SEM vs AcousticOwl
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
SEM
This utility app monitors your household power consumption in real-time, providing historical data and comparisons to help you save on electricity bills. It supports managing multiple devices and customizing electricity fee calculations.
- Real-time power usage monitoring
- Historical energy use tracking
- Second-to-second, day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month, and year-to-year comparisons
- Electricity fee gradient calculation
- Customizable fee templates
- Multiple device management
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SEM‑Meter is a smart energy monitor that installs directly in your power distribution box. It continuously tracks your household electricity consumption and delivers real‑time usage data straight to you—so you always know exactly what’s drawing power. Beyond live monitoring, SEM‑Meter offers powerful insights to help you manage energy more intelligently: Historical analysis – Review past usage patterns and identify conservation opportunities. Multi‑timeframe comparisons – Compare consumption second by second, day by day, week by week, month by month, and year over year. Bill savings – With clear visibility into your habits, you can make informed changes that lower your monthly electricity costs. Customizable tariff calculator – Includes a built‑in electricity fee gradient template, fully adjustable to match your local rate structure. Multi‑device management – Add and bind multiple SEM‑Meters to a single account, enabling unified monitoring and control across multiple properties or expanded setups. Whether you're an eco‑conscious homeowner or managing a growing portfolio, SEM‑Meter gives you the data and flexibility to take full command of your energy future.
AcousticOwl
Design acoustic treatment plans for any room. This app models your space, predicts sound quality, and suggests panel placement and quantities based on real absorption data and acoustic formulas. Visualize your treated room in 3D and share your designs.
- Room measurement via LiDAR or manual drawing
- Predictive sound quality analysis (RT60, room modes)
- Customizable treatment plans for various room types
- 3D visualization of treated rooms
- Catalog of acoustic materials with absorption data
- Cross-device syncing and shareable read-only links
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Work out how many acoustic panels a room needs, and where to put them. AcousticOwl models your room, predicts how it will sound, and designs a treatment plan you can actually buy and hang. It is built on published absorption data and standard acoustics formulas, not rules of thumb. MEASURE THE ROOM Scan it with LiDAR on a Pro iPhone and the floor plan builds itself, walls and corners included. No LiDAR, or an odd-shaped room? Draw the outline top-down in a few taps and set the ceiling height. Photograph a wall and the app finds its windows and doors for you, then places them at the right size and height. The image analysis runs entirely on your device — the photo is never sent anywhere for processing. SEE WHAT IS WRONG - RT60 reverberation time per octave band, 125 Hz to 4 kHz, using Sabine or Eyring with ISO 9613-1 air absorption - Your result charted against the recommended range for your room type, so "too live" is a number rather than an impression - Room modes: axial, tangential and oblique standing waves for rectangular and near-rectangular rooms, so you know which bass notes will boom and which will disappear - Every surface's contribution, so you can see whether the problem is the ceiling, the glass or the floor GET A PLAN Pick a room type — control room, home theater, podcast studio, live room, classroom, restaurant, gym and eleven more — and the planner designs a treatment layout for it. It works to that room type's target reverberation time, respects doors, windows and obstructions, and won't specify foam where fire codes forbid it. You get panel positions on real walls, quantities, and a running cost. Build several plans over the same room and compare their predicted RT60 side by side before spending anything. SEE IT IN THE ROOM Sketch in 2D from above, then look at the finished room as a fully extruded 3D model with every panel where it will actually go. REAL DATA A catalog of surface materials and acoustic products carrying published octave-band absorption coefficients. Add your own materials and products when you're working with something the catalog doesn't cover, or when a manufacturer publishes their own figures. SHARE IT Designs sync to your account across devices. Send a read-only link and anyone can open your room and its plan in a browser, no account needed — useful for showing a client, a bandmate or a landlord what you're proposing. WHO IT IS FOR Home studio and project studio owners, podcasters, mixing and mastering engineers, home cinema builders, church and school AV teams, and anyone whose room sounds worse than their gear.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: AcousticOwl at 5.0 against SEM's 3.4. AcousticOwl also leads on update cadence (every 6 days vs every 2 weeks). SEM's advantage is ratings volume (11 vs 2) and iOS requirement (15.6 vs 17.0). 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.
AcousticOwl holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 3.4. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: SEM has 11 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two.
SEM ships an update every 2 weeks, AcousticOwl every 6 days. The most recent releases landed on November 3, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | SEM | AcousticOwl |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.4 (11 ratings) | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 37.5% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 11 — better | 2 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks | Every 6 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 31 MB | 33 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Hangzhou Dashi Wisdom Technology Co., Ltd. | Tectora LLC |
Customer experience
SEM
AcousticOwl
In-app purchases
SEM
No in-app purchases
AcousticOwl
No in-app purchases









