LumiWave vs Refract
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
LumiWave
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LumiWave is a music player that lets you see your music, no matter where it comes from. ■ One playlist across every source Files on iCloud Drive, Google Drive and other cloud services, local audio on your iPhone, and Apple Music (including tracks in your library imported from CDs) — LumiWave brings them together into a single playlist built around your mood, not around where each track came from. ■ Visualizers that react to sound The playback screen is more than artwork and a play button. Five visualizers move in real time with your music: - CG: reactive particles and waveforms - Bottle: liquid fills as playback progresses - Creature: little creatures gather when you tap - Slide: your chosen photos or playlist artwork slowly pan and zoom - Aquarium: a school of fish swims to the music and gathers when you tap to drop food Pinch out for full-screen mode: nothing but the visualizer and minimal controls, so you can sink into the music. For late-night listening, focus sessions, or just changing the mood of a room. ■ Honest about audio The more striking the visuals, the more the sound has to be trustworthy. LumiWave treats the audio path with care. - Supports WAV, AIFF, FLAC, ALAC, AAC and MP3 (up to 192kHz / 24-bit) - Plays imported files at their original quality - Lossless and Hi-Res tracks are clearly badged, with format, sample rate and bit depth shown - Playback comes first: under load, rendering quality drops automatically to protect the sound ■ Privacy No account, no servers. Imported audio, playlists, photos and settings stay on your device, and audio analysis runs locally. Nothing is collected. ■ Visualizer Pro (one-time purchase) All playback features, the CG and Slide visualizers, playlists and quality display are free. A one-time Pro purchase — not a subscription — unlocks the Bottle, Creature and Aquarium visualizers and any Pro features added later. You can preview the Pro visualizers for free before buying. Music, set free.
Refract
Create dynamic music videos from any audio track using your own photos, text, and effects. This app analyzes music to choreograph visuals in real-time, offering a full timeline editor and export options for major social platforms.
- Beat-synced visualizers
- Customizable effects and overlays
- Full multi-track timeline editor
- Import audio from various sources
- One-tap presets for social platforms
- Offline processing and export
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TURN ANY TRACK INTO A VIDEO THAT MOVES WITH IT An audio visualizer and music video maker: beat-synced visualizers, your photos, text and effects, exported for Reels, Shorts, TikTok and YouTube. Refract is an audio-reactive video studio for your iPhone. Load a song and a real-time engine listens to its beat, bass and energy, then choreographs every layer to the music. No keyframes. No guesswork. No template that ignores your track. No account, no sign-in. Your music and your videos never leave your phone. YOUR MUSIC, FROM ANYWHERE Pick a song from Files, iCloud Drive or Voice Memos. Take the soundtrack straight from a video you shot, in Photos or Files, or from a direct link to an audio or video file. Refract checks the video first, keeps only its sound, and lets you hear it before you begin. Keep that sound as its own audio file in one tap. A VISUAL ENGINE THAT LISTENS • 8 GPU-accelerated visualizers — Linear Spectrum, Waveform, Ring, Polar Bars, Dual Wave, Pulse, Streaks and Dots • 20 studio effects — Glow, VHS, CRT Scanlines, Film Grain, RGB Shift, Oil Paint, Fisheye, Wave Warp, Swirl, Posterize, Edge Detect and more • 8 particle overlays for depth, atmosphere and motion • 6 auto-choreographed looks — Neon Pulse, VHS, Poster, Liquid, Handheld, Drift — each a finished edit in a single tap • A text tool with 8 typefaces and 4 ink styles, and type that pulses with the bass A REAL TIMELINE, NOT A TEMPLATE Every layer lives on a full multi-track timeline. Move it, retime it, restyle it, bind any parameter to the audio, and watch the preview follow at 60 fps. Trim a five-minute track to its strongest thirty seconds, add precise fades, and export exactly that. READY FOR EVERY PLATFORM One-tap presets for portrait, square, tall and widescreen — 9:16, 1:1, 4:5 and 16:9 — with resolution, frame rate and quality set for you. Or take full manual control, up to 4K at 60 fps, at any length. LIGHT OR DARK Refract follows your iPhone's appearance, or stays in the one you choose. PRIVATE BY DESIGN Analysis and rendering happen on your phone's GPU. Nothing is uploaded, so creating and exporting work anywhere — on a plane, in a studio, offline. Refract counts which features get used, anonymously and with no identifier of any kind, so we can see what to improve. Unlimited projects and exports, every aspect ratio, your own photos and the full timeline editor — free. Refract Pro unlocks the entire catalogue, 4K at 60 fps, unlimited length and watermark-free export. Everything you make keeps working and keeps exporting, whichever you're on. Made for musicians, producers, DJs, podcasters and labels who need a release-ready visual for every track. Privacy Policy: https://greg-wolny.github.io/refract/privacy.html Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
LumiWave and Refract 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 · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. LumiWave sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Refract sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
LumiWave ships an update every 4 days, Refract every 5 days. The most recent releases landed on October 24, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | LumiWave | Refract |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | — | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | — | 100.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | — | 2 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 4 days — better | Every 5 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | — | Freemium |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 28 MB | 12 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | PAOSystem | Greg Wolny |
In-app purchases
LumiWave
- Visualizer Pro$4.99
Refract
- Refract Pro — Monthly$3.991 Month
- Refract Pro — Yearly7 Days trial$29.991 Year








