iLightShow for Philips Hue Reviews

I was recently shown iLightShow via the #AppAdvice daily recommendation. As most of my close friends know I simply love my #Phillip Hue lights and wanted to coordinate my extensive music 🎶 library with my Hue lights. I the initial free version permits limited lighting with iLightShow , therefore if you’re a Hue light junkies like myself you will need to purchase the premium package to incorporate all your Phillips Hue lights. It’s not quite intuitive regarding the music library integration, however iLightShow developer is very responsive and helpful and I was therefore able to achieve my desire effect, so much so that I upgrade to their Premium package, I’m truly a happy camper 🎶 💡

This really is a great app and I really enjoy how it interacts with my hue lights. There are only a couple issues (that I don’t believe have been addressed) that hold it back from a 5 star:

1) Buying premium isn’t that bad, not that expensive... but I can’t share across devices. I bought this on my phone and would like to share it with my wife and son. But I also don’t want to pay another $5 each to do so. If there was a way to share the premium feature then that would be fantastic.

2) This is the biggest drawback to me... iLightShow doesn’t run in the background. If I leave iLightShow or close my phone, everything stops working. It’s not realistic to think that I’ll leave my phone on for hours while listening to music or hosting a party. If this can be addressed then that would make iLightShow a 5 star for me.

So I’ve been playing with iLightShow for a few of days and my kids love it! We’ve had a dance party practically every night. It does exactly what it says and works pretty well with Apple Music.

The biggest con is that to unlock more than one light you have to $4.99 in app purchase. You can’t really evaluate that app without paying for it. I didn’t mind spending the $5, EXCEPT, if my kids want it on all their devices I’ll have to pay on each one. Truth is I’ll hardly use iLightShow, but my kids might, but I’m not sure it’s worth $20 to me. Maybe $10.

The next problem is a lack of music controls within iLightShow . If you want to pause, play or scrub your music you need to jump back to Apple Music. I think Apple made these controls available for developers to use. So adding these would be a convenient touch.

Finally, this would make an outstanding APPLE TV app. The controls might need to be simplified, or possible use an iCloud shared preferences file (so the advanced settings are done on the phone/iPad), but this would be the best solution for me. The kids regularly play their dance part music on the TV.

First off, I will say the developer is extremely responsive to questions, which is unusual these days.

After purchasing iLightShow I’ve had two problems that potential buyers should be aware of:

1) Bluetooth streaming is problematic if your speaker has a microphone. Depending on which speaker I use the sound either cuts out entirely or drops volume / quality. The workaround to this is to disable the microphone use in iLightShow , but after doing so I can’t seem to get the light timing right.

2) Does not work with family sharing. I have a family of 5 and thought iLightShow would be good for the family to use to control lights in the house. I was willing to pay $5 for that functionality, but since the funds are paid via an in app purchase they don’t transfer to family members, meaning nobody else in the family can control them.

I guess I should have been more aware of this before purchasing, but it’s a very disappointing pricing model, especially given the Bluetooth issues.

Overall this isn’t meeting my desired use at the moment and wouldn’t buy again had I known more up front.

My only complaint is that the apps loses synchronization pretty easily if iLightShow isn’t left open but I understand Apple doesn’t exactly let developers run things like that in the background so I can’t blame the developer. Some things I’d love to see in the future would be support for Nanoleaf light panels, the option to make a certain preset into a HomeKit scene so I can activate it using Siri or a Siri Shortcut, an Apple TV version of iLightShow, and even more lighting controls. You've done a great job on iLightShow already though Nicolas! Glad to see iLightShow is still being updated and improved.

iLightShow is amazing, it’s by far the most reliable and easiest app I have used for this. All the other apps require using the microphone which means no headphones or I’m limited to specific rooms or devices. This works great!

If I only had one wish, it would be for you to add support to other devices such as nanoleaf products like the Aurora. I know that’s not a downside as this product is specifically for hue but I would gladly pay extra to have it work with hue and nanoleaf at the same time.

I absolutely enjoy using iLightShow. Once you get everything setup (even on multiple devices), you can control your Hue lights in fantastic ways. The only improvements I see are: 1) import/export your presets easily (Airdrop?), 2) (perhaps the highest on this list) custom granular control for each added Color (ex: sat/bright, min-max time), and control over overall energy, 3) perhaps a Widget to access presets. 4) big stretch goal— be able to create a playlist of presets, or an intelligent playlist, so if you create a high-energy one and a low-energy one, iLightShow can help select one depending on tempo.

Overall, high-value app.

Right now the way it works only up to 10 bulbs. Is there a possibility of adding more lights to iLightShow ? I currently have 26 hue color bulbs grouped in 3 to 4 bulbs per group. Trying to select each light individually can become a pain within a group. It would be nice when I open iLightShow that you would save the last settings. So I don’t have to keep reassign the bulbs. Any suggestions?
Otherwise all in all
One of the best light apps!

iLightShow has come in clutch sooo many times. Easily kept the party going with these lights. The coding behind iLightShow must be well written. I love that they haven’t abandoned iLightShow either. You regularly see updates and new features added. iLightShow becomes more powerful when you add more hue lights into the equation. Great for EDM and any party music. No regrets purchasing the expansion.

Hue color bulbs are the only bulb I put in light sockets. That coupled with 30 Nanoleaf Triangles in the shape of Stitch, this is my go to app for the best light combinations. It syncs the two flawlessly with preset modes or you can easily design your own light display. MOST importantly it is the most hassle free light show app and I have tried most other comparative apps; Both free and paid. Dev team keep up the good work.

I’ve had iLightShow through a number of version iterations and remain quite impressed with the functionality.
Although Philips Hue lighting solutions are commercial grade, the native Philips Hue app isn’t developed to leverage light capabilities similar to Govee. this app narrows this gap.
The development team is very responsive and I can appreciate that.
Ranks as one of the best independently developed apps on my devices.

I just discovered this and like a lot of folks likely on here I stream music using Airplay. The problem is figuring out how to get it in sync is not easy. There’s a lag setting but you have to figure it out yourself — would be amazing if there was a way of figuring out exactly what that was so the lights better synced.

Otherwise, awesome, and I’m paid up to the pro version!

Most problematic, your phone must be awake and open to iLightShow in order to work. If you switch to a different app, the lights stop. If you lock your phone, the listers stop. I want a refund for that alone.

That’s a huge limitation for an App like this. Should be disclosed before the in-app purchase.

Adding any more than 1 light asks you to purchase the “starter pack” for $5.99. What exactly does that include? You don’t know because it doesn’t tell you. But one can just assume you get to add more than 1 light.

After the purchase, all my lights connected, but I don’t want to listen to music with my phone sitting awake on a table wasting battery and unable to lock it or use any other app on it.

So essentially I got immediately duped into spending $5.99 for basic functionality in a “free” app that has a MAJOR practical limit to its functionality. Not cool.

However my biggest issue is that I wish it would read music from the literary that is NOT being streamed from Apple Music. iLightShow has already done something that others have failed to do...NOT using the stupid microphone to listen to an external source. Not a single app out there that uses the microphone actually works. Light DJ comes close but is very limited.

My suggestions.

1) read the music file from the library and not just from Apple Music

2) more controls over the lights and allow grouping. I’d like the ability to group 2 or more lights together and have them act as one.

3) manual control like Light DJ has. You can tap a pad and pulse the light (they have other options also) and DJ you’re own music. Also the ability to record your light show like Light DJ so we can playback whenever we wanted.

I’ve tried 10+ apps to create a music sync with my hue lights. This is by far the best experience. You can really see how it truly analyzes the music to sync!

But, when I touch the light selections, it does not respond. I have to keep tapping the light several times before it responds. Also, lights in a group suddenly stop responding.

Love it! I was already impressed with it when I was testing the waters on it. Then I encountered a problem however and sent a message to the developer and within 20 minutes he had responded and helped resolve the issue.

To conclude: iLightShow has great functionality, looks great, and has excellent support. Do yourself a favor and get iLightShow!

I love iLightShow and it does wonders with my setup but similarly with other comments it seems to time out in the background and I truly wish I wouldn’t have to re-open iLightShow to refresh the song again. Otherwise, you’ll love iLightShow, it’s the best one on the market and I’m sure the issue is already being addressed by the developer. Once that bug is fixed this’ll be a 5 star review no doubt!

I had iLightShow downloading, then took the time to read the reviews. Apparently the company can’t put (lite) edition on the cover of iLightShow to indicate it’s not the full version? Also why on earth would I want to try a music experience out with a single bulb? Honestly just be up front and sell it on the store, not tempt people into a download just to fiddle with one light and uninstall. Honestly more than I did. I’ll use the Hue sync app on my PC and ITunes directly. false advertising. poor choice, could have had my business.

I bought the premium version since it’s very hard to tell if it syncs to music with one light. I think the only thing iLightShow does is looks up the beats per minute and flashes your lights accordingly. The lights definitely don’t change when any kind of bass hits and there isn’t any consistency of one light or group of lights changing to the same part in a song. Really all this seems to do is cycle colors and flash your lights to the same speed of your song. I don’t regret buying iLightShow as it’s a neat effect but it doesn’t do what it claims.

So I paid the $5 to control all 15 of my lights and guess what so not worth the money. It practically has no functionality. Only 3 presets with very minimal setting options. Light and music sync is very misleading. The light fades and transitions at the same pace no matter what song you’re playing. I have about 6 TB of music mostly dance, house mix and hip hop and I played 10 different songs from different genres and timed the transition and all the same. As a software engineer myself I think a lot can be done but at its current settings it’s worth maybe 0.99 cents, certainly not $5

App works great! I got the airplay delay fixed by using Brutal by Olivia Rodrigo because it starts out slow and classical then immediately get into rock, so easy to find the lag. Lights work amazing, love the seamless connection. I connect all of my homepods AS WELL as my sonos sound system and sonos move speaker. Really cool that it all connects well together. The only thing I wish i could do was have every hue light change, but you are limited to 10 due to the hue bridge itself.

Overall, amazing app. I have been using for probably over a year at least by now. 5/5 :)

I just downloaded iLightShow today and it's super fun. Well worth the $7 upgrade. Nick even has an option to contact him and ask questions and we had a great chat going over details of what products work best and such.

Hue LIFX and Nanoleaf work the best according to him and it's so fun to have everything synced together for music. I wish I had this back in college!

Thanks again!

It’s realllyyy fun to sync your music/lights with iLightShow! It’s got an auto sync option of course, but I love to play around with the number of lights that are on, the colors, brightness, strength, etc, on my own! There’s a leaning curve because of all of the options you have, but it’s not too bad to catch on. You can do so much with it. Best $7 I’ve ever spent!

This is worth every penny and its a one time purchase! If you just have Apple music subscription and Apple HomePods with Apple Tv this is a must have with your Philips Hue sync lights, sync box, and bridge! If you have multiple Philips Hue lights you have to pay to sync all the lights on iLightShow, but it’s worth the purchase.

Great app!!

This used to be a one time purchase. Around $8, you try, you like, you pay; a normal deal. Now the developer decided to jump on the revenue subscription model; BUT iLightShow is practically the same; no new great feature, no fundamental reason to have regularly new amazing updates; basically iLightShow has not changed, but what you used to pay once, now you are supposed to pay yearly. Sorry. No. For casual users once in a while this is NOT worth it at all.