Color meter apps side by side
Six iPhone apps read the color of light through the camera. They differ most in how you pay, the devices they run on, the languages they speak and what else they do: ND, the sun, gels, flicker. This is what each app's own App Store listing says, as of October 2026.
Price, devices, languages and privacy
Color meter apps · Side by side · As of October 2026
| App and seller | Price, US App Store | Runs on | Needs | Languages | Privacy label | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cine Meter IIAdam Wilt | $24.99 to buy. No in-app purchases listed. | iPhone, iPad and iPod touch | iOS 12.0 or later | English | Data Not Collected | App Store |
| CineTempTKNYE, LLC | $19.99 to buy. No in-app purchases listed. | iPhone | iOS 18.6 or later | English | Data Not Collected | App Store |
| ColourTempHigh Water Films Limited | Free to download. Lifetime access $19.99, or ColourTemp Annual $9.99. | iPhone. Also offered on Apple silicon Macs and Apple Vision as an iPhone app. | iOS 26.0 or later | English | Data Not Collected | App Store |
| Cutvey MeterCutvey LLCOurs | Free to download. Unlock Forever $19.99, once. An active Cutvey membership also unlocks it. | iPhone and iPad. Not offered on Mac or Apple Vision, because the meter reads through the back camera. | iOS 17.0 or later | 41 in the app. The App Store lists them as English and 36 more. | Data Linked to You: contact info and identifiers, used only for Cutvey member sign-in. Data Not Linked to You: usage data and diagnostics. | App Store |
| Kelvy – White Balance MeterMichael Cerdeiros | Free to download, with 5 captures a week. Kelvy Pro $2.99 a month or $29.99 a year. | iPhone and iPad. Also offered on Apple silicon Macs and Apple Vision as an iPad app. | iOS 18.0 or later | English | Data Not Linked to You: identifiers, usage data and purchases. | App Store |
| White Balance Meter AI - KEVSatnam Singh | $2.99 to buy. No in-app purchases listed. | iPhone and iPad, with an Apple Watch app | iOS 17.1 or later | English and 5 more: Japanese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Traditional Chinese | Data Not Collected | App Store |
The privacy label is what each developer declares to Apple; Apple does not check it. Prices are US prices on October 2026 and they change.
What each listing says it does
In their own words · As of October 2026
| App | What its listing names |
|---|---|
| Cine Meter II | Color temperature and green/magenta tint, with corrections to or from a target color. A reflected spotmeter that solves shutter, shutter angle, aperture, ND or ISO. An RGB waveform and false color. Incident readings in lux and foot-candles with a diffuser such as a Lenny Hat. The listing says it is not a flash meter. |
| CineTemp | Approximate color temperature and ND through the camera, on the wide, telephoto and front lenses. A luminance histogram. A location-aware shot library with notes, and scene comparison. A sun tracker with the sun path on a map and a 3D view of the sun, added in versions 3.5 and 3.6. |
| ColourTemp | Colour temperature from 2500 K to 9900 K, and a white balance mode that gives kelvin and green/magenta from a grey or white card. Flicker detection at 50 and 60 Hz from 240 fps sampling. A banding risk calculator for your frame rate and shutter. Freeze and compare, and calibration against a 5600 K reference. |
| Cutvey Meter | Kelvin and tint from AWB or a gray card, and lux worked out from exposure. HIGH, MEDIUM and LOW, and DIFFICULT SOURCE on a spiky light. REF and the LEE gel that closes the gap to a second light. A live ND figure for your rig. The sun's path over the live view, with golden hour and blue hour. A library of readings with their frames. |
| Kelvy – White Balance Meter | Kelvin and green/magenta tint, and white balance settings for ARRI, Blackmagic Design, Canon, DJI, Fujifilm, GoPro, Nikon, OM System, Panasonic, RED and Sony cameras. The likely light source. CTO and CTB gel suggestions. A live color-temperature graph. Saved readings with location, and photos exported with the reading on them. |
| White Balance Meter AI - KEV | Color temperature in kelvin, live. Snapshots with the reading and the location. Manual focus and zoom. An Apple Watch app that shows the reading when the phone is mounted on the camera. |
A different kind of meter
A spectrometer is a different tool
A phone app reads light through a camera. A handheld spectrometer like the Sekonic C-800 measures the light's spectrum with its own sensor.
| Meter | Sekonic C-800, a handheld spectrometer by Sekonic |
|---|---|
| Measures | Color temperature and the full spectrum, with color rendering figures (CRI, SSI, TLCI, TLMF and TM-30-18) and filter suggestions for Rosco and LEE lighting gels and Kodak Wratten, LEE and Fuji camera filters. It is also an illuminance meter. |
| Source | Sekonic's product page |
How we checked
Every cell comes from the app's own page on the US App Store, read on October 2026, and the spectrometer row from its maker's page. We left out star ratings, which move every week. If anything here is wrong or out of date, write to contact@cutvey.com and we will fix it.