HomeWatch vs iFramix
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
HomeWatch
Monitor and control your HomeKit devices with a glanceable status display. This app offers customizable views for rooms, scenes, and individual devices across Apple platforms, including widgets and menu bar items.
- Glanceable room status with color-coded indicators
- Control scenes and devices within rooms
- View camera feeds, weather, and website content
- Customizable home and lock-screen widgets
- Menu bar items for Mac with real-time updates
- Extensive interface customization options
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I made an app for my Apple Watch to see a glanceable status of our home and to control our HomeKit devices. It worked so well on the watch, that I expanded it to a dashboard app for all our Apple devices. I have now added a configuration interface to make it compatible with any HomeKit enabled home setup. I hope some of you will find it useful. HOME VIEW The circle / grid with icons on the home view shows a color coded status of the rooms of the home: red when a door is open, yellow when a window is open, orange when the heating is on, cyan when lights are on and green when nothing is on. On the iPhone, iPad, tvOS and Mac the app also shows the time, date, cameras, feeds, events, reminders, a website and weather information. When there is rain, it will show a rain graph. ROOM VIEWS When a room is selected, the circle layout will show the scenes you can control in that room. The grid layout also shows the devices that can be controlled in that room. Additionally the room view has an information section. To the right it can show any characteristics from your devices. Below is a detail view that can show a camera view, a website, a temperature, humidity and climate history graphs. WIDGETS Fully customisable lock-screen and home-screen widgets. Tap / Clicking a widget item to go directly to a room view, execute a scene or launch any url-scheme. Customisable complications on the Watch can have actions to go directly to a room view and execute any scene. MENU BAR ITEMS On the Mac any HomeKit characteristic can be added to the menu bar and is kept up to date. CUSTOMISATION The interface can be fully customised. The user can add their own background images and icons from the photo library. Customise gradient overlays, icons, fonts, colours and more. Make it your own…
iFramix
Transform an old iPad into a dynamic digital photo frame. Seamlessly sync and manage your photos from your iPhone to display them interactively. Breathe new life into your retired tablet.
- Turns old iPad into digital photo frame
- Interactive photo display
- Syncs with iPhone for photo management
- Easy photo updates
- Gives old devices a second life
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iFramix is an app that turns your old iPad into an interactive digital photo frame. By syncing with your iPhone, you can easily update and manage photos displayed on the iPad, giving a second life to your old device.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: HomeWatch at 60% against iFramix's 8%. HomeWatch also leads on rating (4.8 vs 2.2) and device support (6 vs 2). iFramix's advantage is update cadence (every 3 weeks vs every 2 months) and ratings volume (17 vs 4). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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.
HomeWatch holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 2.2. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 4 and 17 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 60% of HomeWatch's written reviews are positive against 8% of iFramix's.
HomeWatch ships an update every 2 months, iFramix every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on July 7, 2026 and September 21, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | HomeWatch | iFramix |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.8 (4 ratings) — better | 2.2 (17 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 60.0% of reviews — better | 8.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 4 | 17 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 3 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac, Apple TV, Apple Watch — better | iPhone, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 | 12.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 64 MB | 64 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 17+ |
| Developer | Peter Vogels | pengxiang zhou |
Customer experience
HomeWatch
iFramix
Bugs and requests
HomeWatch
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
iFramix
Reported bugs
22 issues- Cannot upload any pictures
- Thumbnail gets sent, expands, and crops incorrectly
- App crashes when uploading photos
- Pairing doesn't work
- Error notifications in Chinese
Show 17 moreShow fewer
- Gallery section shows a white screen after first upload
- Night mode not working
- Menu badly translated
- App reverts to main menu after 15 minutes
- App fails to load properly
- App won't upload pictures
- Green buttons in English language have another language
- Error message 'Please do not upload too large pictures'
- iPad resets back to home page after a few seconds
- App goes back to the main screen, doesn't loop pictures
- Connection issues with iChargeguard
- App takes forever to open photo library
- Cannot register an account (verification number issues)
- Time, power, and connection status icons always visible in photo frame mode
- App freezes after original setup
- App policy restricts older iPad owners
- Password creation issues initially
Requested features
52 requests- User-friendly interface
- Larger photo capacity and upload count
- Cycling through clock, pictures, weather automatically
- Pull content from RSS feed
- Crop/zoom features for pictures
Show 47 moreShow fewer
- Shuffle function for pictures
- Automatic shut-off at night
- Day of the week in weather overview
- Dark mode for weather
- Additional languages (e.g., Dutch, French)
- City and state for accurate US city location
- Option to rotate through widgets automatically
- Calendar event display
- Music function
- Zoom/crop features in album
- Degrees F in weather app
- Ability to update iCharguard firmware
- Automatic switching from photo album to screensaver at night
- Animated transition feature during slideshow
- Seconds flip in 80's flick clock
- Automatic brightness dimming in dark rooms
- Turn screen off when no motion detected
- Show forecasts every X photos
- Music function
- More functions for iPad 1
- Translate to more languages
- Enrich weather info (wind, humidity)
- Mimic Apple Watch modular faces
- Citation carousel
- RSS pages selection
- Send message or picture to frames
- Point-to-point video calls
- Clock between 24/12 hour mode
- Temperature between C and F
- City lookup including state
- Way to blank screen at night
- Audio or camera capabilities
- Speed up picture reading
- Translate Chinese buttons
- Charge level in monitoring app
- Activate bound devices from monitoring app
- Activate iPad setup accessibility option
- Easier setup for iChargeguards
- Clarify choice between iFramix and iFramix HD
- Full screen mode for older iPads
- Time transition within photos
- Weather and time in the same widget
- Carousel time setting beyond 60s
- Access to calendars
- See whole picture with black bars instead of cropped
- Support for English metrics
- Support for 12-hour clock
In-app purchases
HomeWatch
No in-app purchases
iFramix
No in-app purchases
