Frequently Asked Questions

The TAP Kiln Control Mobile app gives you complete control of your kiln or oven from the palm of your hand. With the app, you will be able to monitor your kiln, make adjustments, and perform all TAP Controller functions from your mobile device: 

• Create a TAP Kiln Control Mobile account and easily add all your TAP Controllers. 
• Monitor your kiln with real-time updates and push notifications. 
• Quickly check the status of your kiln with easy-to-read indicators. 
• View all schedules, settings, diagnostics, and error logs. 
• Remotely create, edit, and save firing schedules. 
• Create and modify kiln settings. 
• Modify your kiln firing in real-time. 
• View firing logs with by-the-minute data points.  
• Skip steps and abort firings. 
• Remotely start your kiln (available with a premium subscription). 

The TAP Kiln Control Mobile app gives users more flexibility, more peace of mind, and more control over their projects. The app is so robust that some of our newer controller options – TAP Monitor, TAP Micro, and TAP&Go – are all designed to be almost entirely controlled from the TAP Kiln Control Mobile app. 

TAP Kiln Control Mobile is free to use on every TAP Kiln Controller – with an optional upgrade to a premium subscription for even more cutting-edge capabilities.

Explore the industry’s highest rated kiln control app, with 4.9 stars on the App Store and 4.1 stars on Google Play.

TAP Kiln Control Mobile is (by far!) the highest rated kiln control app and the only one that offers true remote control.

When the TAP Kiln Control Mobile app released in 2016, it was the first integrated kiln control mobile app on the market. While our competitors have tried to catch up over the past eight years, TAP Kiln Control Mobile remains the only true remote kiln control app on the market (as far as we know!).  
 
Orton has a detachable handheld controller option (that’s limited by range), as well as kiln monitoring software for Windows that doesn’t include schedule creating, editing, or execution. 

The Bartlett Genesis 2.0 (their flagship touchscreen controller) includes the KilnAid App which allows users to monitor kiln firing but doesn’t provide options for remote control. On the App Store, the KilnAid App has a rating of 2.5 stars, compared to 4.8 for TAP (47.92% lower). On the Google Play Store, KilnAid has a rating of 2.3 stars, compared to 4.1 for TAP (46.34% lower). 

Skutt’s KilnLink App allows for remote kiln viewing and diagnostics but doesn’t include any remote control or schedule creation features. It has a 1.9 star rating on the App Store and a 2.6 star rating on the Google Play Store (60.42% and 36.59% lower than the TAP Kiln Control Mobile app, respectively). 

Additionally, TAP Kiln Control Mobile is significantly more popular than Bartlett KilnAid with 230 total reviews and 5k+ downloads on the Play Store, compared to 107 reviews and 1k+ downloads for Bartlett KilnAid. While KilnLink’s downloads are comparable with 5k+ downloads as well, it’s only received 144 total reviews compared to TAP’s 230, with consistently lower scores across the board.

When you do a side-by-side feature comparison, it’s easy to see why TAP Kiln Control Mobile gets consistently higher reviews: It offers more features for free than KilnAid and KilnLink do in their paid plans, and its premium plan is the only one that allows for fully remote firing adjustments, kiln control, and schedule creation that syncs in real-time with your controller.

Bartlett KilnAid and Skutt KilnLink apps both have paid subscription plans. They just aren’t actively advertised and provide a very limited feature set – neither app includes any functionality for remote kiln control.

Additionally, TAP Kiln Control Mobile offers a free and paid plan, with the free plan providing more features and functionality than you’d get with paid versions of KilnAid or KilnLink. 

For instance, Bartlett KilnAid charges $1.99/month or $19.99/year for push notification alerts and alarms, firing logs, and diagnostic data. All of those are free on TAP Kiln Control Mobile.

Skutt KilnLink is $100/year per kiln for push notification alerts, exportable firing logs, diagnostics, and maintenance notes. All of those are free on TAP Kiln Control Mobile.

On TAP Kiln Control Mobile, real-time firing monitoring, the ability to abort firing, review firing and error logs, adjust settings, review diagnostics, set preventative maintenance alerts, receive push notification alerts and alarms, and calculate firing costs are all completely free. The Premium Plan ($4.99/month or $49.99/year) unlocks end-to-end remote kiln control, including Remote Start – features not available anywhere else.

For a full comparison of the apps and controller features between various kiln controller manufacturers, check out Temperature Controller Manufacturers Side-by-Side Comparison. 

Also, it’s important to note that all proceeds from the premium subscriptions from TAP Kiln Control Mobile are invested back into the app to support servers, storage, and developing new features and fixes.

Follow the instructions below to connect your controller to the TAP Kiln Control Mobile app…

Before being able to link your TAP Kiln Control Mobile app to your TAP Controller, you will need to: 

• Download the TAP Kiln Control Mobile app on your smart phone or tablet (download for Android or iOS) and set up your account by following the prompts on the app’s screen. 
• Connect your TAP Kiln Controller to a wireless network via the controller interface by going to Menu>Settings>Network>Wireless, selecting the desired network and entering any required credentials. 

On your controller, go to Menu>Settings>Network to find your controller’s UID (Unique Identifier):

On the app, go to Summary, hit the + Icon at the bottom right, enter a name for your kiln (it can be anything you want), as well as the UID from the controller, and hit SAVE. You will then see that kiln from your Summary Screen of the TAP Kiln Control Mobile app. Clicking on it will let you access that controller from the TAP Kiln Control Mobile app. 

(If your kiln is still showing offline after connecting your controller to a wireless network, reboot your controller by turning it off and on).

Follow along with this video if you need help connecting your controller to TAP Kiln Control Mobile:

Each TAP Controller can only be monitored and controlled from a single TAP Kiln Control Mobile user account. However, if you want multiple people to be able to monitor a single kiln, you can create one user account and share the password amongst multiple users.

That way, multiple users can be logged in simultaneously. This is a great feature to use in a studio environment if students would like to check on their project status. 

We are currently working on developing a Studio Mode to allow multiple users to monitor the same kiln with different permissions, which will be awesome for a studio or classroom setting. That will be coming soon! 

A UID is a unique identifier associated with all TAP Kiln Controllers. It is used as a way to address the controller and make sure that the right data is going to the right place. 

The UID can be found on the TAP, TAP II, and TAP II Controller by navigating to Menu>Settings>Network.

You’ll need your controller’s UID when setting up TAP Kiln Control Mobile. Additionally, we may ask for your controller’s UID to help you with troubleshooting, so that we can pinpoint exactly what’s going on with your controller.

While we’d love to be able to give away all of the premium features of the TAP Kiln Control Mobile app for free, developing an app was a major investment for us – and we have big plans for future upgrades. 100% of the net subscription fees for the Premium Plan go directly back into the app for maintaining our servers, developing new features, and providing improvements for all users.  

We understand why some users are frustrated by the prospect of having to pay a subscription for an app when they already made a significant investment in buying a new kiln or controller. While we’re sympathetic to this frustration, we do want to remind you that you’re not paying a subscription to use your controller, you’re paying a subscription to use our app – which is completely optional and more of a convenience factor! 

Additionally, we provide all remote firing monitoring features, as well as the ability to abort firings, review logs, adjust settings, access advanced diagnostics, receive push notifications, calculate firing costs, and set preventative maintenance alerts as part of our free plan. Most of these features – if they’re available at all – are paid features for Bartlett KilnAid or Skutt KilnLink. And neither of those apps allows true remote control or firing adjustments.

Below you can find the Free and Premium features for TAP II and TAP II Pro: