Monster Smart Lighting

Review by eFreeware

If you already own Monster smart lighting hardware, this app is the piece that makes it useful. Monster Smart Lighting is the free companion app from JEM Accessories Inc. that ties those devices together, letting you adjust brightness and color, build scenes, set schedules and group fixtures for shared control. It exists to run Monster's own lights.

That focus is the main thing to understand before installing. There is no charge for the app, no advertising and no in-app purchases, so the cost question never comes up. What you need instead is the hardware, because a lighting control app without lights attached has nothing to do. For anyone who has already bought into the Monster ecosystem, the appeal is having a single place to manage everything rather than juggling separate remotes or apps.

Dynamic color effects are the centerpiece

The feature the app leads with is RGB+IC dynamic lighting, which is patented technology. In practice, the IC stands for independent chip, and it means the app can drive several colors on one strip at the same time instead of treating the whole run as a single color. Colors then flow along the strip rather than switching in blocks, which is a noticeably different effect from ordinary RGB lighting.

This is the part of the app that will matter most to people who care about how a room looks rather than just whether the lights are on. A static warm white is fine for reading; a strip that shifts through a gradient is what you want behind a television or along a shelf. The app gives you a range of colors and patterns to choose from, and the animated effects are the reason to pick this system over a plain color-changing bulb.

I would treat the dynamic effects as the headline and everything else as support. If flowing, multi-color animation is not something you care about, the rest of the app is competent but ordinary, and you would be paying for hardware capability you never use.

Scenes, schedules and voice control

Around that core, the app covers the features you would expect from a modern lighting controller. You can build scenes for specific occasions, such as movie nights, parties and relaxation. Scenes can also be scheduled to come on at set times, which turns the lights into something closer to an automated system than a manual one.

Scheduling is where the app becomes genuinely practical for people who are away from home. Lights that turn on and off at plausible hours give the impression that someone is in, and the developer pitches this directly as a way to simulate presence and improve security. It is a simple idea, but it is one of the more useful things a lighting app can do.

Voice control is handled through Amazon Alexa and Hey Google, so once the connection is set up you can turn lights on, off or into a scene without reaching for your phone. Grouping rounds this out: you can bundle several devices and control them together, or drop down to a single fixture when you want to adjust just one. That combination of broad and fine control is what makes a multi-room setup manageable.

What the app asks of you

The requirements here are straightforward but worth stating plainly. You need Monster Smart Lighting devices for the app to do anything at all. It is a controller, not a light source, so it is only worth installing alongside the hardware it manages. Setup runs through instructions inside the app, which the developer describes as simple, and the device list shows the current status and state of each product so you can see what is on at a glance.

On cost, the picture is uncomplicated: the app is free, carries no ads and offers no in-app purchases. The money goes to the lights themselves, not to the software. If you are weighing the system, that is the expense to think about, and the app is simply the free layer on top of it.

The app also promises that your data stays private and that the smart home setup resists unauthorized access. That is a claim rather than a specification, so I would take it as the developer's assurance rather than a technical guarantee. It is the kind of statement most smart home apps make, and it should not be the deciding factor either way.

Living with it day to day

The most sensible way to use an app like this is to set it up once and then lean on automation. Build a handful of scenes that match how you actually use a room, then attach schedules to the ones that should run without you thinking about them. Morning illumination and a bedtime shutoff are the obvious candidates, and once those are in place the app becomes something you open occasionally rather than constantly.

Grouping rewards a little planning too. If several strips sit in one room, bundling them means one command changes the whole space; keeping a single device separate lets you adjust it without disturbing the rest. Voice control fits neatly on top of that, since it saves opening the app for routine changes.

The dynamic color effects are best treated as an occasional pleasure rather than a permanent state. Flowing multi-color animation is striking for a party or a movie, but most of the time you will want something calmer. The app supports both, and the balance between them is a matter of taste rather than anything the software forces on you.

The rating is worth weighing

Monster Smart Lighting has been downloaded more than 500,000 times, which suggests a substantial base of Monster hardware owners, but its average sits at 2.2 from 2,946 ratings. That gap between reach and reception is the most important thing a prospective buyer should notice. A low average on a companion app usually points to friction somewhere in the experience, whether in setup, reliability or day-to-day control, though the aggregate figure alone does not tell you which.

I would not treat the score as a verdict on the lighting hardware, since the app and the strips are separate purchases. But it does mean you should go in with realistic expectations rather than assuming the software side is as polished as the lights. It is also worth noting that the app was released in September 2023 and received an update in January 2026, so it is still being worked on rather than left untouched.

For anyone already committed to Monster lights, the app remains the way to control them, and the feature set on offer is broad. For anyone choosing a lighting system from scratch, the rating is a signal to look carefully at what owners report before committing to the hardware.

A companion app for existing Monster owners

Monster Smart Lighting does a specific job and does it without charging for the privilege. If you own Monster smart lights, this is the app that unlocks their dynamic color effects, scene scheduling and voice control, and there is no reason not to install it. The free price, absence of ads and lack of in-app purchases make that an easy call.

If you are still deciding on hardware, the decision is really about the lights. What sets the system apart is the independent-chip animation, and that is the thing to judge the whole package on.

My recommendation is narrow and clear: this is for people who have Monster lighting devices and want to control them from a phone, with scenes and schedules doing most of the work. Everyone else can treat it as a detail of a hardware purchase rather than a reason to install anything.