simple interface with advanced option
- Widget features for Home Screen
- Sound react option
- Remote control when away from WiFi
Show 1 moreShow fewer
- Timer or schedule function
In-app purchases
LightMode
No in-app purchases
WLED
No in-app purchases
