Comparison

iLight:Smart lights vs Magic

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

Head to head
About

iLight:Smart lights

Control smart lights from your phone, adjusting brightness and color. Enjoy dynamic lighting effects, music synchronization, and shake-activated controls. Features include a sleep assistant and timed wake-up alarms with gradual light and sound changes.

Highlights
  • Mobile light control (on/off, brightness, color)
  • 4 colorful light effects
  • Musical rhythm synchronization (local music, cloud resources)
  • Shake controls for various settings
  • Sleep assistant with gradual fade-out
  • Timed wake-up with gradual fade-in
Features
Read full description

Light Control: Lights controlled via mobile app on/off, altering brightness,colors Colorful light effect: 4 colorful light effects inside with the app, to meet your needs in different contexts. Musical Rhythm: Local music freely taken; TF card plugged anytime. Enjoy the massive unique cloud musical resources; Shake: shaking with kinds of settings as you need, such as random colors, on/off, next song. Sleep Assistant: sleepy shen night falls with dim lights and music gradually faded out. helps you sleep fast. Timing lights: Morning, bleary-eyed with light fade in, the music gradually up. wakes you up.

About

Magic

Control your RGBIC LED strips with this app. Adjust brightness, colors, dynamic modes, and scenes. Sync lights to music, set timers, and customize pixel configurations for a personalized lighting experience.

Highlights
  • Color control
  • Dimming and grading
  • Dynamic modes and scenes
  • Music rhythm sync
  • Timer settings
  • Pixel and line sequence customization
Features
Read full description

MagicLantern is an App that can be used to control color RGBIC LED strip(s). You can use it to do some controls and settings , such as dimming and grading, setting various dynamic modes and scenes, music rhythms of several sound sources and optional rhythm styles, timer setting for lights on/off, pixel setting, line sequence setting, etc. MagicLantern App is designed to be fun and easy to use, with a certain degree of professionalism and ease of use.

Screenshots

iLight:Smart lights4 screens
Magic4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: Magic at 2.3 against iLight:Smart lights's 2.0. Magic also leads on ratings volume (819 vs 58) and chart position (#177 vs unranked). iLight:Smart lights's advantage is iOS requirement (8.0 vs 12.0). On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases 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.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Magic holds the better App Store score, 2.3 against 2.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Magic has 819 ratings behind it against 58, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 21% of iLight:Smart lights's written reviews are positive against 30% of Magic's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

iLight:Smart lights ships an update every 6 weeks, Magic every 5 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 19, 2026 and September 25, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 6 level
iLight:Smart lights versus Magic: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameteriLight:Smart lightsMagic
PriceFreeFree
Rating2.0 (58 ratings)2.3 (819 ratings) — better
Positive reviews20.5% of reviews29.9% of reviews — better
Number of ratings58819 — better
Update frequencyEvery 6 weeksEvery 5 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFreeFree
Best chart rank—#177 — better
DevicesiPhone, iPodiPhone, iPod
Requires iOS8.0 — better12.0
Further details — not scored
Size103 MB80 MB
Age rating4+4+
Developer涛 余shenzhen ELK Technology Co., Ltd.

Customer experience

iLight:Smart lights

All ratings58 ratings
Positive24.1%
Neutral5.2%
Negative70.7%
Written reviews73 reviews
Positive20.5%
Neutral20.5%
Negative58.9%

Magic

All ratings819 ratings
Positive26.1%
Neutral9.4%
Negative64.5%
Written reviews462 reviews
Positive29.9%
Neutral13.9%
Negative56.3%

User reviews

iLight:Smart lights

From 58 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Easy to use
  • 💡 Customizable lighting
  • 🎵 Music playback
  • ✨ Innovative features
  • 🔊 Good speaker quality

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Frequent crashing
  • ❌ Bluetooth connectivity issues
  • 😠 Ads intrusive
  • 🚫 App not working
  • 📉 Unreliable performance

Magic

From 819 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Great product
  • 👍 Lots of color options and effects
  • 🎨 Decent app functionality
  • 💡 Music sync feature

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Connection issues
  • 🔌 Unreliable remote and app control
  • 🎨 Limited color customization
  • 🤔 Confusing UI and settings
  • 🔒 Security/privacy concerns

Bugs and requests

iLight:Smart lights

Reported bugs

39 issues
  • App keeps shutting off
  • Bluetooth connection issues
  • App crashes when playing music
  • Light only blinks
  • Cannot connect to Bluetooth
Show 34 more
  • Music plays briefly then crashes app
  • App crashes within a minute
  • App goes blank on opening
  • Crashes when changing colors or Bluetooth
  • App not working after update
  • App freezes and does nothing
  • Activation function won't work
  • App shows 'go to' with no control
  • App no longer syncs with speaker/light
  • Bulb flickers when turned on
  • Bluetooth in and out
  • App glitchy, music starts/stops
  • App doesn't work with iOS 11
  • Speaker doesn't sync with phone
  • Alarm light not working
  • Timer doing strange things
  • Update broke music link
  • Alarm not working while phone locked
  • Cannot use all music in app
  • Crashing problem fixed
  • App doesn't connect to control lighting
  • Crashes every time
  • App crashes on opening
  • Music playback issues
  • Light control issues
  • App freezes
  • Bluetooth connectivity issues
  • Intrusive ads
  • App not working
  • Unreliable performance
  • Poor user interface
  • Music playback issues
  • Light control issues
  • App freezes

Requested features

11 requests
  • Add Apple Watch app
  • Add desktop version
  • Improve color switcher calibration
  • Add Alexa/Google Home integration
  • Make sound level selectable
Show 6 more
  • Allow playlist access
  • Add timer to turn off bulb
  • Add default color setting
  • Add radio tuner
  • Add call answering function
  • Allow multiple Bluetooth connections

Magic

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Colors not displaying correctly
  • Lights not responding to app commands
  • App crashing or not connecting
  • Scheduled timers not working as expected

Requested features

5 requests
  • Add holiday-themed color presets
  • Allow custom color/pattern creation
  • Improve music integration
  • Add Siri/HomeKit support
  • Provide better instructions and troubleshooting

In-app purchases

None

iLight:Smart lights

No in-app purchases

None

Magic

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is iLight:Smart lights free?
iLight:Smart lights is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Magic free?
Magic is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, iLight:Smart lights or Magic?
Magic is rated higher. iLight:Smart lights averages 2.0 out of 5 from 58 ratings, while Magic averages 2.3 from 819 ratings.
Do iLight:Smart lights or Magic have ads?
Neither iLight:Smart lights nor Magic shows ads.
Which is updated more often, iLight:Smart lights or Magic?
iLight:Smart lights ships an update every 6 weeks, and Magic every 5 weeks. Most recently, iLight:Smart lights was updated on September 19, 2026 and Magic on September 25, 2026.

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