Live Home 3D is BeLight Software Ltd’s home and interior design application for creating floor plans, furnishing them from a bundled library and turning them into an editable real-time 3D view, free to download on macOS, iOS and iPadOS, visionOS, Windows 10 and 11 and Android for homeowners, renovators and professional designers, with two paid unlocks, Standard Features and Pro Features. Those two unlocks are bought as a subscription or a lifetime licence in the app stores and, on the vendor’s own website, which sells the Mac edition only, as a lifetime licence code with no subscription for that direct purchase. Each platform’s edition is a separate application bought once in its own store, and since version 5.0 a free Live Home 3D account links those purchases, so Standard or Pro bought on a Mac becomes available on an iPad signed in to the same account, in the vendor’s words. Should you buy it? For a homeowner, a renovator or a designer producing plans, furnished interiors and client visuals, the sourced record supports yes, and the Free version is the place to start; for a practice that needs drawings to reach AutoCAD, Revit or ArchiCAD the answer is no, because the vendor publishes no DWG, DXF or IFC path. The Free version, as BeLight bounds it, keeps one project accessible, watermarks every exported image and video, caps a building at two storeys and withholds 3D-model export; the live 3D view, the bundled library and unlimited offline ray-traced renders, on every platform since version 5.0, are all in it. Version 5.0 reached Apple’s stores on 16 September 2026, with 5.0.1 following on 18 and 19 September and the vendor’s Windows and Android release notes headed 5.0, and BeLight ships dated point releases through the year, ten of them across 2025 in its own news archive. TechRadar rated the desktop editions positively on 27 May 2025 and called them incredibly easy to use, and of the three storefronts that publish an average, Apple’s App Store carried the highest for the mobile app when the listings were read on 14 September 2026. Live Home 3D’s cost is a structure rather than a figure, since the stores’ prices move with discounts and exchange rates. BeLight and the Live Interior 3D lineage, the platforms and their requirements, the licensing ladder and the exact free-tier boundary, the Pro edition, output and file formats, the rendering engines, BIM and collaboration, hardware, the update cadence, the mobile apps, the advantages and the disadvantages, customer reviews and the alternatives from SketchUp to Planner 5D all rest on the vendor’s own published pages, the stores’ records and two dated independent reviews.
What is Live Home 3D?
Live Home 3D is a home design application, in TechRadar’s category for it, built for homeowners seeking a plan of their own house and for interior design professionals who draw a 2D floor plan and walk the result in 3D. Creating floor plans happens in the 2D Plan view with the Room tool, which makes a rectangular room from two corner clicks, the Straight Wall tool for rooms of any other shape and an Arc Wall tool, and BeLight’s own Help states that an arc wall is built from straight segments and that curved walls are not supported. The 3D view is live and editable, allowing users to move objects, change materials and adjust lighting inside it, while the tools that add walls, floors and other building parts work only in the 2D Plan view; the vendor’s Windows page describes the visualisation as built automatically on the switch from 2D to 3D. The photo-realistic output is a separate, offline step, produced by ray tracing on the user’s own device. Measurement units are the user’s choice, inches, feet and metres among them, and the Units Precision setting changes only how dimensions display and not the accuracy of the calculation, in the vendor’s own words. The bundled library is counted two different ways by the same vendor, more than 2,400 objects and 2,100 materials on livehome3d.com against 5,000-plus objects and 3,000-plus materials in its own App Store, Microsoft Store and Google Play descriptions, both read on 14 September 2026, and the website’s figure is the one its Feature Comparison Chart ticks for the Free version.
Pro functionality arrives as the Pro Features in-app purchase in the app stores, as a licence code from the vendor’s website, or as Live Home 3D Pro, the separate blue-roof app that BeLight states offers exactly the same scope of features as Live Home 3D with Pro Features bought. The Pro rows in the vendor’s Feature Comparison Chart are terrain editing, the 2D Elevation View, the Building Block and Custom Roof tools, the Light Editor, camera settings and the Advanced Material Editor, and the advanced export options rise with Pro, stills to 16384 × 16384 and video to 3840 × 2160. Storeys are where the vendor’s own pages disagree. The comparison chart caps the Free version at two storeys and gives Standard and Pro an unlimited number, and BeLight’s archive records the limitation removed from Standard Features in version 4.9 on 1 April 2024; the vendor’s FAQ page, live on the same day, still states that the Standard edition supports up to two stories and that Pro removes the limit. 3D-view snapshots, 360° panoramas and video walkthroughs with a Share to Facebook route are documented at every tier, watermarked in the Free version, and the Mac build, 5.0 on macOS 13 or higher, is one of five separate apps across Apple devices, Windows and Android, their paid features shared through a free Live Home 3D account since version 5.0.
The Architecture Lab Verdict: Should You Buy Live Home 3D?
Yes, buy Live Home 3D where the job is a floor plan, a furnished interior and visuals a client or a contractor can read, and buy it as a lifetime licence if a subscription is the objection; pass on it where drawings must reach a CAD or BIM package, where the work runs past two storeys on the free tier without a budget for Standard, or where a practice needs multi-user editing. That verdict rests on the vendor’s own published boundaries and two dated independent reviews, and on no independent benchmark or test of version 5.0.
Four facts carry the judgement. First, the ease of use is independently attested and dated. TechRadar’s review of the Mac and Windows editions, published 27 May 2025, lists incredibly easy to use among its pros, marks the tools and the objects at the top of its own scale with the interface and the pricing close behind, rates the product positively overall on a headline figure lower than every section score it prints, and names one navigation difficulty, that navigating in 3D can be tricky. Second, the affordability is structural. A lifetime licence exists in every store and is the only option for the direct purchase on the vendor’s website, which sells the Mac edition, whereas Trimble sells SketchUp as a subscription alone, Go, Pro and Studio among the plans billed monthly or annually per user, and Planner 5D runs a free tier with half its furniture catalogue withheld plus Premium and Professional subscriptions. Third, the ceiling for professional work is interchange. Nothing in the vendor’s documentation exports DWG, DXF or IFC, the free tier stops at two storeys, and there is no vendor sync service for projects or multi-user editing, only file transfer by iCloud Drive, AirDrop or a third-party cloud, with Windows and Android taking the zipped .lhzd archive alone. Fourth, the user base is a mobile one. Read 14 September 2026, Apple’s App Store listing for the iPhone, iPad and Vision app carried the highest of the three published store averages on much the largest base of ratings, Microsoft’s storefront came close behind it for Windows on a far smaller base, and Google Play served two different averages for the same Android listing on the same day, one on its US storefront and one without a country parameter, on a page printing two different review counts in its header and its ratings panel, while the Mac App Store listing carries too few ratings for Apple to display an average. Macworld’s 4 November 2019 review of the iOS Pro app called it a true mobile powerhouse and faulted the landscaping tools, the AR hardware floor and the absence of telephone support, a channel still absent from the vendor’s support page.
| Source | Edition covered | What the record says | Base | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apple App Store, US storefront | iPhone, iPad and Vision app | Apple publishes an average for this listing | Much the largest rating base of the three | Read 14 September 2026 |
| Mac App Store | Mac app | Apple displays no average; the listing has not received enough ratings for one | Under Apple’s display threshold | Read 14 September 2026 |
| Microsoft Store, US market | Windows edition | Microsoft publishes an average for the Windows edition | A small fraction of the App Store’s base | Read 14 September 2026 |
| Google Play | Free Android app | Two different averages for the same listing on the same day, one on the US storefront and one without a country parameter | Two different review counts printed on the one page, header against ratings panel · more than a million downloads | Read 14 September 2026 |
| TechRadar | Mac and Windows editions | Positive overall · tools and objects its top marks, pricing and interface close behind · the headline figure lower than every section score the review prints | One dated review | 27 May 2025 |
| Macworld | iOS Pro app | “A true mobile powerhouse” · cons: limited landscaping options and tools, AR limited to recent iOS hardware, renaming only from the Project Gallery, no telephone support | One dated review | 4 November 2019 |
| Capterra | Live Home 3D profile | Ease of use its strongest headline dimension and value for money its weakest | A handful of reviews, every one dated 2018 to 2023 | Read 14 September 2026 |
What each store’s own listing and each publication’s own page carried, read 14 September 2026 where the row carries no date of its own. The averages and review counts move daily, so the finding is given and the figure is not. Each store average covers a different app and a different user population, and each stands on its own.
Which company develops Live Home 3D?
The company that develops Live Home 3D is BeLight Software Ltd, which holds the copyright line on every livehome3d.com page read for this revision. The company dates its own official foundation to 23 January 2003, the earliest entry in its news archive, and its About page describes a team of 30 people under CEO Stanislav Sedashov; the Windows edition reaches the Microsoft Store through a second entity, BeLight Software 3D USA LLC of Chicago, the publisher named on the store’s own product record. The company is Ukraine-based by its own account. Its news archive entry of 2 March 2022 opens with the words that BeLight is a Ukrainian company, and its entry of 24 February 2022 records the majority of the team staying in the country after the war began; the company pages publish the foundation date, the team size and the CEO’s name and no registered address or city. BeLight’s own company page lists the same five platform families as the product FAQ and calls Live Home 3D the most popular app of its own, a vendor’s phrase. Scale is published twice and differently, the business page claiming installation on over 15 million devices worldwide and the Android page on more than 12 million, both live and undated on 14 September 2026 and neither audited. The Mac edition runs on macOS 13 or higher, and the feature set the vendor documents is a live 3D view with offline ray-traced rendering, a library of objects and materials, and export of 3D models, images and a PDF plan.
On what platforms does Live Home 3D run?
Live Home 3D runs on macOS, iOS and iPadOS, visionOS, Windows 10 and 11 and Android, the five families the vendor’s FAQ lists, and every one of them is a separate application with its own installation, bought once in its own store; since version 5.0 a free Live Home 3D account, with email registration and verification, links Standard, Pro, subscription and extras-pack purchases across the platforms signed in to it, in the vendor’s words. On macOS version 5.0 needs macOS 13 or higher on Apple silicon or an Intel processor, and the vendor names no Mac model, so which iMac, MacBook and Mac Mini generations qualify follows Apple’s own macOS compatibility list, with the vendor still offering version 4.11.3 for machines on macOS 10.15. On iPhone and iPad the app needs iOS or iPadOS 17 or higher, an A9 processor for the AR view and a LiDAR-equipped device for the Room Scanner. On Apple Vision Pro the vendor’s pages and Apple’s App Store compatibility block agree on visionOS 26 or higher, read 20 September 2026. On Windows the support FAQ states Windows 10 or later, and the Microsoft Store is the only channel, under the US publishing entity, whose product record adds 2 GB of memory as a minimum and 4 GB recommended, 1 GB of video memory recommended and DirectX 11; on Android the store page and the support page agree on Android 12 or higher with at least 4 GB of RAM and 4 GB of free storage. Version 5.0 closed two disagreements of 14 September 2026, visionOS 1.2 against Apple’s 26.5 and an Android RAM floor of 4 GB against 3.5 GB; the pages of 20 September carry one figure each. The editions differ. Windows exports fewer 3D formats than the Mac and Android fewer again, importing COLLADA, OBJ, SH3D and, since 5.0, glTF; offline ray tracing, in the Mac and Windows comparison tables alone until 5.0, now appears in every one, Cycles everywhere and ProRender on the Mac alone. Android opened on 6 November 2024 by BeLight’s archive, after the other four, and its import and export lists are the shortest.
| Platform | Floor, as published | Store | What that edition lacks |
|---|---|---|---|
| macOS | macOS 13 or higher, Apple silicon or Intel; 4.11.3 offered for macOS 10.15 | Mac App Store or livehome3d.com | Nothing the others have; the fullest import and export lists, both ray-tracing engines |
| Windows | Windows 10 or later on the vendor’s pages; the Microsoft Store record adds 2 GB of memory minimum, 4 GB recommended, DirectX 11 | Microsoft Store only | ProRender, SKP and KMZ import, several Pro mesh exports; .lhzd projects only |
| iPhone and iPad | iOS or iPadOS 17 or higher; A9 for AR view; LiDAR for Room Scanner | App Store only | ProRender; native .lh3d saving for paying users only |
| Apple Vision Pro | visionOS 26 or higher, per the vendor and per Apple’s listing | App Store only | ProRender, and the edition ships inside the iOS app |
| Android | Android 12 or higher; at least 4 GB of RAM and 4 GB of free storage, on the store and support pages alike | Google Play | ProRender; imports COLLADA, OBJ, SH3D and glTF only; exports OBJ and glTF only; .lhzd projects only |
Platform floors and gaps as published on livehome3d.com’s support page, FAQ, store page, release notes and Feature Comparison Chart, on Apple’s App Store listings and catalogue, on Google Play and on the Microsoft Store product record, all read 20 September 2026. Where two vendor pages or the vendor and Apple disagreed on 14 September 2026, the version 5.0 pages carry one figure.
When was Live Home 3D first launched?
Live Home 3D was first launched on 19 September 2016, on the Mac, a date BeLight’s own news archive and Apple’s catalogue record for the Mac app agree on to the day, and it is the second generation of a product that began as Live Interior 3D, announced on 4 January 2007 and released on 4 April 2007. The rename happened on macOS in September 2016, and 27 April 2017 is the Windows debut, which Windows Central reported as a rebranded and revamped Live Interior 3D for Windows 10 and which the Microsoft Store’s product record dates nine days earlier, 18 April 2017. The iPhone and iPad edition followed on 23 October 2018, the Apple Vision Pro edition on 2 February 2024, and Android on 6 November 2024 after a beta on 29 August, all per BeLight’s archive. Anyone still searching for Live Interior 3D renders is looking for this product under its old name, and the old projects survive the rename. Live Home 3D for Mac opens projects created in Live Interior 3D for Mac and Windows natively, and a library backed up from Live Interior 3D 2.9.8 on Mac or 2.1 on Windows can be restored into Live Home 3D.
Version 5.0’s own date is published by the stores; the vendor’s own pages did not carry it when they were read on 20 September 2026. Apple’s version history dates the 5.0 release of the iPhone, iPad and Vision app and of both Mac apps to 16 September 2026, with 5.0.1 following on 18 September for the Mac app and 19 September for the Pro app and the iPhone app; Google Play stamps the Android build 14 September 2026 beside the 5.0 change list; the Microsoft Store product record was revised on 19 September 2026 and prints no version number; the vendor’s direct macOS download stays at 5.0, build 1731, and its Windows and Android release notes open on a 5.0 entry with no date and no build number. The release adds Render with AI with 260 or more style presets, cloud-run and credit-based behind a free account, user accounts that share in-app purchases among platforms, Cycles offline ray tracing on iPhone, iPad and Android, Sketchfab integration, glTF import, flip and mirror, and macOS 27 compatibility with the Liquid Glass interface, in the release notes’ own list. The previous release, 4.12.1, carries three dates, 9 July 2026 in BeLight’s news archive, 10 July 2026 on the Mac product page and in Apple’s catalogue, and July 10, 2025 on the Windows product page; that change set added Help translations in six new languages on the Mac and, on Windows, Polish localisation, improved Collada import and roofing-material fixes. BeLight’s news archive lags what ships. On 20 September 2026, four days after 5.0 reached Apple’s stores, its most recent Live Home 3D entry was still 4.12.1 under 9 July.
What are the licensing options available for Live Home 3D?
Live Home 3D’s licensing options are a three-step ladder, Free, Standard Features and Pro Features, and the two paid steps are sold two ways. In the Mac App Store, the App Store, the Microsoft Store and Google Play they are in-app purchases available as a subscription or a lifetime licence; on the vendor’s own website, which sells the Mac edition only, the two products are lifetime licence codes and no subscription is offered, in the vendor’s words at the moment. The Standard Features purchase lifts the restriction on the number of projects, removes the watermark on image and video export and enables export of 3D models; the Pro Features purchase removes all restrictions and adds the Pro functionality. On the Mac App Store, Pro is additionally a separate paid application, Live Home 3D Pro, listed beside the free app at the same version and size on 14 September 2026, and the vendor states that this blue-roof app equals the red-roof Live Home 3D with Pro Features bought. A licence is bought per platform and, since version 5.0, shared across them. Each edition is a separate application that must be purchased once on its respective store, in the vendor’s words, the Mac edition on the Mac App Store and livehome3d.com, the iOS, iPadOS and visionOS edition only on the App Store, the Windows edition only in the Microsoft Store and the Android edition on Google Play; and a free Live Home 3D account, with email registration and verification, links Pro Features, Standard Features, subscriptions and extras packs bought on one platform to the others signed in to the same account, without buying them again. Website purchases carry a 30-day money-back guarantee; store purchases are refunded under Apple’s, Microsoft’s and Google’s own policies. The Pro installer for macOS downloads from the vendor’s support page without payment details or an email address, which TechRadar tested in 2025, and the same page states that a licence code is needed to use it, so a free Pro download is a free installer and nothing more.
Educational institutions buy Live Home 3D with an academic discount by three routes the vendor publishes on its education page. Bulk licences for Mac, iOS and iPadOS go through Apple School Manager; single or bulk macOS licences come from the vendor’s own website, with flexible volume discounts tiered by quantity on its quote form; and the Microsoft Store carries the free version and no academic discount at all, while the page names no Android route. Eligibility on the quote form is full-time students enrolled in a degree or diploma-granting programme at an approved education institution and full-time or part-time instructors who teach at one, and proof may be required. The store page publishes the same terms for every buyer. All prices are in USD, exclusive of sales tax or VAT, and may vary with exchange rates, and on 14 September 2026 the lifetime products and, on the tabs listing the app stores’ products, the Pro annual subscription carried a struck-through figure beside a lower current one.
| Channel | What it sells | How Standard and Pro are bought | Refunds and terms |
|---|---|---|---|
| livehome3d.com | Mac edition only | Lifetime licence code for Standard or Pro; the vendor offers no subscription on the website purchase; priced in USD before sales tax or VAT | 30-day money-back guarantee |
| Mac App Store | Free Live Home 3D with in-app unlocks, and Live Home 3D Pro as a separate paid app equal to Live Home 3D with Pro Features | Subscription or lifetime licence | Apple’s App Store policy |
| App Store, iPhone, iPad and Vision | Free app with in-app unlocks; the only channel for this edition | Subscription or lifetime licence | Apple’s App Store policy |
| Microsoft Store | Free Windows app with paid add-ons, published by BeLight Software 3D USA LLC; the only channel for this edition | Subscription or lifetime licence | Microsoft Store policy |
| Google Play | Live Home 3D and Live Home 3D Pro | Subscription or lifetime licence | Google Play refund policy |
| Education | Academic discount on bulk Mac, iOS and iPadOS licences through Apple School Manager and on single or bulk macOS licences from the website, tiered by quantity; the Microsoft Store carries the free version and no academic discount | Full-time students at a degree or diploma-granting programme and full-time or part-time instructors at an approved institution; proof may be required | Bought by quote form, single or bulk |
Sales channels as published on livehome3d.com’s support page, store page and education pages, read 14 September 2026 and, for the education row, 20 September 2026. Each channel sells its own platform’s application, and since version 5.0 a free Live Home 3D account carries the paid features across them.
What does the free version of Live Home 3D include, and what are its limitations?
Live Home 3D is free on every platform, and the vendor bounds the Free version in three places that agree on the substance and differ in wording. The support page lists only one active project at a time, a watermark on image and video export, and restrictions on export of 3D models; its FAQ answer adds that the Free version gives access to the bulk of the 2D and 3D object libraries and editing controls. The project limit is the wording that varies. The support page of 20 September 2026 states that all projects are saved but only the most recently saved one stays fully editable, that older ones switch to read-only mode until Standard or Pro Features are bought, and that projects saved under a Standard or Pro licence stay editable whatever the current plan; the FAQ page of the same day states that the Free version allows only one project to be saved and that starting a second makes the first unavailable. Either way one project is editable. The Feature Comparison Chart adds the rest. The Free version is capped at two storeys, cannot create custom materials, cannot export 3D models, exports stills up to 2048 × 1536, video up to 1280 × 720 and 360° panoramas up to 4096 × 2048 with a watermark, and shares every one of those export ceilings with the Standard tier, whose only difference in those rows is the missing watermark. The Free version provides the basic functionalities of creating floor plans and exploring the 3D view in full. The object and material library the vendor counts on its website is ticked for Free, Trimble 3D Warehouse import is available at every tier, the AR view and the LiDAR Room Scanner on iPhone and iPad are ticked for Free, and on Mac and Windows the offline ray-tracing engines produce an unlimited number of renders on the user’s device at every tier, the Free output watermarked, which TechRadar described as a watermark that is massive and right in the middle of the image.
| Feature, per the vendor’s Feature Comparison Chart and support pages | Free | Standard Features | Pro Features |
|---|---|---|---|
| Projects | Most recently saved one editable, older read-only | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Storeys | 2 storeys max | Unlimited on the chart and since v4.9, 1 April 2024, per the archive; two on the FAQ page | Unlimited |
| Object and material library | Included | Included | Included |
| Custom materials | No | Yes | Yes, plus the Advanced Material Editor |
| Still export | Up to 2048 × 1536, watermarked | Up to 2048 × 1536 | Up to 16384 × 16384 |
| Video walkthrough | Up to 1280 × 720, watermarked | Up to 1280 × 720 | Up to 3840 × 2160 |
| 360° panorama | Up to 4096 × 2048, watermarked | Up to 4096 × 2048 | Up to 8192 × 4096 |
| Ray-traced render, Mac and Windows | Unlimited, up to 2048 × 1536, watermarked | Unlimited, up to 2048 × 1536 | Unlimited, up to 7680 × 4320 |
| 3D-model export | No | SKP, WRL, X3D, COLLADA | Adds RIB, FBX, OBJ, SCN, SCNZ, USDZ, RPR, glTF on Mac |
| Terrain, 2D Elevation View, Custom Roof, Light Editor, camera settings | No | No | Yes |
| AR view and LiDAR Room Scanner, iPhone and iPad | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Tier boundary as published in the Feature Comparison Chart on livehome3d.com/store and in the support and FAQ pages, read 14 September 2026. The Standard storeys cell carries both vendor statements because the vendor’s own pages disagree.
What is the difference between Live Home 3D and Live Home 3D Pro?
The difference between Live Home 3D and Live Home 3D Pro is the Pro Features purchase, applied in advance in the Pro app and bought in-app in the other. BeLight publishes two apps, Live Home 3D with a red roof icon and Live Home 3D Pro with a blue one, and states that the Pro app offers exactly the same scope of features as Live Home 3D with purchased Pro Features; on the Mac App Store the two stood at the same version and the same 568.5 MB on 14 September 2026, one free and one paid. What Pro adds over Standard for detailed design is a fixed list in the vendor’s chart, terrain editing tools, the 2D Elevation View, the Building Block and Custom Roof tools, the Light Editor, camera field-of-view and projection settings and the Advanced Material Editor, together with the export ceilings, stills to 16384 × 16384, video to 3840 × 2160, panoramas to 8192 × 4096 and ray-traced renders to 7680 × 4320, and eight of the twelve Mac mesh-export formats, RenderMan, FBX, OBJ, SCN, SCNZ, USDZ, Radeon ProRender and glTF. Lighting divides two sources. The vendor’s Help puts the luminosity and colour of any light source in the Inspector at every tier and marks only the Light Source Editor, for creating or modifying lamps, as Pro; TechRadar’s May 2025 review states that Pro introduces the ability to alter lighting. Storeys are unlimited in Pro under every vendor account, and the vendor’s own pages disagree on whether Standard already has it. A Pro licence, like any other, is bought on one platform and carried to the others by a free Live Home 3D account since version 5.0, and the free macOS Pro installer will not run without a licence code.
What is the cost of Live Home 3D?
Live Home 3D costs nothing to start on any platform, with no financial commitment before the first paid step, and the paid steps that unlock the app cost a subscription or a one-time lifetime fee whose figure depends on the tier, the store and the day. On 14 September 2026 the vendor’s store page, whose iPhone and iPad, Windows and Android tabs list the app stores’ own products, showed the lifetime products and the Pro annual subscription with a struck-through figure beside a lower current one, priced everything in USD before sales tax or VAT with a note that amounts may vary with exchange rates, and Apple’s catalogue and Google Play printed different single figures for their own Pro apps the same day; the 2023 text’s Pro price in dollars, euros and pounds is withdrawn, because the store’s figures are discounted against struck-through list prices on the products named, quoted in USD before tax, exchange-rate dependent, and different again in Apple’s and Google’s catalogues the same day. The structure holds still. Standard and Pro are sold as a subscription or a lifetime licence in the app stores and, for the Mac edition alone, as a lifetime licence code on the vendor’s store page, which is the place to read the live figure on the day of purchase; each platform is a separate purchase, carried to the others by a free Live Home 3D account since version 5.0; and website purchases carry a 30-day money-back guarantee, with store purchases refunded under the stores’ own policies. The vendor’s own FAQ names the one-time purchase as one more feature that separates Live Home 3D from its competitors, and that half of the claim checks, since Trimble’s SketchUp is sold only by subscription, Go, Pro and Studio among the plans billed monthly or annually per user, and Planner 5D runs a free tier with 50 percent of its furniture catalogue plus Premium and Professional subscriptions.
How can Live Home 3D help architects and designers?
Live Home 3D helps architects and designers at four documented points of the design process and stops at a fifth. First, dimensioned floor plans, which TechRadar found almost effortless to produce. Rooms and walls go down with the Room and Straight Wall tools, the vendor’s own names on its Help page and its Microsoft Store feature list, and the Dimension tool sets and shows the distance between objects or walls in the 2D Plan and 2D Elevation views, updating when a snapped object moves, which contributes a dimensioned plan without hand measuring, and curved walls are built from straight segments. Second, the move from 2D to 3D. The Mac Help describes a split mode showing the plan and the 3D view together with a splitter bar between them, the 3D view takes materials, lighting and object placement directly, and structural drawing stays in the 2D Plan view; TechRadar found the design can be altered in any view with 2D holding all the options, and a Mac App Store reviewer in 2017 called the split screen what makes changes immediately understandable, a user’s word and not a vendor specification of synchronisation. Third, the library. The vendor’s own two counts of it, the website’s against the larger one in its store descriptions, are set out in the opening section, and it imports from Trimble 3D Warehouse on every platform, with SketchUp, COLLADA, KMZ, FBX, OBJ, SH3D and 3DS models accepted on the Mac and shorter lists elsewhere. Fourth, output. 3D views, 360° panoramas and video walkthroughs export as JPEG, TIFF, PNG and BMP, the plan as PDF, and the Pro tier carries the mesh formats a visualisation pipeline wants, FBX, OBJ, USDZ and glTF among them. The Pro rows written for this audience are the 2D Elevation View, the Custom Roof tool, terrain editing and the Advanced Material Editor; the storey cap is documented for the Free version, with the vendor’s pages divided on Standard. The fifth way, a hand-off to CAD or BIM, does not exist, since no DWG, DXF or IFC export appears on any vendor page read.
What is Live Home 3D output, and in which format?
Live Home 3D output is images, a plan document, video and 3D models, each in the formats the vendor’s own pages name. On the Mac product page the 2D floor plan exports as PDF, JPEG, BMP, TIFF or PNG, and PDF is the only vector output the vendor names there, offered for the plan and not for the 3D view; snapshots of the 3D view export as JPEG, TIFF, PNG, BMP and 360° panorama JPEG. The size of a still is a tier fact, up to 2048 × 1536 in the Free and Standard tiers and up to 16384 × 16384 in Pro, and a panorama runs to 4096 × 2048 below Pro and 8192 × 4096 in it. Photo-realistic stills come from the offline ray-tracing step on Mac and Windows, unlimited in number at every tier, up to 2048 × 1536 below Pro and 7680 × 4320 in it.
Video comes from a camera path recorded as a 3D walkthrough, including 360° videos, at up to 1280 × 720 in the Free and Standard tiers and Ultra HD 3840 × 2160 in Pro; the vendor’s product and tech-specs pages read for this revision name the resolutions and no container, and the MP4 the 2023 text named is carried as that edition’s word. 3D models leave the Mac edition in twelve formats. Four of them, Trimble SketchUp SKP, VRML version 2.0 WRL, X3D and COLLADA with its zipped variant, need Standard or Pro; the other eight, RenderMan RIB, Autodesk FBX, Wavefront OBJ, SceneKit SCN and SCNZ, USDZ, Radeon ProRender RPR and glTF, are marked Pro edition only on the vendor’s Help page. The vendor names the receiving software for two of them, Collada for 3DS Max, Maya, Cinema, Strata and Shade, and RenderMan for Pixar RenderMan and 3Delight. No CAD drawing format is on the list.
Is the Live Home 3D’s output format compatible with other industry-standard software?
Live Home 3D’s output formats are compatible with 3D modelling and rendering software and not with CAD or BIM software. The mesh exports reach 3ds Max, Maya, Cinema, Strata and Shade through Collada in the vendor’s own list, Pixar RenderMan and 3Delight through RIB, and any tool that reads FBX, OBJ, USDZ or glTF through the Pro formats, and the SKP export goes to Trimble SketchUp, whose models come back in the other direction on the Mac. Nothing goes to AutoCAD, Revit or ArchiCAD as a drawing or a building model. Across the twelve livehome3d.com pages read on 14 September 2026, product, tech-specs and release-notes pages for Mac, Windows, Vision and Android, the store, the business page, the support page, the FAQ and the Help page on exporting a 3D model, no DWG, DXF, IFC or RVT path appears in either direction, so a project’s geometry leaves as a mesh and never as a drawing or a building model. One user report dates the mesh route’s fragility. A Capterra reviewer in April 2018, on the Pro edition of that era, found Collada export to Autodesk 3ds Max crashing and FBX export crashing on the 2010 to 2014 compatibility settings while the 2016 setting worked. Sweet Home 3D, the free GPL application, sits on the import side, since its SH3D files load on every platform.
What file formats does Live Home 3D support for exporting and importing designs?
The file formats Live Home 3D supports for exporting and importing designs differ by platform and by tier. Projects themselves are stored as a native .lh3d bundle or a zipped .lhzd archive; the Windows and Android editions save and receive .lhzd only, the Mac edition writes either and needs .lhzd to send a project to a Windows device, and on iOS, iPadOS and visionOS the native bundle is available to users of the paid version. Models import on the Mac in SketchUp, COLLADA, KMZ, FBX, Wavefront OBJ, Sweet Home 3D SH3D and 3DS, with USDZ by drag and drop; on iOS, iPadOS and Windows in COLLADA, FBX, OBJ, SH3D and 3DS; on Android in COLLADA, OBJ and SH3D. Every edition pulls models from Trimble 3D Warehouse and imports images for floor plans, textures and photos, and the Mac tech-specs page states that an object edited in SketchUp updates in the project by pressing one button. Projects from Live Interior 3D open natively on Mac and Windows.
| Format | Direction | Platform and tier, per the vendor |
|---|---|---|
| .lh3d, .lhzd | Project save and open | .lh3d on Mac and paid iOS; .lhzd everywhere, and the only project format on Windows and Android |
| Live Interior 3D projects | Open | Mac and Windows, natively; library backup restorable from 2.9.8 Mac or 2.1 Windows |
| SketchUp SKP | Import and export | Import on Mac; export on Mac with Standard or Pro |
| COLLADA DAE, ZAE | Import and export | Import on every platform; export with Standard or Pro on Mac and Windows |
| KMZ | Import | Mac only |
| FBX | Import and export | Import on Mac, iOS, iPadOS and Windows; export with Pro on Mac and Windows |
| OBJ | Import and export | Import on every platform; export with Pro on Mac, Windows and Android |
| Sweet Home 3D SH3D | Import | Every platform |
| 3DS | Import | Mac, iOS, iPadOS and Windows; not an export format |
| USDZ | Import and export | Drag-and-drop import on Mac; export with Pro on Mac |
| VRML version 2.0 WRL, X3D | Export | Mac and Windows with Standard or Pro |
| RenderMan RIB, SCN, SCNZ, Radeon ProRender RPR | Export | Mac with Pro |
| glTF, GLB | Export | Mac, Windows and Android with Pro |
| Export | Floor plan only, per the Mac product page | |
| JPEG, PNG, TIFF, BMP | Export | Plans and 3D snapshots; 360° panorama as JPEG |
| DWG, DXF, IFC, RVT | Neither | Not published on any vendor page read 14 September 2026 |
Import and export routes as published in the vendor’s FAQ, Mac tech-specs page, support page, Help page on exporting a 3D model and the store’s Feature Comparison Chart, read 14 September 2026. The Windows and Android export rows follow the chart; the Mac rows follow the Help page.
Is Live Home 3D considered user-friendly for beginner users?
Yes, Live Home 3D is considered user-friendly for beginner users, and it is the one point on which the two named reviews agree. TechRadar’s experience of the Mac and Windows editions, 27 May 2025, listed incredibly easy to use, well implemented tools and a wealth of features as the pros, put the interface among the review’s stronger section scores, rated the product positively overall, and named the one exception, that navigating in 3D can be tricky. Macworld, 4 November 2019, on the iOS Pro app, called it a true mobile powerhouse and no feature-limited companion app. Capterra’s handful of reviews, every one dated 2018 to 2023 and so older than version 5.0, make ease of use the highest of Capterra’s headline rating dimensions there, against an overall score under every store average; a designer in 2019 called it really easy to use, a 2017 Mac App Store reviewer found rooms, walls, windows, doors and openings easy to create, and a 2023 Mac App Store reviewer who bought the lifetime licence reports needing tutorials and articles to get things done and calls it not the most intuitive platform for a novice, while enjoying it. Training runs through the channels the vendor’s support page lists, video tutorials, documentation, a Reddit community and a web form; there is no telephone support, the standing con from Macworld’s review and still true of the page. Accessibility for beginners starts at no cost, since the download asked for neither payment details nor an email address in TechRadar’s May 2025 test, and the Free version carries the editing controls and the library.
What are the rendering capabilities of Live Home 3D?
Live Home 3D’s rendering runs on three documented routes, and the vendor’s own pages keep them apart. The first is the real-time 3D view, dynamic and editable, which the Microsoft Store feature list calls beautiful real-time 3D rendering and which the Windows page describes as a realistic real-time environment in which furniture is arranged, walls painted, materials applied and lighting adjusted. The second is offline. The Mac page describes extremely realistic 3D renders made with advanced ray-tracing offline rendering technology powered by AMD Radeon ProRender or Cycles, performed on the user’s own device and free of charge, and the Windows page makes the same claim for Cycles, so the photo-realistic output is a render step and not the live view. Each engine runs on its own set of platforms. Since version 5.0 Cycles runs on iPhone, iPad and Android as well as Mac and Windows, with its full interface, resolution presets and a memory-consumption estimate, and the comparison chart carries ray tracing and an unlimited number of renders in all four platform tables; the vendor’s FAQ page of 20 September 2026 states that the built-in engines are Cycles on the Mac and Windows versions and AMD Radeon ProRender on the Mac version only. ProRender is Mac-only on both pages. The output ceiling is 2048 × 1536 below Pro and 7680 × 4320 in it. The third route left the user’s device with version 5.0. Render with AI is sized in the release notes at 260 or more interior and home design style presets, and the comparison chart lists it on every platform as a cloud, credit-based AI Render behind a free account. TechRadar’s May 2025 test found ProRender crashing every time it ran through the test machine’s Radeon GPU, running without a hitch on the CPU alone, and producing finer detail than Cycles at the cost of a longer render; the review’s cons box reads that Radeon ProRender seems unstable.
Inside the 3D environment the documented tools are material application, object movement, light adjustment and walking through the model, in the Microsoft Store’s list, with multiple cameras whose field of view and projection settings are a Pro row. Lighting is controlled two ways and two sources disagree on the boundary. The vendor’s Help allows users to set the luminosity and colour of every light source, and its on-off state, in the Inspector at any tier, with per-bulb control on a multi-bulb lamp, and reserves the Light Source Editor for creating or modifying lamps for the Pro edition; TechRadar’s review states that Pro introduces the ability to alter lighting. The one user-published limit on realism found in the reachable review channels is from a 2017 Mac App Store reviewer, who reported that only the fixtures in the software act as light sources, that fixtures imported from Trimble 3D Warehouse carry no lighting function in what he had found, and that realistic lighting and shadows therefore depend on the app’s own range of fixtures. Output from the rendering side extends to 360° panoramas at up to 8192 × 4096 in Pro and video walkthroughs at up to 3840 × 2160, both with a documented Share to Facebook route.
Does Live Home 3D include Building Information Modeling (BIM) capabilities for better project management?
No, Live Home 3D includes no Building Information Modeling capability, and the absence is a documented one. Across the twelve livehome3d.com pages read on 14 September 2026, product, tech-specs and release-notes pages for Mac, Windows, Vision and Android, the store, the business page, the support page, the FAQ and the Help page on exporting a 3D model, no DWG, DXF, IFC or RVT format appears, and no mention of AutoCAD, ArchiCAD or Revit. The twelve export formats are meshes, scene files and a renderer format. The product, per the vendor’s Help, is a floor-plan drawing tool, the Room, Straight Wall and Arc Wall tools in the 2D Plan view, with an editable 3D view for materials, lighting and object placement and image, PDF, video and 3D-model output for amateurs and professional designers. Those pages publish no parametric building model, no schedule or database and no drawing set, so a practice that needs them keeps its model of record elsewhere and treats Live Home 3D as a visualisation and client-presentation tool feeding meshes forward.
How does Live Home 3D facilitate collaboration abilities among teams?
Live Home 3D facilitates collaboration by file exchange, since the vendor documents no invitation, no shared editing and no sync service for projects. A project travels as a file, the native .lh3d bundle or the zipped .lhzd archive, by iCloud Drive, AirDrop or a third-party cloud service in the vendor’s own list, and the archive is the one format every edition reads, since Windows and Android save and receive .lhzd only and the iOS native bundle is available to paying users. Each platform is a separate purchase, linked to the others by a free Live Home 3D account since version 5.0. The file carries the whole project between them, and the project reaches clients and other software as the PDF plan, JPEG, PNG, TIFF and BMP images, 360° panoramas, video walkthroughs at up to 3840 × 2160 in Pro and, on the Mac, twelve mesh formats, eight of them Pro-only, with 3DS on the import side alone. Models come in from Trimble 3D Warehouse and, on the Mac, from SketchUp with a one-button update of an edited object. The 2023 text’s invitation to view or edit is not on any vendor page read and is withdrawn; its Microsoft OneDrive route is carried as that edition’s word. The Pro tier’s collaboration-relevant rows are the Light Editor, the 2D Elevation View and the Advanced Material Editor; custom materials themselves are a Standard row; and Pro is bought as a subscription or a lifetime licence in the stores and as a lifetime licence code alone from the vendor’s website, which sells the Mac edition only.
What are the minimum hardware requirements for running Live Home 3D?
The minimum requirements the vendor publishes are operating-system floors, one processor family and, on Android, a memory and storage figure. On macOS version 5.0, build 1731 and a 671.8 MB direct download, needs macOS 13 or higher on an Apple silicon or Intel processor, and version 4.11.3 is still offered for macOS 10.15. On Windows the support FAQ states Windows 10 or later and no processor, memory or graphics figure, while the Microsoft Store’s own product record adds 2 GB of memory as a minimum against 4 GB recommended, DirectX 11 and 1 GB of video memory recommended. On iPhone and iPad the floor is iPadOS or iOS 17 and higher, with an A9 processor for the AR view and LiDAR for the Room Scanner; on Apple Vision Pro the vendor’s pages and Apple’s listing both state visionOS 26 or higher. On Android the store page and the support page both state Android 12 or higher with at least 4 GB of RAM and at least 4 GB of free storage. The Intel Core i5 or i7, the 1 GB of video memory and the 8 GB of RAM the 2023 text attributed to the vendor appear on no livehome3d.com page read for this revision and are not carried, and the macOS 10.12 floor it named is superseded by macOS 13. The one hardware-specific failure on record is TechRadar’s, in May 2025, where the AMD Radeon ProRender engine, itself Mac-only, crashed every time it ran on the test machine’s Radeon GPU and rendered without incident on the CPU.
How frequently is the Live Home 3D updated?
Live Home 3D was updated ten times in 2025 and five times by 20 September 2026, a tally of the vendor’s own dated entries and the stores’ stamps made for this revision and no vendor-published figure. The 2025 releases fell on 22 January, 16 May, 24 and 27 June, 11 July, 15 and 26 September, 23 October and 6 and 18 November; 2026 carried 4.11.2 on 9 January, 4.11.3 on 25 March, 4.12 on 12 May and 4.12.1 on 9 July, the last of them dated 10 July on the product pages and in Apple’s catalogue, and then version 5.0, stamped 14 September on Google Play, 16 September in Apple’s version history and 19 September on the Microsoft Store record, with BeLight’s archive still showing 4.12.1 as its newest Live Home 3D entry on 20 September 2026. The 18 November 2025 release corrected a visual issue in Dark Mode on macOS 26.1 and later, the 4.12 release raised the macOS floor to 11 and 5.0 raised it to 13, version 4.9 of 1 April 2024 removed the storeys limitation from Standard Features, and 4.12.1 on Windows added Polish localisation, improved Collada import and roofing-material fixes beside the bug fixes and stability improvements that entry also lists. Updates arrive through the stores for store purchases and from the vendor’s support page for website licences.
Is there a mobile version or app available for Live Home 3D for on-site work and presentations?
Yes, a mobile version has been available on iPhone and iPad since 23 October 2018, on Apple Vision Pro since 2 February 2024 and on Android since 6 November 2024, per BeLight’s archive. Read 14 September 2026, the App Store’s iPhone, iPad and Vision listing carried the highest of the three published store averages, and Google Play showed more than a million downloads for the free Android app while serving two different averages and two different review counts for that one listing, as the customer-reviews section sets out. The on-site tools are the iPhone and iPad rows in the vendor’s chart, the AR view, which needs an A9 or later, and the Room Scanner, which needs a LiDAR-equipped device; both are ticked for the Free version. The mobile editions are not the desktop ones. They are bought once in their own stores, with a free Live Home 3D account carrying the purchase to the other platforms since version 5.0, offline ray tracing reached them with that same release, Cycles alone and never ProRender, Android imports COLLADA, OBJ, SH3D and glTF and exports OBJ and glTF only, and a project reaches the phone as a .lhzd archive by iCloud Drive, AirDrop or a third-party cloud, enabling users to carry a desktop project on site, with the native bundle available to paying iOS users. The website’s library count and the larger store count both describe the vendor’s own listing of what ships. For a presentation the mobile app shows the live 3D view and exports panoramas and video; for a photo-realistic render Cycles runs on the device itself since version 5.0, while ProRender stays a Mac engine. Macworld’s 2019 review of the iOS Pro app faulted limited landscaping tools, AR limited to recent hardware and renaming only from the Project Gallery.
What are the advantages of Live Home 3D?
The advantages of using Live Home 3D run from the interface TechRadar scored among its stronger sections and the Room, Straight Wall and Arc Wall drawing tools to the bundled library, the five platform families and the Pro export ceilings:
- Intuitive user interface: TechRadar’s 27 May 2025 review put the interface among its stronger section scores, listed incredibly easy to use first among its pros and rated the product positively overall; the same review’s one navigation con is that navigating in 3D can be tricky.
- Versatile design tools: the Room, Straight Wall and Arc Wall tools draw complete rooms and walls in the 2D Plan view, Auto Outline draws furniture outlines from an object’s top view, the Dimension tool and Insert Auto Dimensions label the plan, and the Mac App Store listing adds customizable roofs, corner windows and complex openings; curved walls, in the vendor’s Help, are not supported.
- Real-time 3D rendering: the vendor’s store listings call the editable 3D view real-time 3D rendering, and it is built on the switch from the 2D plan and takes materials, lighting and object placement directly; the photo-realistic render is a separate offline step in the vendor’s own description.
- Cross-platform compatibility: macOS, iOS and iPadOS, visionOS, Windows 10 and 11 and Android, with the .lhzd archive readable by every edition; each edition is bought once in its own store and, since version 5.0, a free Live Home 3D account carries the purchase to the others.
- Augmented reality integration: on iPhone and iPad the AR view, which needs an A9 processor or later, and the LiDAR Room Scanner, which the vendor gates on a LiDAR-equipped device, both ticked for the Free version; neither row appears in the Mac, Windows or Android tables.
- Comprehensive training resources: video tutorials, documentation, a Reddit community and a web support form on the vendor’s support page, and a download that asked for no payment details or email address in TechRadar’s May 2025 test.
- Advanced export quality: the Pro tier exports stills up to 16384 × 16384, video up to 3840 × 2160, 360° panoramas up to 8192 × 4096 and ray-traced renders up to 7680 × 4320, and adds eight mesh formats on the Mac; Free and Standard share every export ceiling below that and differ in those rows only by the watermark, while Standard additionally lifts the project limit, adds custom materials and enables 3D-model export.
- Extensive object and material library: a bundled library of objects and materials the vendor sizes two different ways on its own surfaces, the livehome3d.com count against the larger one in its Microsoft Store, App Store and Google Play descriptions, plus Trimble 3D Warehouse import on every platform.
- Flexible roof and dormer design: a customizable roof is on the Mac App Store’s feature list, and the Custom Roof tool and custom multi-level roofing are Pro rows in the vendor’s chart and FAQ; the roof assistant with templates and segments and the 16 dormer options the 2023 text described are carried as that edition’s description and were not re-verified for this revision.
- Continuous updates: ten dated releases in 2025 and four by 9 July 2026 in BeLight’s archive, counted for this revision, including a fix for Dark Mode on macOS 26.1, and version 5.0 in the stores in September 2026; BeLight’s archive still showed 4.12.1 as its newest entry on 20 September 2026.
What are the disadvantages of Live Home 3D?
The disadvantages of using Live Home 3D run from the missing DWG, DXF and IFC paths and the Mac-only ProRender engine to the absent multi-user editing and the two-storey cap on the Free version:
- Limited advanced rendering options: AMD Radeon ProRender runs on the Mac alone, Cycles on Mac and Windows and, since version 5.0, on iPhone, iPad and Android, and stills below Pro are capped at 2048 × 1536; TechRadar found ProRender unstable on its Radeon GPU in May 2025.
- Complex learning curve: the documented difficulty is specific, TechRadar’s finding that navigating in 3D can be tricky and a 2023 Mac App Store reviewer’s report of needing tutorials and articles as a novice, against the same review’s incredibly easy to use.
- Incompatibility with older hardware: macOS 13 or higher since version 5.0, with 4.11.3 the last build for macOS 10.15; iPadOS or iOS 17 and higher; visionOS 26 or higher; Android 12 with at least 4 GB of RAM and 4 GB of free storage.
- Dependency on online resources: the documented online dependencies are Trimble 3D Warehouse import, the licence code the Pro installer needs, and the store or website purchase itself; rendering runs on the user’s device.
- Limited collaboration features: although Live Home 3D moves a project between devices as a file, by iCloud Drive, AirDrop or a third-party cloud, the vendor documents no multi-user editing, no invitation and no sync service for projects, and Windows and Android exchange the .lhzd archive only.
- Not suitable for large-scale projects: no DWG, DXF or IFC path on any vendor page, a two-storey cap on the Free version, and dated user reports, a 2019 Capterra reviewer whose more complex structure had internal and external walls resolved wrongly and a 2020 Mac reviewer who reproduced about 95 percent of an architect’s drawings and stopped at half walls and differing floor elevations.
- Potential compatibility issues with older file formats: the vendor’s own legacy story runs the other way, since Live Interior 3D projects open natively on Mac and Windows and a Live Interior 3D library backup restores; the dated compatibility complaint on record is a 2018 Capterra report of FBX export crashing on the 2010 to 2014 compatibility settings and working on 2016.
- Occasional software bugs: an App Store reviewer in April 2021 reported crashes every three to five minutes and black 3D views on a 4.0-era build, with the vendor replying that a rare bug on heavy projects had been fixed in the latest update; TechRadar’s 2025 ProRender crash is the current-era report, and bug fixes recur through the dated release entries.
- Limited landscape design features: Macworld’s 4 November 2019 con for the iOS Pro app, limited landscaping options and tools, and terrain editing tools are a Pro-only row in the vendor’s chart.
- Dependency on individual system specifications: the one hardware-specific failure on record is TechRadar’s ProRender crash on a Radeon GPU, and the only memory floor on livehome3d.com is Android’s, 4 GB of RAM on its store page and its support page alike on 20 September 2026.
What do customer reviews and feedback say about Live Home 3D?
Customer reviews and feedback run high on the mobile app and thin on the Mac. Read 14 September 2026, Apple’s App Store listing for the iPhone, iPad and Vision app carried the highest of the three published store averages on much the largest base, the Microsoft Store record for Windows came close behind on a far smaller base, and Google Play’s free Android app was served two different averages the same day, one on the US storefront and one without a country parameter, on a page printing two different review counts, header against ratings panel; the Mac App Store listing had too few ratings for Apple to display an average. Those are three apps and three populations, reported side by side and not averaged. The two named reviews are TechRadar, 27 May 2025, positive overall on the desktop editions with incredibly easy to use as the first pro, and Macworld, 4 November 2019, which called the iOS Pro app a true mobile powerhouse and faulted its landscaping tools, AR hardware floor and telephone support. Capterra’s base is too small to weigh, every review dated 2018 to 2023, with ease of use its strongest headline dimension, value for money its weakest, and an overall score under every store average. Reviewers praise the user-friendly interface and the 3D side. A designer in 2019 called it really easy to use, an architecture-and-planning reviewer the same year excellent for quick and very detailed interior visualizations, an enterprise architect in 2022 called the 3D viewing and navigation brilliant, and a 2017 Mac reviewer found rooms, walls, windows, doors and openings easy to create. The criticism is dated and specific. A 2023 Mac reviewer who bought the lifetime licence needs tutorials to get things done; a homeowner in January 2021 gave one star because the non-Pro version of that era lacked features for a fairly simple room; the 2017 Mac reviewer found realistic lighting dependent on the app’s own fixtures; a 2018 Capterra reviewer hit Collada and FBX export crashes; an April 2021 App Store reviewer reported crashes every few minutes on a 4.0-era build, answered by the vendor as fixed in the latest update; a 2019 project manager found internal and external walls resolved wrongly on a complex structure; a 2020 Mac reviewer reached about 95 percent of an architect’s drawings and stopped at half walls and floor elevations; and a 2020 App Store reviewer recommends it for personal use and not for professional work. Every one of those describes a build years behind version 5.0, and none was re-tested for this revision.
What other architecture software options are there?
Cedreo, SketchUp, AutoCAD, Chief Architect, Planner 5D and Revit are the other architectural software options apart from Live Home 3D:
- Cedreo: Cedreo describes itself as online 3D home design software for home builders, contractors and remodeling professionals, with interior designers a fourth audience in its Solutions menu and architects not among them, and publishes 2D and 3D floor plans, cross sections and elevations, roof and site plans, surface-area tables and photorealistic renderings from a cloud rendering engine; no virtual tour, 360 view or walkthrough appears on its pages, and its renders run in the cloud where Live Home 3D’s run on the user’s device.
- SketchUp: Trimble markets SketchUp as intuitive, professional-grade software for architects, builders and designers, and Capterra’s reviewers, read 14 September 2026, rate its ease of use above both AutoCAD’s and Revit’s on that platform while the same profile lists challenging navigation and controls and frequent crashes among its recurring cons. It creates, edits and shares 3D models of buildings, landscapes and interiors with cloud sharing, draws on a library Trimble sizes at 5.8 million-plus models on the 3D Warehouse page and 4 million-plus on the SketchUp home page the same day, and adds an Extension Warehouse of third-party plugins. It is sold by subscription only, Go, Pro and Studio among the plans, where Live Home 3D offers a lifetime licence, imports SketchUp models on the Mac and, in BeLight’s own framing, automates the walls, roofs and openings SketchUp has users build from scratch.
- AutoCAD: AutoCAD is Autodesk’s customizable and extensible CAD application for professional design, drafting, detailing and visualization, in the words of Autodesk’s annual report for the year to 31 January 2026, and its DWG and DXF drawings are the first formats on Revit’s CAD import list and link into 3ds Max through File Link Manager, which Autodesk describes as working in both 3ds Max and AutoCAD while maintaining a single design database. Fusion 360, the third Autodesk product the 2023 text named beside Revit and 3ds Max, is the company’s cloud-based 3D CAD, CAM and computer-aided engineering tool, and no Autodesk page reached for this revision states an AutoCAD-to-Fusion file path, so that link stands as the earlier edition’s description. The sourced fact on Live Home 3D’s side is that no DWG or DXF path exists in Live Home 3D’s documentation, so nothing drawn here reaches AutoCAD as a drawing.
- Chief Architect: Chief Architect is residential and light-commercial design software, for all aspects of residential and light commercial design in its maker’s own words, in which drawing walls and placing doors and windows creates a 3D model and generates construction documents with site plans, framing plans, section details and elevations, renderings run from artistic to realistic, a video 3D walkthrough follows a camera path through the plan, and fixtures, appliances, millwork and furnishings are selected from a 3D Library of thousands of objects.
- Planner 5D: Planner 5D lists Web beside iOS, Android, macOS, Windows and visionOS as its platforms and names interior design, architecture, real estate, home decor, enterprise, schools and commercial property management as its uses; its pitch is a floor plan turned into a 3D home in ten minutes, furnished from a library it sizes at more than 8,000 items and viewed as 4K renders, with a public gallery of member projects carrying likes, comments and a leaderboard, and a community it claims at over 100 million users, read 14 September 2026. It runs a free tier with 50 percent of the furniture catalogue plus Premium and Professional subscriptions, and it is the rival BeLight’s own FAQ names.
- Revit: Revit is Autodesk’s Building Information Modeling package, built for BIM to help professionals design, build and maintain higher-quality, more energy-efficient buildings in the words of Autodesk’s annual report for the year to 31 January 2026, with features for architectural, mechanical, electrical and plumbing design, structural engineering and construction. A change to the building model in one view propagates throughout the project, Autodesk’s help states, and the same help carries a new user from the model to construction documents, schedules of quantities and costs, and sheets with revision clouds, and files analysis under its own Analyze the Design heading; Live Home 3D publishes no RVT, IFC, DWG or DXF path, so the two do not exchange a building model; what can cross is a mesh, since Autodesk lists Trimble SKP and OBJ among Revit’s CAD imports and Live Home 3D exports SKP with Standard or Pro and OBJ with Pro.
Sweet Home 3D is the free route past the list. The project distributes it under the GNU General Public License for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android plus an in-browser version, its own version history dates version 7.5 to 21 August 2024 with 7.5.2 of 29 August 2024 as the last entry, its home page offered 7.5.17 downloads and its footer read version 7.5 with a page stamp of 5 May 2025 on 14 September 2026, and its 7.5 entry records the project’s takeover by Space Mushrooms. Its .sh3d files import into Live Home 3D on every platform, which makes it a starting point as much as an alternative.
Does Live Home 3D require any special peripherals for better productivity?
No. Live Home 3D requires no special peripheral for better productivity, and the vendor asks for none of the hardware the 2023 text recommended. BeLight publishes an operating-system floor per platform, an Apple silicon or Intel processor on the Mac, an A9 and LiDAR for two iPhone features and a RAM and storage figure for Android, and, on livehome3d.com, nothing about a graphics card, a monitor, a mouse, a keyboard or storage on the desktop; the one peripheral-adjacent fact on record is TechRadar’s ProRender crash on a Radeon GPU. Each pairing is working practice, kept from the earlier edition with its superlatives removed and no vendor requirement behind any of it:
- High-quality graphics card: the offline ray-tracing engines run on the user’s own machine, so a capable GPU shortens a render; livehome3d.com publishes no card requirement, and the Mac-only ProRender engine crashed on a Radeon GPU in TechRadar’s test while the same engine rendered without incident on the CPU alone.
- Large high-resolution monitor: the split mode shows the 2D plan and the 3D view side by side, and a wide display gives both room; no vendor figure exists for a minimum resolution.
- Precision mouse: wall drawing, snapping and dimensioning happen in the 2D Plan view by pointer, and a precise pointing device is the working assumption, with no vendor requirement.
- Comfortable keyboard: an ergonomic keyboard is a comfort pairing for long sessions and nothing the software depends on.
- Fast processor: ProRender bypassing the GPU and running on the CPU alone is the render route TechRadar found stable, so processor speed sets render time on that path; the vendor names a processor family on the Mac and no speed anywhere.
- Adequate RAM: sufficient memory matters on heavy projects, and the only memory floor on livehome3d.com is Android’s, 4 GB of RAM on the store page and the support page alike on 20 September 2026, with no desktop figure on that site.
- External storage solution: a backup destination for project files is ordinary practice; the vendor publishes no storage requirement beyond Android’s 4 GB of free space and a 671.8 MB Mac download.
