LightBlue® vs Arduino IoT Cloud Remote
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
LightBlue®
This app allows users to interact with Bluetooth Low Energy devices. It supports scanning for, connecting to, and analyzing BLE peripherals, as well as simulating your own BLE devices. It's a comprehensive tool for developers and enthusiasts working with BLE technology.
- Scan and discover BLE peripherals
- Connect and view device profiles
- Read and write characteristics
- Subscribe to notifications
- Create and advertise virtual BLE devices
- Clone peripheral profiles
- Log and share BLE events
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LightBlue® by Punch Through® Your ultimate BLE debugging and development toolkit. Trusted by BLE developers and engineers since 2012 to scan, inspect, and troubleshoot Bluetooth Low Energy devices with precision. Scan For Peripherals Discover, connect, and interact with nearby BLE devices. Quickly view advertising peripherals, sort by signal strength (RSSI), and connect with a single tap. Once connected, explore the device's advertisement data, services, and characteristics. Isolate SDK Issues Simplify debugging by pinpointing issues in your BLE SDKs. LightBlue lets you isolate your app's business logic and focus on core tasks like connecting, scanning, reading, writing, and receiving notifications, built on years of BLE development experience and platform best practices. Mimic Your Devices Prototype your application by creating virtual BLE peripherals. Build a profile from scratch or clone an advertising peripheral to mimic your product's functionality, even before your own firmware is ready. Key features: - Scan and discover BLE peripherals nearby - Browse services and characteristics in detail - Read, write, and subscribe to notifications and indications - Send data from notifications to AWS IoT or Adafruit IO via Cloud Connect - Write to characteristics in Hex, Octal, Binary, Decimal, or ASCII - Clone peripheral profiles or build your own from scratch - Advertise as a custom peripheral to simulate your device - Thoroughly log and share BLE events - Available on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Android LightBlue started in 2012 as an internal tool. Punch Through built it to test and debug BLE devices while working on client projects. It worked well, so we shared it with the community. We've kept it free ever since. Today, LightBlue is used by solo developers and engineering teams alike, including inside some of the world's most respected tech and device companies.
Arduino IoT Cloud Remote
Easily access, monitor, and control your Arduino IoT Cloud projects from your mobile device. Manage various aspects of your connected devices remotely, from home automation to industrial processes.
- Remote monitoring and control
- Access IoT Cloud dashboards
- Variety of widgets (switches, sliders, gauges)
- Real-time data visualization
- Home automation control
- Industrial process monitoring
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A powerful companion for the Arduino IoT Cloud – simply access, monitor and control your dashboards with a few screen taps. Arduino IoT Cloud Remote can be very useful in a variety of use cases where you need to monitor or control regardless of the time or place: - In the field: you can read the data from your soil sensors or start your irrigation system directly from anywhere. - In the factory: constant visibility of the state of your manufacturing process status, with the ability to control your automation remotely. - In the home: simply monitor your home automation systems, check your previous or actual energy consumption from the convenience of your sofa. Create your dashboards on https://app.arduino.cc from your computer or tablet and control them with IoT Cloud Remote from your iPhone. When creating your dashboards on the Arduino IoT Cloud you can link your widgets to multiple IoT projects for maximum flexibility. Featuring a broad set of versatile and simple widgets, including: - Switch - Push-button - Slider - Stepper - Messenger - Color - Dimmed light - Colored light - Value - Status - Gauge - Percentage - LED - Map - Chart - Time picker - Scheduler - Value Dropdown - Value Selector - Sticky Note - Image - Advanced Chart - Advanced Map - Image Map - Link
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: LightBlue® at 66% against Arduino IoT Cloud Remote's 43%. Arduino IoT Cloud Remote's advantage is rating (4.6 vs 4.4) and monetization model (free vs ad-supported). 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.
Arduino IoT Cloud Remote holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 4.4. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 942 and 434 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 66% of LightBlue®'s written reviews are positive against 43% of Arduino IoT Cloud Remote's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 21, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | LightBlue® | Arduino IoT Cloud Remote |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.4 (942 ratings) | 4.6 (434 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 66.1% of reviews — better | 43.1% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 942 — better | 434 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks | Every 3 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Ad-supported | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 16.4 | 15.1 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 22 MB | 91 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Punch Through | Arduino LLC |
Customer experience
LightBlue®
Arduino IoT Cloud Remote
User reviews
LightBlue®
From 942 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Found lost devices
- 🔍 Helpful for locating Bluetooth devices
- 👍 Works great
- 👍 Lifesaver
- 👍 Fantastic app
Room to improve
- 🐛 Doesn't work with dead devices
- 🐛 Unreliable connection
- 🐛 Confusing to use
- 🐛 Doesn't work with all devices
Arduino IoT Cloud Remote
From 434 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Easy to use interface
- 🚀 Fast and responsive cloud facility
- 💡 Innovative IoT cloud solution
- 🎯 Good for beginners and learning projects
- ✅ Stable once properly configured
Room to improve
- 🐛 Frequent crashes and stability issues
- ⚠️ Cumbersome and unintuitive setup process
- 💰 Expensive subscription requirements
- 🔌 Poor connectivity and connection drops
- ⏱️ Slow loading times and performance lag
Bugs and requests
LightBlue®
Reported bugs
3 issues- Crashes after updates
- Fails to connect Apple Pencil
- Doesn't detect all nearby devices
Requested features
3 requests- Ability to manually name devices
- More precise location tracking
- Integration with Siri/Shortcuts
Arduino IoT Cloud Remote
Reported bugs
14 issues- Dashboard loading spinner hangs indefinitely
- App crashes when opening dashboards with graphs
- Dashboard fails to load after app backgrounding
- Account registration and email verification failures
- Vague error messages during signup
Show 9 moreShow fewer
- Status button non-functional on iOS
- Double authentication not working
- Values not updating in real-time on mobile
- Blank screen appears randomly
- Chart scrolling issues
- Boards intermittently disappear from network
- Digital pin compatibility issues with ESP-32
- Requires constant re-login
- UTC timezone not customizable
Requested features
12 requests- iOS widgets support
- Dashboard editing capability in mobile app
- Dark mode support
- iPad/tablet layout optimization
- Custom dashboard cover images
Show 7 moreShow fewer
- Apple Shortcuts and Home app integration
- Siri voice command compatibility
- GitHub login option
- Background data refresh for iPhone
- Wider selection of preset dashboard icons
- GPS functionality
- More widget variety
In-app purchases
LightBlue®
No in-app purchases
Arduino IoT Cloud Remote
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is LightBlue® free?
Is Arduino IoT Cloud Remote free?
Which has better reviews, LightBlue® or Arduino IoT Cloud Remote?
Do LightBlue® or Arduino IoT Cloud Remote have ads?
Which is updated more often, LightBlue® or Arduino IoT Cloud Remote?
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