OnSwitch for Philips Hue vs Hubby.
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
OnSwitch for Philips Hue
Enhance your smart lighting with dynamic scenes and effects. Create immersive experiences for holidays, parties, and relaxation with a user-friendly interface. Features include sunrise alarms, sunset timers, and creative color controls.
- Animated light scenes for holidays and parties
- Live game-sync events for sports
- Sunrise alarm and sunset sleep timer
- Creative color control and discovery
- Manage and control light groups
- Hero lighting with cinematic flair
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LIGHTS! COLORS! ACTION! OnSwitch is the #1 rated companion app for Philips Hue smart lighting systems. Downloaded over 2.5 million times! OnSwitch for Philips Hue has a beautiful, simple user interface but it's also powerful. Your Hue lights come alive with a single click! • Holidays • Party/Disco Lighting • Sports, Including LIVE game-sync events • Sunrise alarm and sunset sleep timer • Fun kids content • Accent Lighting • Color flows • Candle light • Nature Scenes • Lightning • Fireworks Our Hue app connects to your Philips Hue Bridge, creating immersive animated experiences with your Hue lights! Get the best Hue App, get OnSwitch! UNLOCK EVERYTHING With OnSwitch Premium subscription you can unlock our entire content library and more! • Unlock ALL albums (300+ animated light scenes) • Unlimited SIRI Shortcuts • Access exclusive LIVE events. • Amazing NEW scenes added regularly. HERO LIGHTING Our Hue light scenes have cinematic flair. Music sound tracks set the mood while our an animation engine delivers bursts of light and sound where anything can happen. Santa lands on your house! Zombies attack! You are in a spaceship battle! Other light scenes transport you to a Lush Forest, Venice or even Deep Space to chill out in the Orion Nebula listening to superb ambient electronic music. CREATIVE LIGHTING OnSwitch gives you smarter, clearer ways to control your smart lights. Instead of guessing what Hue's "Light Recipes" mean, our Everyday Lighting album presents gorgeous photos of antique and halogen bulbs or a skylight so it's clear what kind of light you are going to get. Our fluorescent tube even flickers on like the real thing! Want Color? Other apps make you drag a pin around a color wheel. OnSwitch makes it easy with curated Pastels and Accent colors. Warm and Cool color flows. And "Color Splat!" our exclusive color discovery feature that's always fun and a surprise. SUNRISE ALARM & SUNSET SLEEP TIMER Wake up with a beautiful sunrise and your favorite music! Go to sleep with a sunset, optimized for better sleep. LIGHT GROUPS Easily create and manage groups of bulbs. Control each group independently. OnSwitch manages groups on your Philips Hue Bridge so it will play nicely with your other apps! IMPORTANT! • You will need LIFX smart bulbs or a Philips Hue bridge and light bulbs to use this app. • OnSwitch requires iOS10 or later to run. SUBSCRIPTION TERMS OnSwitch Premium subscription unlocks all of the app's lighting content. You can preview all of the content for 3 days FREE before your subscription starts. If you choose to subscribe, you will be charged a per month subscription fee according to your country. The subscription fee will be shown in the app before you complete the payment. Your subscription will automatically renew at the end of each subscription term, unless auto-renewal is turned off at least 24 hours before the end of the term. Subscription renewals cost the same as the original subscription, and your credit card will be charged through your iTunes account at confirmation of purchase. You may manage your subscription and turn off auto-renewal at any time after purchase by going to your iTunes Account Settings. Refunds will not be given for any unused portion of the term. For additional information, please read: •Terms of Service (https://www.getonswitch.com/terms) • Privacy Policy (https://www.getonswitch.com/privacy)
Hubby.
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Hubby is the shared household app that finally names the mental load and helps you split it. A to-do list for couples that gets the part most apps miss: it's not about who does the dishes, it's about who remembers the dishes need doing in the first place. The noticing, the planning, the keeping-track. That invisible work is what wears people down. Hubby tracks both. WHAT YOU GET, FREE Sign in with Apple. Set up your household in seconds and get it all back on a new phone. No passwords, no email to hand over. Tasks you share. Add anything, assign it to either of you or to "Everyone", set a due date. Both phones stay in sync. Repeating tasks. Set anything to repeat daily, weekly, or monthly. See it coming a week ahead, and change or stop a repeat whenever you like. No more re-remembering the same things. A renewed home screen. Open Hubby and see the mental load ring: who's carrying what right now, with a calm line at the center that gets busy when someone's stretched. Smart parsing on-device. Type "Buy milk at AH tomorrow" and Hubby pulls out the title, the date, and the store. Say "groceries every Monday" and it sets the repeat too. Powered by Apple Intelligence on iPhone 15 Pro and newer. Works offline. Group the big stuff. Planning a birthday or a weekend away? Gather all its tasks under one named group, so the whole plan lives in one place instead of one person's head. Your color, your household. Pick a color from the 159-color Sanzo Wada palette. Your partner gets a color that pairs with yours from the same book. Hand-built, not algorithmic. Widgets. Today's tasks, quick-add, count. All on your home screen. Weekly check-in. Once a week, both of you rate how the load felt. No drama, no scores. Just a moment to compare notes. WHAT YOU GET WITH PREMIUM The Sunday Letter. A personal weekly note about your household, written for the two of you. It reflects what you got done, what's been carrying weight, and what's been off-balance. Lands every Sunday. The headline feature. Daily morning insight. A short push each morning. Tells you when the balance is off, who's carrying more this stretch, and what to try. The thing that actually moves the needle. Household Balance + Weekly Overview widgets. See the split at a glance from your home screen. "Your partner added X" pings and "Due tomorrow" reminders. The gentle loop that keeps both of you in the same room, mentally. Letter archive. Read past weeks any time. TRY IT FIRST Premium starts with a 7-day free trial. No card to type in, it runs through your Apple ID. You'll see the Sunday Letter in your first week, so you know exactly what you're paying for. PRIVACY We collect almost nothing. No ads. No analytics tied to you. No tracking. We use Sign in with Apple to set up your household, and we never ask for your email. Your tasks, your household, your data. Read the full privacy policy in the app or on our website. Hubby is built for couples. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Two things to confirm before you paste, both from my earlier review: - Daily morning insight — make sure that push still fires (it was stripped at one point; the server function still exists). If it's not live, delete that block. - 7-day trial — confirm your StoreKit intro offer is actually set to 7 days free.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Hubby. at every 4 days against OnSwitch for Philips Hue's every 2 weeks. OnSwitch for Philips Hue's advantage is iOS requirement (16.0 vs 18.0). On price, 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
Both are free to download. OnSwitch for Philips Hue sells 9 in-app purchases, starting at $12.99 per month and Hubby. sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $5.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
OnSwitch for Philips Hue ships an update every 2 weeks, Hubby. every 4 days. The most recent releases landed on October 24, 2026 and October 9, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | OnSwitch for Philips Hue | Hubby. |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (9.6K ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 62.1% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 9.6K — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks | Every 4 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Freemium | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, Apple Watch |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 — better | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 88 MB | 20 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Buzzhaus, LLC | Maarten Honig |
Bugs and requests
OnSwitch for Philips Hue
Reported bugs
4 issues- Crashes on launch after update
- Connectivity issues
- Lights not responding correctly
- Scenes not working as expected
Requested features
7 requests- Add support for LIFX bulbs
- Allow customization of light groups
- Add background mode/automation
- Add Siri/HomeKit integration
- Improve interface and organization
Show 2 moreShow fewer
- Add more scenes and effects
- Reduce pricing of individual scenes
Hubby.
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
OnSwitch for Philips Hue
- OnSwitch Premium$12.991 Month
- OnSwitch Premium3 Days trial$35.991 Year
- Embers$0.99
- Fireplace$1.99
- Lightning$1.99
Show 4 moreShow fewer
- Aurora$1.99
- Nature Album$4.99
- Science Fiction Album$5.99
- Fireworks Album2 variants$7.99
Hubby.
- Hubby Premium7 Days trial$5.991 Month
- Hubby Premium7 Days trial$49.991 Year
Questions
Is OnSwitch for Philips Hue free?
Is Hubby. free?
Do OnSwitch for Philips Hue or Hubby. have ads?
Which is updated more often, OnSwitch for Philips Hue or Hubby.?
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