HomeMapper vs Smart Home Playground Analyzer
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
HomeMapper
Unified inventory of all smart home devices across HomeKit, Home Assistant, Thread, Matter, and IP networks. Provides detailed device information, network topology maps, and health status.
- Unified device inventory
- Cross-platform scanning (HomeKit, Home Assistant, Matter, Thread, IP)
- Detailed device specifications
- Network topology visualization
- Device health monitoring
- Setup code vault
- Multi-location support
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Your entire smart home network. One view. HomeMapper builds a unified inventory of every device on your network, scanning HomeKit, Home Assistant, Thread, Matter, and IP at once and correlating them by hardware identifiers. DISCOVER Every method runs at once: • Apple's ecosystem. HomeKit via Apple's framework, plus Thread accessories, Border Routers, and Matter. • The network itself. Bonjour, subnet scans, and protocols like SSDP/UPnP. Printers, NAS boxes, and other local-only devices show up too. • Home Assistant. Direct read of your device registry: Matter, Thread, Zigbee, Z-Wave, ESPHome, and MQTT. When a device appears through several methods, HomeMapper merges it by seven hardware identifiers, not names. If HomeMapper isn't sure two entries are the same device, it lists both. YOUR DEVICES, EVERY DETAIL See devices Apple's Home app can't, and details it doesn't show: manufacturer, model, firmware, serial number, battery, IP and MAC address, and how each device connects, in columns like Connected via, Signal, Channel, and Stability. A room-based view groups them by room. TOPOLOGY MAP The Topology map shows how your devices connect: your Thread mesh, from the border routers down to the end devices they carry, your Zigbee network from Home Assistant, and each HomeKit bridge with the accessories behind it. It draws only connections it can measure. Tap a device for its full detail, or tap a connection to see its signal strength and how stable it has been. A red triangle marks a connection that is not working: weak, dropping traffic, or gone quiet. When a device will not report how it connects, HomeMapper shows that rather than guessing. A Health view lists what needs attention on your mesh, worst first: what is wrong, which devices, and one thing to try. Most homes show "Everything looks healthy." Export the map as a PNG, PDF, or SVG, titled with the home and dated. HOME ASSISTANT HomeMapper scans your Home Assistant servers as deeply as HomeKit, including the Thread mesh behind their border routers. Zigbee, Z-Wave, ESPHome, MQTT: devices HomeKit can't see appear alongside the ones it can. Pick a Primary Platform, and its room names win when a device is known to both. PLACES Scan more than one location, like your home and a relative's. Each Place holds its own Apple Homes and Home Assistant servers, and the app shows one Place at a time. HomeMapper picks the Place from devices on its local network, not your location. SETUP CODE VAULT Every HomeKit, Matter, and Z-Wave device has a setup code on a sticker that fades or gets lost. You need it to pair the device, and again if you reset or move it. No scan can recover one: setup codes never travel over the network. Save each code while you still have it: scan the QR with the camera, pull it from a photo, or type it in. It reads printed 8-digit codes too, for older accessories without a QR. A room-by-room list shows which devices are still missing one. Have a lot? Export a CSV worksheet, fill it in on a computer, and import it back. Your codes are stored on your device, in your backups, and synced through your own iCloud. EXPORT AND BACK UP Export your inventory to CSV, filtered how you want, for Numbers, Excel, or Sheets. Back up your inventory, settings, and setup codes to iCloud Drive or a local folder, and restore on another device. PRIVACY No ads and no tracking. Nothing leaves your device unless you send it. No account, and the only login is your own Home Assistant. FREE AND PRO HomeKit scanning, the device list, the room-based view, and switching between Apple Homes are free forever, with no scan or time limits. Pro adds multi-protocol scanning, all 20+ columns, Places, Home Assistant, the Topology map, the setup code vault, backup and restore, and CSV export. Subscribe yearly with a 7-day free trial, or buy Lifetime once and it never expires. Runs on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Terms of Use: https://homemapper.app/terms/
Smart Home Playground Analyzer
Discover and visualize all devices connected to your home Wi-Fi network. This privacy-focused tool uses on-device AI to identify gadgets, services, and protocols, making your smart home ecosystem visible and manageable.
- Deep network scanning
- Intelligent device identification
- Service and protocol interrogation
- Interactive visual network diagram
- Universal Apple native app
- 100% private, zero data harvesting
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"Scan your Wi-Fi and every device comes back with a real name instead of an IP address. Tap any one to see what it's actually running. Nothing you find ever leaves your device. It usually starts with a router page full of numbers and one smart plug that has stopped answering. Working out which line is which shouldn't take an evening. Smart Home Playground Analyzer does it in seconds, and then goes a good deal further. WHAT IT DOES Deep network scan — sweep your local network and find everything on it. Smart home gear, speakers, TVs, wearables, laptops, and the two or three things you forgot you owned. Names, not numbers — on-device AI recognizes the hardware on your Wi-Fi and gives it a name you'll actually recognize. Device Inspector — tap any device for the full picture. Who made it, what services it's got open, which protocols and ports it's using, and how it reaches your network. Smart Home Inspector Report — a readable summary of your whole network, from media capabilities through to Matter fabric analysis. Reads in 13 languages. Protocol tagging — the app asks each device what it speaks and labels it: Matter, Thread, AirPlay, Cast, mDNS, Bonjour. Built natively for iPhone, iPad and Mac in Swift. Scan from the couch, dig into the details at your desk. CONTROL, AND WHAT THAT MEANS HERE Two specific things, and it's worth being straight about the limits up front. Cast playback — play, pause, skip and change volume on your Cast-enabled speakers and displays. On iPhone and iPad, a Live Activity keeps the controls on your Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island while something's playing. On Mac, they appear in Control Center's Now Playing and on your media keys while the app is open. That's the whole of it. This isn't a universal remote. It won't talk to your TV over infrared, and it doesn't do Roku, Fire TV or a cable box. If that's what you need, there are excellent apps out there that do it. IT FITS INTO YOUR DEVICE PROPERLY Spotlight — the devices you discover get indexed locally, so you can search a device name from the Home Screen and land straight on it. Siri and Shortcuts — App Intents let you run a scan, check what's online, or control playback by voice or inside your own automations. WHO THIS IS FOR The person whose smart plug dropped off the network and can't work out why. The IT professional who'd rather audit an unfamiliar network in five minutes than an afternoon. And anyone who's simply curious about what's going on in their own house. ABOUT PRIVACY No accounts. No analytics. No server anywhere. Every scan and every bit of AI identification happens on the device in your hands, and the results stay there. Your home network is nobody's business but yours, and the app is built to keep it that way. Take control of your smart home with a tool made by the curious, for the curious. Something broken or missing? Get in touch — every message gets read."
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Smart Home Playground Analyzer at none against HomeMapper's 2. On price, rating, ratings volume and update cadence 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. HomeMapper sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per year. Smart Home Playground Analyzer asks for nothing beyond the download.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for HomeMapper against 5.0 for Smart Home Playground Analyzer. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 5 and 4 respectively.
HomeMapper ships an update every 10 days, Smart Home Playground Analyzer fortnightly. Both last shipped on October 31, 2026.
| Parameter | HomeMapper | Smart Home Playground Analyzer |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (5 ratings) | 5.0 (4 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 5 — better | 4 |
| Update frequency | Every 10 days — better | Fortnightly |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, Mac — better |
| Requires iOS | 18.4 | 18.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 37 MB | 28 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Vault Hunters NM LLC | ARSHAM HATAMBEIKI |
Customer experience
HomeMapper
Smart Home Playground Analyzer
In-app purchases
HomeMapper
- HomeMapper Pro7 Days trial$9.991 Year
- Lifetime Access$39.99
Smart Home Playground Analyzer
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is HomeMapper free?
Is Smart Home Playground Analyzer free?
Which has better reviews, HomeMapper or Smart Home Playground Analyzer?
Do HomeMapper or Smart Home Playground Analyzer have ads?
Which is updated more often, HomeMapper or Smart Home Playground Analyzer?
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