Comparison

FW Radar vs Toaster

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

FW Radar

Features
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FW Radar keeps track of firmware for your studio gear, so you don't have to. It follows firmware releases for more than 1,700 hardware products, from synths and drum machines to eurorack modules, audio interfaces and effects. When something in your rig gets an update, you hear about it. Your rig Add the gear you own and see where each device stands: the latest firmware, the version you have installed, the full version history with changelogs, manuals and used prices from Reverb. Notifications Turn on notifications and you get a push as soon as a new firmware shows up for one of your devices. Tap it and you land on the product page. Telegram and email alerts are there too, if you prefer. Public rigs Look at the setups other electronic musicians share, and publish your own with photos if you like. The catalog More than 1,700 products from over 300 brands, checked around the clock. If your device is missing, request it from the app and it gets added. On iPhone, iPad and Mac. Free, no subscription. Sign in with Apple or Google. FW Radar does not host firmware files: every download link goes to the manufacturer's official page. This application uses the Reverb API but is not endorsed, created by or certified by Reverb.com, LLC.

About

Toaster

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Toaster turns your TV into a music display for the room. It listens and writes what it hears out as live code: named lines typed onto the screen, big enough to read from the sofa, lighting up as they play over moving visuals. It finds the beat, the kick, clap and hats, the bass line, the chords and the key, and keeps rewriting the code as the song goes on. It's a live reconstruction for show, not an exact transcription. The code is Strudel, the open-source live-coding environment for music. It runs with nothing pressed. The first time, it opens on the demo beat; after that, on whatever you picked last, with an ID card showing the tempo and key, and a new background every 32 bars. What it listens to • Your iPhone as the mic: Toaster hears the room, so the music on your speakers, a DJ or a band becomes code (Apple TV 4K, 2nd generation or later, with an iPhone on iOS 17 or later) • Internet radio: sixteen stations built in, from downtempo and deep house to soul and live shows, and your own: add a station by typing its stream address, with a name if you like, and it's kept on your Apple TV. When a stream sends the song's title, Toaster shows it and looks for the cover • The demo beat, built in, to start right away What you see • 13 backgrounds, including a spectrum, a tunnel, a spiral, a pitch wheel, a spectrogram, rain and a scope • Chrome: a pool of liquid chrome that the kick drops beads into • Worlds: close-ups of everyday materials filmed as planets, cutting to the next one on the kick, in looks such as film, ink, risograph, cyanotype, thermal, night vision, CRT and VHS • Scenery: eleven animated scenes, from a lake and a campfire to a city in the rain and a koi pond • A mosaic that cuts a radio song's cover, or one of a dozen bundled artworks, into squares and scrambles them in time with the music • A dot orb, punchcard or domino blocks, a liquid glass lens over the code, and five color themes • Drop effects, off until you turn them on: when the kick comes back after a break, a retro desktop floods with pop-up windows, a crash screen flashes up, or a frozen window smears across the visuals Your iPhone as the camera With Continuity Camera, your iPhone puts you behind the code: tinted to the theme, with your eyes and mouth blown up, or drawn as text, with seven effects including cut-out, glass, dots and voxels. Your hands work as a remote: frame a window with your fingers to see through one of 16 filters, make a circle with your hands to open a portal, and hold up two fingers for the next theme or a fist to hush the code. The Siri Remote Click up or down to change the background, left or right to move between the radio stations. Swipe to change the background's look or the theme. Play/Pause turns the background changes off and on, and a click in the middle opens the picker with everything else: what to listen to, the picture, the size of the code and the camera. Top Shelf With Toaster in the top row of the Home Screen, its scenes play across the Top Shelf. Pick one and Toaster opens on it. Everything Toaster hears and sees stays on your Apple TV. No account, no ads, no tracking. Toaster is a native port of Toaster, the open-source app by Colin (github.com/StopBanning/toaster), used under its MIT licence. It is an independent app, not made by or affiliated with the Strudel project.

Screenshots

FW Radar4 screens

Verdict

The call

FW Radar and Toaster are too close to call on the numbers: across 6 compared parameters — price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.

Scored on Price Ā· Rating Ā· Positive reviews Ā· Number of ratings Ā· Update frequency Ā· Ads Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Monetization Ā· Best chart rank Ā· Devices Ā· Requires iOS

CostPrice Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Ads Ā· Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

FW Radar ships an update every 3 weeks, Toaster daily. Both last shipped on November 10, 2026.

ScorecardNo meaningful differences
FW Radar versus Toaster: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterFW RadarToaster
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyEvery 3 weeksDaily — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
DevicesiPhone, iPad — betterApple TV
Requires iOS16.4 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size49 MB13 MB
Age rating4+9+
DeveloperVincenzo RisiInsula Technology Inc.

In-app purchases

None

FW Radar

No in-app purchases

None

Toaster

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is FW Radar free?
FW Radar is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Toaster free?
Toaster is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do FW Radar or Toaster have ads?
Neither FW Radar nor Toaster shows ads.
Which is updated more often, FW Radar or Toaster?
FW Radar ships an update every 3 weeks, and Toaster daily. Most recently, FW Radar was updated on November 10, 2026 and Toaster on November 10, 2026.

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