Yesterday I wrote about why you need a home inventory and a general overview of what type of information you need to include. My second passion is definitely tech and since Apple’s slogan is “There’s an App for that” I went out to find one to help me get my home inventory in order.
Home Inventory ($4.99)
Created by Gotta Have it Software the Home Inventory app is designed to allow you to take inventory of your belongings while allowing you to sync with a free website and produce reports which you can then store for later use. Using either the iPhone interface or the accompanying website you can input and track each and every item you own.
Adding Inventory
Adding inventory is easy and can be done by starting with either the item category like furniture or electronics or the item location like bedroom or office.
Once you have selected your starting point adding an item to the inventory is as easy as clicking the plus in the upper right corner of the app. You are then presented with 14 fields such as make, model, serial number etc. This makes not forgetting the details a snap.
The app allows you to include up to 9 photos per item and uses the first photo for item identification within the inventory.
Once you have completed the inventory and saved your items they can be synced with the servers at homeinventory.gottahaveitsoftware.com. I haven’t seen documentation on how this sync is performed or how secure the connections used to transfer your data is. Once the data has been uploaded to the server you can generate inventory reports in PDF form that you can save on your computer or print out. If you don’t have access to a computer to save off your reports you can still view the in App reports on your phone.
In addition to tracking your inventory they provide the ability to also store information relating your current insurance policies.
GottaHaveIt doesn’t charge for the online storage of your data and there are no monthly subscription fees. In all I found the interface was quite easy to use and relatively intuitive. I was able to inventory several items in my office in fairly short order. I saved time on documenting serial numbers by just photographing the panel and saving the photo as one of my nine.
Cons
My number one concern would be security. As bet as I can tell the passwords used to logon to the website are sent in clear text. Any script kiddie with 2 mintues and a Mountain Dew can snatch those bad boys right off the wire. This means the likelihood of someone gaining unauthorized access to your home inventory is greatly increased. I would much prefer to see a valid SSL certificate and encryption in place for at least the logon portion of their website.
The PDF reports generated from the website aren’t all that pretty, of course it is about utility not a beauty contest. It would be nice to see some better formatting of the reports though. Another downside to the reporting is the inability to produce a report directly from the iPhone app. You have to use their website download a copy of the report.
Overall Impression
Overall I found the app to be easy to use it increases your productivity when taking on this otherwise daunting task. The ability to take the photo’s and immediately include them in your inventory reports is a huge plus. The reports which are viewable on the iPhone are easy to read and pretty down right handy. Because of the lack of security on the website I would be wary of how much information you include until they get a little more secure system in place. Other than the security issue I think this is a great app that was worth the $4.99 I paid for it.
If you aren’t sure about using the app, you can check out the Home Inventory Lite version which will allow you full functionality for up to 10 Inventory Items.
You can buy Home Inventory online or from your phone or via the iTunes Store
Disclaimer: This is not a paid review, the views expressed in this review are the actual views of the site owner and were not influenced by the promise of payment. The maintenance and continued operation of this site is supported by affiliate advertising links, including links to the iTunes store. I may receive a couple of pennies if you choose to buy this app after following one of my links. Thanks.
What do you think of this App, rate it:
{ 9 comments }
That’s a great app. It would be definitely helpful to those who want to organize their appliances with regards to quantity. The app is pretty affordable.
I’ve purchased the Home Inventory app and I’m encountering difficulty logging on. It always syncing with the server but never get through. Please help.
I purchased this app and it’s a piece of crap. To activate the app you have to receive a activation link from gottahaveitsoftware.com When none arrived I sent an email to Tech Support and I was told there’s a bug in the system and that’s why I never received the link. Anyway, they activated the the a/c and thought everything should be fine now. Not so…whatever I enter into the iphone won’t sync and I’ve spent two days going back and forth with Tech support with no resolution. I’ve wasted my time and money on this product and it appears to me that this company/idividual is still trying to work out the bugs and we’re having to suffer for this. DON’T BUY this app unless you enjoy suffering and frustration.
WOW, that sounds pretty bad. I would love to hear if they find a solution to your problem. Doesn’t sound like good business to me to be that unresponsive about your product. From everything I could tell the company seemed a little green (new) so they may still be working the kinks out of their support process.
That sync problem has been fixed via a recently posted update. It now works fine.
This may be a silly question – but what does this application provide you over excellent but inexpensive tools like Evernote?
It provides a little better organization, allowing you to group things by room and such. I like Evernote as much as the next guy but I find it lacking for some purposes.
Bought this app and built an extensive inventory list. One day the list disappeared and app would not synch. Two days of tech support later I was told I had two accounts which was unexplainable. The only data backed up was very old and sparce. App still would not synch and tech support quit communicating. I removed/reinstalled and it works again. Considering my loss I would be VERY cautious with this app. IT’S BUGGIE with issues?
Spent a lot of time plugging inventory into iPad and it will not sync with server online which is preventing me from printing a report for my insurance or use all the data I entered. Slow response from support. Not resolving this issue will cost me time and $ to re-enter all the inventory data again to another program. Exporting to a CSV would seem an obvious addition as well. Feeling a bit ripped off at this point.
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