Hue Disco vs WLED
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Hue Disco
Transform your home or business into a dynamic light show. This app syncs Philips Hue lights with music, creating custom color themes and moods. Features include audio reactivity, strobes, and background operation.
- Music-reactive light shows
- Customizable color themes
- Multiple strobe effects
- Mood lighting with timed transitions
- Background audio support
- Microphone sensitivity control
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Often imitated, never surpassed: Hue Disco ! An amazing controller for your Philips Hue connected house or business. Turn your ordinary livingroom into a dancefloor. Use your Hue Connected restaurant as a party location without the need for an expensive lightplan. ***Hue Disco requires a Philips Hue Bridge*** Hue Disco does it all with your Philips Hue setup. The Mood function changes your Hue Lights within a themed colorset at your chosen time interval over and over again. Perfect for warming up your party or any other occasion. Just perfect. Hue Disco is the best in recognizing your favorite music through the microphone. Even at low volume levels changes are accurately detected and transformed into a lightshow. It's the only Hue App with a real fast Stroboscope! (Strobe) Checkout the youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjXzdmjPMhU&feature=youtu.be Some detailed features: ****Audio options**** - Microphone sensitivity sliders let you control how often music is turned into light (change) and control silence detection. (dB) - Brightness control sliders manage the maximum and minimum brightness of your disco setup - Indicators to show when your thresholds are being 'hit' by the music. - LED indicator for TEMPO tap button indicating current BPM. -> Auto Disco (strobe, transition style) ****Color Control and Custom Color Themes**** - User configurable color themes. - Color control slider helps you set the saturation of bulbs. - Color range control - Transform any image from your library or Camera in a color theme. ****Strobe**** - New Color Strobe. - Rainbow Strobe. - Classic White Strobe - Custom Color Strobe - Strobe your own Custom Color theme -> Smooth, Snap or Mix Transition. For selecting soft or crazy wild fast transition. Warning for the epileptic! - Mood Tab. Control any mood with these new great features: -> Select transition/cycle time between selected lights from 1 second to 10 minutes! -> Choose a theme or select a color range -> Create your own color theme -> Choose to change all bulbs to the same color -> Or never change to the same color -> Or sometimes -> Or Frequent -> Shake for random setting within current theme (option) -> Overall Mood Brightness Control -> Overall Mood Color Intensity Control -> Sleeptimer for Mood mode Hue Disco listens to an external sound source. It supports running in the background! - It’s possible to use hue disco while playing audio with any other app through: - Bluetooth - Airplay - the internal speaker - a connected dock with audio features - a device connected through the headphone jack Warning: Hue Disco requires a Philips Hue Bridge with at least one controlled bulb. Don't buy this App if you do not know what Philips Hue is. See http://www.meethue.com for more information.
WLED
Control your smart LED lights directly from your iPhone or iPad. This app automatically discovers your WLED devices on Wi-Fi, allowing you to manage power, brightness, colors, and effects. It also supports voice commands and one-tap software updates for your controllers.
- Automatic Wi-Fi Discovery
- Live Status & Controls
- Home Screen Widgets
- Siri & Shortcuts Integration
- One-Tap Device Updates
- Customizable Device Organization
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Take full control of your WLED light devices from your iPhone or iPad. This is the official companion app for devices running the free and open-source WLED firmware (such as ESP32 and ESP8266 controllers). The WLED app automatically finds your lights on your home Wi-Fi and brings them together in one simple, fast dashboard. Toggle power, adjust brightness, pick colors and effects, or keep your lights up to date in just a few taps. Key Features: • Automatic Wi-Fi Discovery: Finds your WLED lights on your local network automatically with no complicated setup required. • Live Status & Controls: See your lights' current colors, brightness, and online status update instantly right from the device list. • Home Screen Widgets: Turn lights on or off, see their current state at a glance, or jump straight to a device from your Home Screen. • Siri, Shortcuts & Action Button: Toggle your lights or set their brightness using Siri voice commands, the Shortcuts app, or your iPhone's Action button. • One-Tap Device Updates: Get notified when new WLED software is available and update your controllers directly from the app (supports official WLED, QuinLED, and MoonModules). • Made for iPhone & iPad: Adapts cleanly to any screen size with a split-screen layout on iPad, plus Light and Dark modes. • Easy Organization: Give your lights custom names and hide seasonal or offline controllers until you need them again. Completely free and open-source.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: WLED at Free against Hue Disco's $4.99. WLED also leads on rating (3.5 vs 2.7). Hue Disco's advantage is update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 4 months) and chart position (#154 vs unranked). On review sentiment, ads, 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
WLED is free to download; Hue Disco costs $4.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
WLED holds the better App Store score, 3.5 against 2.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Hue Disco has 91 ratings behind it against 12, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 43% of Hue Disco's written reviews are positive against 51% of WLED's.
Hue Disco ships an update every 2 weeks, WLED every 4 months. The most recent releases landed on November 10, 2026 and November 11, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Hue Disco | WLED |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $4.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 2.7 (91 ratings) | 3.5 (12 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 43.3% of reviews | 50.5% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 91 — better | 12 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks — better | Every 4 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Free — better |
| Best chart rank | #154 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 12.0 — better | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 65 MB | 24 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | iMakeStuff | Christophe Gagnier |
Customer experience
Hue Disco
WLED
User reviews
Hue Disco
From 91 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🎉 Great for parties
- 👍 Customizable lighting effects
- 🚀 Works well with Hue lights
- 💡 Demonstrates potential of Hue lights
Room to improve
- 🐛 Connectivity issues
- 🐛 Compatibility problems with newer Hue bridges
- 🐛 Crashes and freezes
- 🔋 Drains device battery
- 👎 Unreliable performance
WLED
From 12 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Works flawlessly for some
- 👍 Free and does the job
- 👍 Great for managing multiple devices
- 👍 Responsive and stable (for some)
- 👍 Cleaner and modern UI
Room to improve
- 🐛 Connectivity issues
- 🐛 Randomly turns on/off
- 🐛 Not user friendly
- 🐛 Glitchy and poorly built
- 🐛 Flickering lights after update
Bugs and requests
Hue Disco
Reported bugs
4 issues- Resets Hue light names and room settings
- Fails to connect to Hue bridge
- Lights get stuck on certain colors
- Incompatible with latest iOS and Hue hardware
Requested features
4 requests- Ability to control music and lighting from same device
- Support for more smart bulb brands
- Improved synchronization with music
- Option to select specific light colors
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
Hue Disco
No in-app purchases
WLED
No in-app purchases









