Comparison

Smilophone vs Metro Mate

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

Head to head
About

Smilophone

This app uses facial recognition to generate music based on your emotions. Express yourself through happy or sad sounds, and control the tone with your eyebrows. Create unique musical pieces simply by showing your face.

Highlights
  • Facial expression to music conversion
  • Emotional intelligence powered by Affectiva
  • Tone control via eyebrow movement
  • Real-time music generation
  • Supports iPhone and iPad
Features
Read full description

Smilophone - music is in your face! Using emotional intelligence powered by Affectiva, Smilophone converts your expressions into music. Hold your iPhone or iPad up so it can see your face, and the music will play. Happy faces make happy sounds, sad faces make sad sounds. Raise or lower your eyebrows to raise or lower the tone. Have fun and make music as beautiful as you are!

About

Metro Mate

Features
Read full description

Metro Mate is a metronome for drummers. Calm between the beats, clear on the beat. Free, open source, no ads, no subscription, no account. THE CLICK - A wave field of connected dots flows in tempo and jumps on every beat, accents hit harder - Tempo wheel from 1 to 300 BPM with a haptic tick per BPM and a stronger one every 10 - Beat grid with accents and note values from quarters to sixteenth triplets - Tap tempo, shuffle a pattern, save your own presets - 7 click sounds: Classic woodblock, Clean, Claves, Pocket, Cowbell, Punch, Deep - Keeps playing with the ringer on silent and in the background YOUR SOUND - Build your own drum kit for Learn: 8 snares, 6 kicks, 5 hi-hats, 4 open hi-hats and 3 practice pad sounds, each with a preview - Import your own one-shots from the Files app, for example an export from your DAW. They stay on your device LEARN - 70 grooves and exercises in 9 categories, Beginner to Advanced - All-Time Classics in the style of Funky Drummer, Purdie Shuffle, Amen Break and more - Funk and ghost notes, linear grooves, hi-hat work, kick independence, shuffles and triplets, accent studies, chops with R and L sticking - Every groove as a grid you can hear, played on a recorded funk kit - Dynamics on or off, accents and ghost notes or every hit at one level - Touch the grid to hear one column at a time, loop the part you are working on - Remembers your tempo for every groove, one tap back to the target tempo HISTORY - Week view with practice time per day - Month view with calendar, longest streak and tempo progress per groove - Stored on your device only Siri: "Start Metro Mate at 90 BPM". The drum and click samples are recorded instruments released under CC0, the Clean tone is generated in the app. The code is on GitHub, so the no tracking promise is something you can check.

Screenshots

Smilophone4 screens
Metro Mate4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: Metro Mate at every 3 months against Smilophone's every 11 months. Smilophone's advantage is iOS requirement (8.2 vs 16.0). 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

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

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Smilophone ships an update every 11 months, Metro Mate every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on October 14, 2026 and October 30, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
Smilophone versus Metro Mate: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSmilophoneMetro Mate
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (1 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews0.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings1 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 11 monthsEvery 3 months — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS8.2 — better16.0
Further details — not scored
Size79 MB5 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperSimon BoothAlexander Friedl

In-app purchases

None

Smilophone

No in-app purchases

None

Metro Mate

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Smilophone free?
Smilophone is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Metro Mate free?
Metro Mate is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Smilophone or Metro Mate have ads?
Neither Smilophone nor Metro Mate shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Smilophone or Metro Mate?
Smilophone ships an update every 11 months, and Metro Mate every 3 months. Most recently, Smilophone was updated on October 14, 2026 and Metro Mate on October 30, 2026.

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