HomeGauge Reviews & Product Details

The most helpful thing HomeGauge did for me was to make me realize that if a report-writer app like HomeGauge existed, then there must surely be something better available, which set me on a search for a better app. I ultimately found several such report-writer apps, and every one was better than HomeGauge. I ultimately settled on a more modern, much more full-featured app that was far more stable than HomeGauge.

HomeGauge has several associated features that some might consider helpful, such as a calendar, billing, or website creation. In fact, those features do add value. However, anything positive offered by these associated features is more than negated by the kludgyness of the app and bugs in the report-writer that forms the base of their "offering." I call it an offering instead of a service because it would be a misnomer to call what they offer a service. Besides, although those associated services do add value, better versions of those services are available elsewhere.

So although HomeGauge offers features that might be considered a plus, a report-writer app mired in 20th-century technology and thoroughly lacking in modern features, along with the availability of those associated features, negates the only positive thing that HomeGauge offers. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

HomeGauge is mired in 20th-century technology and offers a feature set that might have been found in an app written for Windows 2000. In fact, the app was initially written in the early 2000s, and it appears that it failed to mature to keep up with new technology.

The app is very kludgy and does not flow well at all. I have to wonder if the company didn't realize this, but instead of improving the input flow, they chose to insert a warning to inform the user of missed questions (that is if the template properly identified all of the required fields). This issue would have been much better handled if they had made the input flow properly to begin with. Then no such warning would be necessary. As it is, it takes far more time than it should to fill in all the required fields.

Also, the HomeGauge companion app for iOS is so buggy that I'm surprised that the Apple AppStore allows it on their platform. The iOS HomeGauge app typically crashes or locks up around three times during an inspection. Worse yet, when it crashes, I almost always lose the last several entries, including any photos. But the number of lost entries lost is not consistent. It may just be the question I just answered, or it may be as many as nine questions back. This uncertainty means that besides losing time by having to go back and answer those questions again and retake photos, but I lose time trying to find out how far back I have to go.

Other inspectors have told me that the HomeGauge app for Android is more stable. I might have considered buying an Android device, just for inspections, if HomeGauge didn't have so many other serious issues. But purchasing a better inspection reporting app that runs flawlessly on iOS turned out to be much easier and far more productive.

Then there is the critical missing logic flow feature. More and more modern inspection report-writing apps are beginning to include logic flow options in their templates. With logic flow, the user can be directed to a chain of questions pertinate to the specific inspection and away from questions that have no bearing on the inspection being performed. You don't want to have to answer numerous questions about features that are not present. But in HomeGauge, that's what you have to do. For example, suppose the template offers options for up to six air conditioners, and only two are present. In that case, you will have to answer "N/A" repeatedly for all of the questions about the four air conditioners that are not present.

More modern apps allow you to add some inspection items as needed. Others even offer logic flow that directs the user to an entirely different set of questions based on his previous answers. For example, an app that allows logic flow might ask if a microwave is present. If the answer is "yes," then the template would present the inspector with several questions about the operation, cleanliness, and safety of the microwave. But if the answer were "no," then the template would just insert the phrase, "No microwave was present." into the report, and the inspector would not have to waste time answering irrelevant questions.

I had to learn to use HomeGauge, to get my inspector certification because that was what the school taught. But even before finishing my class, I realized that HomeGauge would cost me a lot of time that I could better use doing other inspections and making money from them. By the time I finished class, I had found several potential replacements. In the following weeks, I found that all of them were better than HomeGauge. Even the ones that didn't include logic flow were still head and shoulders above HomeGauge.

But not being one to jump ship without being sure that the ship was sinking, I spent a couple of months re-writing HomeGauge templates to improve their functionality, and I did succeed to a small degree. Even so, the severe limitations of HomeGauge made it impossible for me to create a template that was even marginally acceptable.

However, by taking this additional time to try to make HomeGauge more functional, I did learn of another even more severe problem with HomeGauge. As someone who spent many years in various types of customer service, I know what constitutes good and bad customer service. My experience with HomeGauge is that their excuse for customer service is that of a mom-and-pop operation. Their support is only available on weekdays, during business hours, east coast time. But inspectors often finish the day's inspections after they get home in the evening. So if a HomeGauge user has a problem with an inspection report that is due out the next morning, he's out of luck.

But it gets worse. Even during business hours, I repeatedly had trouble getting through to the single person in the whole company who could resolve the particular issue I was seeing. This was when it became clear that HomeGauge was just an oversized mom-and-pop company. I would have been up a creek if I had to get the report out and the single person with the required information had been involved in an accident on the way to work. You NEVER, EVER, under any circumstance, allow your company to rely on only one person in any area. You can be sure that more than one person knows Colonel Sanders' secret herbs and spices recipe. You can bet that more than one person knows the Amazon admin password. But at HomeGauge, I more than once ran into problems where I was told that the person with the required information was out (at lunch or something). That's just scary. What happens if he quits and goes to work for a competitor? That was the final straw.

I had to continue to use HomeGauge for a while after that, while I wrote and discarded templates for other apps. I still have HomeGauge and occasionally open it to help other inspectors get around problems with it (mostly during hours when HomeGauge support is not available. But I've moved on to an app that is reliable, well-structured, offers the logic flow necessary for inspection report generation in the 21st century, works flawlessly on all platforms, and has world-class 24x7 support 364 days a year (closed on Christmas). Better yet, the subscription cost for this other app is lower than that of HomeGauge, despite the fact that their app is far, Far better than HomeGauge. If the app I'm using now were a brand new Lexus, with all the bells and whistles, HomeGauge would be a 1970 Yugo with bald tires and the trunk tied shut with a bungee cord. But HomeGauge would still want me to pay like their Yugo was a Lexus. Not gonna happen. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.