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Can I open the same home on both iPhone and iPad?

Yes — sign in on both devices with the same Apple ID, and the homes sync through your own private iCloud automatically.

How the sync works

Once you have scanned or drawn a home, it is first saved locally on the device, and then uploaded to the area of iCloud that belongs to your own Apple ID. Open HouseSense on another device with the same Apple ID, and the app fetches the homes down from there.

There is nothing you need to switch on. The sync runs because you are already signed in to iCloud on your iPhone and iPad — HouseSense has no account of its own and never asks for an email address or a password.

What comes along is the home as a whole: the floor plan, the rooms' geometry, areas, furniture, budget figures, and the photos you have taken of the rooms yourself.

The division of labour most people settle into

Two devices give a natural division of labour worth knowing about if you have both:

• iPhone for measuring up. It fits in a pocket, is easy to hold with one hand, and it is the one you bring along to a viewing.
• iPad for working on the drawing. The large screen is noticeably better for correcting walls, placing doors and windows, furnishing, and reading through the takeoff.

Scan in the house, then sit down on the sofa with the iPad afterwards. It is the same home, and you never have to send anything back and forth.

If the home doesn't show up on the other device

Four things resolve almost every case:

1. Same Apple ID? This is the most common cause. An iPad set up with a different account — or an old account — is looking at a different private database.
2. Is iCloud switched on for HouseSense? Check under your Apple ID in the iOS settings.
3. Has the device had a connection? Scan in a basement with no signal, and the home only exists locally until the phone gets a connection again. Open the app on the scanning device with a connection and give it a moment.
4. Is there room in your iCloud? If it is full, nothing new can be uploaded — and that applies to every app, not just this one.

Someone else's device is a different world

Here is the important boundary: sync follows the Apple ID, not the household. Your partner's iPhone with her own Apple ID has its own private iCloud, and HouseSense cannot write to it. That is precisely what makes the model private — the developer has no access to it either.

If someone else needs to see the home on their own device, the way in is the share code. You generate a code, they type it in — either in a browser or in HouseSense on their iPhone — and then they have the home. The imported home lives only locally on their end and never becomes theirs to keep; revoke the code, and they lose access.

It is a share, not a shared workspace. Two people cannot edit the same floor plan from separate devices. If you need that, the practical solution is for one person to own the home and edit it, while the other looks in through the code.

New phone or new iPad

Change device, and there is nothing to move. Sign in with the same Apple ID, install HouseSense, and the homes come down from your private iCloud on their own. There is no password to remember and no transfer to set up, because there is no account.

Go from iPhone to Android, though, and nothing comes with you — iCloud stops at Apple. The export button is then the only way out: write the floor plan and takeoff out as a PDF, and the model out in a standard 3D format, while you still have the iPhone.

Would you rather keep everything purely local?

You can switch iCloud off for HouseSense in the iOS settings. The homes then stay exclusively on the device they were made on, with no sync between iPhone and iPad.

The downside has to be said plainly: without sync, no copy exists anywhere. A lost or reset phone is then also a lost survey — there is no support team with a backup, because there is no server. Choose that route, and export the floor plan and takeoff as a PDF every time a piece of work is finished.

The short version

The same Apple ID gives you the same homes on iPhone and iPad, through your own private iCloud and without any account in the app. A different Apple ID is a different private database — for that, you use a share code. And if you need to leave Apple altogether, export the PDF and 3D model while you still can.