SmartHub vs BREC
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
SmartHub
Manage your utility and telecommunications accounts with ease. View usage, billing, and payment history. Report service issues, receive important company news, and manage your WiFi network all from your mobile device.
- View and manage bills and payments
- Monitor energy usage trends
- Contact customer service easily
- Receive service news and outage alerts
- Report service interruptions
- Manage WiFi network and devices
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SmartHub provides utility and telecommunications customers account management at their fingertips. Customers can view their usage and billing, manage payments, notify customer service of account and service issues and receive special messaging from their local utility or telecommunications company. NISC serves over 500 telecoms and utilities across the nation, install the application to determine if your local organization is supported. Additional Features: Bill & Pay - Quickly view your current account balance and due date, manage recurring payments and modify payment methods. You can also view bill history including PDF versions of paper bills directly on your mobile device. Make a payment now or schedule it for a future date. My Usage - View energy usage graphs to identify high usage trends. Navigate graphs quickly using an intuitive gesture based interface. Contact Us - Easily contact your service provider by email or phone. You can also submit one of the many predefined messages, with the ability to include pictures and GPS coordinates. News - Provides a convenient way to monitor news that may affect your service such as rate changes, outage information and upcoming events. Service Status - Displays service interruption and outage information. You can also report an outage directly to your service provider. Maps - Displays facility and payment dropbox locations on a map interface. Manage Wifi - Easily manage your WiFi network and connected devices. Maintain passwords, troubleshoot issues, create and control guest networks, limit access to connected devices, create rules with parental controls and check internet speed.
BREC
Manage your utility account securely and conveniently on the go. View bills, make payments, schedule alerts, and receive notifications. Access nearly all customer portal features from anywhere.
- Secure account access
- View bills and balance
- Make payments
- Find payment locations
- Schedule alerts and reminders
- Receive push notifications
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Our Mobile App is designed to give you fast, secure account access so you can easily manage your account details, view your bill and your account balance, make payments and find payment locations, schedule alerts and reminders, receive push notifications. Nearly everything you can do from our "Customer Portal" can now be handled instantly whether you're at home, at work, or on the go.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is ratings volume: SmartHub at 1.9K against BREC's 28. SmartHub also leads on update cadence (every 2 months vs every 5 months) and chart position (#147 vs unranked). BREC's advantage is review sentiment (31% vs 16%) and iOS requirement (12.0 vs 17.0). On price, rating, 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.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 2.7 for SmartHub against 2.7 for BREC. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: SmartHub has 1.9K ratings behind it against 28, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 16% of SmartHub's written reviews are positive against 31% of BREC's.
SmartHub ships an update every 2 months, BREC every 5 months. The most recent releases landed on September 25, 2026 and June 5, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | SmartHub | BREC |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 2.7 (1.9K ratings) | 2.7 (28 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 15.8% of reviews | 30.8% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 1.9K — better | 28 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months — better | Every 5 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Best chart rank | #147 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 12.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 29 MB | 174 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 4+ |
| Developer | National Information Solutions Cooperative | Blue Ridge Electric Co-op |
Customer experience
SmartHub
BREC
Bugs and requests
SmartHub
Reported bugs
4 issues- Login issues after recent update
- Incorrect or missing usage data
- Inability to disable auto-pay
- Compatibility problems with newer OS versions
Requested features
4 requests- Add support for multiple utility accounts
- Improve push notification system
- Provide more detailed usage insights
- Allow customizable alert thresholds
BREC
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
SmartHub
No in-app purchases
BREC
No in-app purchases









