Reviews: The Best Smart Christmas Lights To Brighten Your Spirits This Holiday Season
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We’re in holiday mode as we speak, and nothing’s more fitting for the occasion than Christmas lights. People go nuts when it comes to decorating their homes and living spaces, often trying to achieve bragging rights on who has the best Christmas decor for the holidays. One way to get the leg up over your neighborly competition is to use smart Christmas lights to really blow them away.
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Your parents may be rocking traditional Christmas lights, but today’s best smart Christmas lights are controlled either by your smartphone or through a voice assistant courtesy of a smart speaker or smart display. Companies have been coming out with a range of options, such as string lights, strip lights, light bulbs, and even some fancy options that are mounted to the wall.
When it comes to smart home devices, we’ve tested many of them over the last few years — including the best smart Christmas lights. They offer dazzling effects, automations that can allow them to work with other smart lights, and showcase that the holiday season is here.
The Best Smart Christmas Lights: At a Glance
1. Best Overall: Twinkly Strings — $83.99 at Amazon
2. Runner Up: Govee RGBIC LED Smart Flood Lights — $99.99 at Amazon
3. Best Strip Light: GE CYNC Dynamic Effects Smart Light Strip — $179.99 at Best Buy
4. Best Projector: BlissLights Sky Lite Evolve — $49.99 at Amazon
5. Contender: Brizled Smart Color Changing Christmas Lights — $40.99 at Amazon
6. New Release: Philips Hue Festavia — $159.99 at Philips Hue
7. Best Icicle Lights: Twinkly Icicle — $103.63 at Amazon
8. Most Affordable: Fussion Smart Fairy Light — $19.99 at Amazon
9. Best Decor Smart Light: Twinkly Spritzer — $119.99 at Amazon
10. Best Light Bulb: LIFX Candle Color — $70.99 at Amazon
BEST OVERALL
Twinkly Strings
Buy Now On Amazon
$84 at best buy
Why We Chose It: Create custom effects easily by using your smartphone’s camera and mapping capture.
Read More: Twinkly Squares Creates Gorgeous Pixel Artwork for Your Walls
We’ve been using the Twinkly Strings for the last several years now and it’s without a doubt the best smart Christmas lights we’ve used. First and foremost, these string lights can be wrapped around a tree, or could be used to adorn walls and ceilings indoors.
We fell in love with the superb color saturation of the Twinkly Strings, producing vibrant colors that will get people to notice it. Furthermore, not only are there plenty of light effects to choose from in the Twinkly app, but we found it really intuitive to make custom ones using our smartphone’s camera
If you’re really good and have a lot of patience, you could create effects that can spell out something on your Christmas tree — or combine pulsating and exploding effects that start from the middle and spread outwards.
Pros
Outstanding color saturation
Tons of lighting effects to choose from
Custom creations with app
Syncs with music playback
Cons
It’s pricey
RUNNER UP
Govee RGBIC LED Smart Flood Lights
Buy Now On Amazon
$100 at Govee
Why We Chose It: It gives your traditional outdoor Christmas decor a bit of sparkle with ambient lights that can change color.
Govee’s been one of our favorite smart light brands the last couple of years and we’re happy to report that the Govee RGBICWW LED Smart Flood Lights adds smart lighting when you need it. These compact smart flood lights have an IP66 waterproof rating to protect them from the harsh winter weather, so you can rest easy knowing they’ll continue to work.
The best part is that you can cover a fair amount of space with light, which can be adjusted and controlled through the Govee Home app for mobile. We were particularly happy about the ability to group them together for even more festive color effects. It’s a great way to add light to existing holiday decorations you may already have around the home, inside and out.
Pros
Water resistant construction
Simple set up process
Group features pairs multiple lights
Cons
All four lights are connected to one another with a wire
BEST SMART STRIP LIGHT
GE CYNC Dynamic Effects Smart Light Strip
Buy Now at BEST BUY
Why We Chose It: The flexibility of this smart strip light allowed us to easily outline furniture and decorations with festive light effects.
Read More: These New Smart Strip Lights From GE CYNC Can Enhance Even The Most Mundane Activities
One of the best qualities about the GE CYNC Dynamic Effects Smart Light Strip is that we got 16-feet of it to work with. Additionally, the entire strip light is covered in this tough rubbery casing to ensure it’ll handle the outdoors with ease.
Due to that flexibility, we enjoyed being able to outline pieces of furniture and decor — as well as using the included screws and clips to create a decorative on our walls. Best of all, this app control smart strip light can display multiple colors simultaneously to achieve those awe-inspiring gazes from strangers looking at them.
Pros
Flexible design
Plenty of length
Tough construction
Cons
Limited amount of pre configured lighting effects
BEST PROJECTOR
BlissLights Sky Lite Evolve
Buy Now On Amazon
$50 at walmart
Why We Chose It: You can create mystifying patterns on walls, ceilings, and outdoor decor.
First Look: BlissLights Sky Lite Evolve Is a Convincing Star Projector That Emulates The Night Sky
After we first got a sneak peek at it during an event, we were utterly blown away using the BlissLight Sky Lite indoors at home. While it’s technically considered a galaxy projector, it still makes for an impressive smart Christmas light option because of the mystifying effects it produces.
Indoors, we were mesmerized by the explosion of colors simulating a galaxy and nebula in motion on our ceiling. It could also be used outdoors to cover an area of your home with the same effects. Using the app allowed us to customize the effects and intensity of the light, but we also found it convenient to set schedules for it to automatically turn on and off.
Pros
Mesmerizing animations
Swirling colors
Simple to use
Cons
Works best at night
CONTENDER
Brizled Smart Color Changing Christmas Lights
Buy Now On Amazon
Why We Chose It: You won’t have to spend a fortune on outfitting your Christmas tree with these string lights.
As much as we adore Twinkly’s line of smart Christmas lights, they often come at a premium. That’s why you’ll want to check out the Brizled Smart Color Changing Christmas Lights as an alternative option because it’s half the cost.
Even though it has a limited amount of color changing effects to choose from, there are still controls to adjust its speed and set schedules. If you want, you can even connect it to your Google Home or Amazon Alexa account for voice command control.
Pros
Affordably priced
Smart home integrations
Decent amount of lights for the price
Cons
Few effects to choose from
NEW RELEASE
Philips Hue Festavia
Buy Now
Why We Chose It: This is the first ever set of smart string lights released by veteran smart light maker Philips Hue.
First Look: Philips Hue Festavia String Lights, Bring a Smart Touch to Your Christmas Tree
Philips Hue is widely known as one of the pioneers in the smart lighting space. Even though the company has the biggest brand recognition, they’ve never come out with a proper set of string lights until now.
The Philips Hue Festavia was just released and gives existing Philips Hue users something to be excited about. First of all, we love that it features a sprawling amount of 250 mini smart LEDs to make the lights on our Christmas tree look very full. We were also delighted by the sparkle and scattering effect to choose from in the Philips Hue app.
Unlike other smart string lights for Christmas trees, it makes it easy on anyone to connect because of its generous 65-foot chord.
Pros
Extra long power cord
Very bright and iridescent
Slick looking scenes
Cons
They cost a premium
BEST ICICLE LIGHTS
Twinkly Icicle
Buy Now On Amazon
$120 at Walmart
Why We Chose It: Because it’s really quick and easy to set up, plus it retains the classic look of icicle lights.
Twinkly has an outstanding lineup of smart Christmas lights. Out of the bunch in its portfolio, you can get that wintertime look and feel with the Twinkly Icicle smart lights.
We’ve put them up around entryways and even around curtain rods indoors as a decorative element to our other Christmas decor. Of course, it has the advantage of being a part of the Twinkly family because it can be controlled through the Twinkly app or voice assistant with your smart home gadgets.
There’s even a music mode that will light up the Twinkly Icicles to give you an audio-visual experience while playing songs.
Pros
Easy to put up
Very bright light output
Dazzling effects
Cons
No color options with this model
MOST AFFORDABLE
Fussion Smart Fairy Light
Buy Now On Amazon
Why We Chose It: Ultra affordable set of fairy lights that are perfect at accenting your Christmas decor.
Another low cost smart Christmas light to think about is the Fussion Smart Fairy String Lights, which you can pick up on Amazon.
We found it wonderful at accenting our Christmas decor because it could wrap around anything with ease. Thanks to its generous 33-foot length, you’re getting a lot of light to work with — more so when it’s controlled via a mobile app.
Even though it’s light on the color effects selections, we found it really neat that it could sync with your phone’s camera to simulate the colors it sees.
Pros
Inexpensive
Generous amount of length
Very easy to wrap around decor
Cons
Antiquated looking app
BEST DECOR SMART LIGHT
Twinkly Spritzer
Buy Now On Amazon
$110 at walmart
Why We Chose It: It’s one of the few smart Christmas light decor pieces you’ll find around.
As you can see, the vast majority of smart Christmas lights mainly consist of string lights. That’s why we love the Twinkly Spritzer because it’s actually one of the rare decor pieces to choose from.
While it could potentially be used to top your Christmas tree with proper support, we found it more suitable to hang off ceilings or placed inside of a jar. There are 200 multicolor LED lights in this spritzer-styled smart light, so it produces the same vibrant colors that Twinkly smart lights are known for.
Pros
Unique decor
Syncs well with other Twinkly lights
Cons
It’s pretty big when expanded fully
BEST LIGHT BULB
LIFX Candle Color
Buy Now On Amazon
Why We Chose It: It’s a nightlight that can simultaneously display multiple colors at once.
You could easily use any smart light bulb to simulate the look of the holiday season, but the LIFX Candle Color stands out as one of the best smart Christmas lights because of the Christmas Eve feel it radiates.
Thanks to its Polychrome Technology, it’s one of the rare smart light options that can emit multiple colors at once. Think of the colors of the flame on a candle, it can produce many shades at once. It’s controlled through the app and supports all three voice assistants (Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, and Siri), so you can easily access it regardless of your smart home ecosystem.
Pros
Casts multiple colors at once
Great as a nightlight
Works with Alexa, Google, and Siri
Cons
E12 isn’t your typical bulb socket
How We Chose the Best Smart Christmas Lights
In all seriousness, many smart lights could qualify for smart Christmas lights, since all that’s required are festive light effects that are associated with the holiday season. However, there are specialty models that were created with Christmas in mind.
After testing over 10+ different smart Christmas lights over the last year, with each one being tested for about a week, we were able to narrow down our list by grading them in the following categories:
Installation/Setup: Easy and simple is the way to go, but we also looked at how intuitive they were to use in the apps as well.
Voice command support: While all can be controlled via apps, the best options offered voice command support for Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri.
Lighting: Vibrant colors and bright tones are qualities we look for in the best smart Christmas lights.
Software: The software needs to be intuitive and easy to use.
Color Effects: Having more color effects to choose from is always good, but custom options are extras we love.
Price: We made sure to look at options that cover all prices, but lower prices do make for a more attractive purchase.
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