When decorating for the holidays, the Christmas tree is the first thing most people think about. Few things represent the season as well as a festively-decorated tree, after all. Next thing that comes to mind, though, are Christmas lights. Whether wrapped around the tree, mounted up a wall in the shape of a star, or hung at various places around the house, their spirited glow, festive colors, and twinkling designs create a lively atmosphere that just injects added joy into the season.
Traditional Christmas lights you can buy off store shelves come with preset color and twinkle sequences, which is fine enough, especially when you combine multiple sets of them to create stunning light effects. However, recent years have seen the rise of smart Christmas lights, which use the same tech found in modern strip lights and similar smart lighting to bring smart functions to your holiday decorative lighting.
The best smart Christmas lights deliver the colorful glows and cheery light shows you can get from traditional variants. However, their smart capabilities give you a lot more options in how you can use them. Most smart Christmas lights, for instance, use multi-color LEDs, making it easy to change your lighting colors at a whim, while coming with programmable sequences, so you can create personalized light shows you otherwise wouldn’t be able to do with the basic string lights of old.
Not all smart Christmas lights are the same, of course. Some will add more functionality beyond the basic smart functions, such as shape mapping and custom AI light shows, while others stick to the bare basics, such as changing colors, light show presets, and lighting schedules. Some are designed strictly for indoor use, while others are duly-weatherproofed to handle whatever the winter season can throw its way. Some will use better LEDs than others, as well, so you might want to keep an eye of the specs if you’re shopping for a set.
These are the best smart Christmas lights for decorating your home this holiday season.
Brizled Smart Color Changing Christmas Lights
Pros
- Very affordable
- Dimmable with a dozen light show presets
- Splash-proof
Cons
- Can’t customize exact colors
- No custom light show options
The most affordable option in the list, this smart Christmas light makes a good pick if you’re not yet fully sold on the idea of using smart lights for holiday decorating, since the low purchase price means you can take the plunge without much risk. For the low price, you get 200 multi-color LEDs spread out across a 66-foot long string with adjustable brightness (dimmable from one to 100 percent), a dozen preset light sequences, and a scheduling timer. Sadly, you won’t get to control the color of each individual LED – instead, you only get to choose from multi-color or warm white, which is still pretty nice. It even has a built-in mic that you can activate, so the light will sync its twinkle sequences with whatever music is playing. The lights have an IP44 rating, so it’s splash-proof enough for some water exposure, although we’d be hesitant to leave this fully exposed in the outdoors.
Govee Christmas String Lights 2
Pros
- Individually customizable LEDs
- Rich feature set
- Impressive shape mapping feature
- AI custom light effects
Cons
- White not as warm as other Christmas lights we’ve used
The second generation of Govee’s smart Christmas lights, this one uses RGBWIC LEDs instead of the RGBIC from the original, allowing it to produce a brighter, warmer, and more natural white light on top of the multitude of colors it can produce. It brings a whole load of smart capabilities, such as the ability to control each LED individually, allowing for ridiculously granular customization, as well as 130 preset effect modes, which include some seriously impressive light shows. Even better, it offers a shape mapping function that allows the app to recognize how the string light is arranged, which it replicates in the app, so you can reconfigure individual sections visually. It’s seriously impressive. For those who want non-preset light effects, but don’t have the time to dedicate to the shape mapping feature, there’s an AI light effect function that lets you instruct the app what kind of light effects you want, which it will then interpret and implement on its own. Sure, the results can be hit or miss, but it makes for a fun thing to play around with. Other features include Matter compatibility, voice command support (Alexa and Google Assistant), music syncing, and IP65 waterproofing, so it should be safe to hang outdoors.
Nanoleaf Smart Holiday String Lights
Pros
- Individually customizable LEDs
- Downloadable light effects
- Compatible with Matter
Cons
- No scheduling option from the app
- Only nine preset light effects
Nanoleaf’s version of smart Christmas lights come with 300 LEDs across a 79-foot cable, which should be long enough to cover a standard Christmas tree in colorful twinkling lights. The lights can be controlled via app over Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or Matter over Wi-Fi, as well as directly from the attached controller, so you can make adjustments without having to pull out your phone (you need the app for more detailed control, though). Like the Govee above, it allows you to customize each individual LED for dimming and color adjustments although it only comes with nine preset light effects. You can, of course, painstakingly create your own or download pre-created light effects from other users, which they call “scenes” on the app. Other nice features include a built-in mic for syncing with music, beautiful-looking whites, and IP44 water resistance (splash-proof only). Our one big gripe, though, is the lack of option to schedule the lights from the app, requiring you to connect to a smart home platform through Matter to do that, which should make things more complicated for folks who don’t have a full-fledged smart home setup.
Twinkly Strings
Pros
- Individually customizable LEDs
- Shape-mapping feature automatically customizes light effects
- Easier to create your own light effects
- Syncs with other light sets from the outfit
Cons
- White light quality not the best
- No music sync built-in
Twinkly, arguably, has the best selection of smart Christmas lights in the market today, which is why we have a couple of their releases in our list. The first one is their basic smart String lights, which combine individually-addressable LEDs with a feature-rich app to enable gorgeous customizations on the fly. Like other offerings, it has a number of presets that let you switch to a different light effect on the fly. Unlike them, though, it’s able to customize each preset based on how you installed the lights, similar to Govee’s shape-mapping feature, so it can change up how the presets are implemented, depending on how your lights are wrapped around the tree, mounted up a wall, or hung around a fixture. It’s impressive. This also makes it just a little easier to manually customize the light effects, even when you’re trying to create more advanced light animations. We also appreciate the ability to sync the lights with the outfit’s other light sets, which is incredibly useful if you plan to kit out your home with tons of lighting decorations during the holiday season. Even though it’s more expensive than the Govee, the quality of whites here is around the same, which is to say it’s just not as good as the whites on the Festiva below.
Philips Hue Festavia
Pros
- Gorgeous colors and whites
- Fun preset effects
- Refined, more sophisticated light aesthetic
Cons
- Not as bright as other smart Christmas lights
- Only customizable segments, not individual segments
If you want the best colors and the best quality of whites when it comes to smart Christmas lights, Philips’ holiday smart lights are definitely the way to go. The colors just look a notch above what other smart Christmas lights deliver (there’s a refined sophistication to their glow), although they’re not quite as bright as offerings from Govee and Twinkly. As such, the lights don’t feel as flashy, which makes it more suitable for use in non-Christmas settings, although, in our opinion, sets it back a bit during this particular holiday, since people tend to want that tree to shine as bright as possible. On the downside, the LEDs are not individually customizable; instead, you’re only allowed to customize segments, so it doesn’t lend itself to detailed tweaking the way other smart Christmas lights do. Still, we love the preset light effects and the kind of customizations you can do. Plus, we’ve heard nothing but praises from people who’ve used them for a long time, especially when it comes to how durable and long-lasting these string lights are. Other features include Matter support, voice control support (Alexa and Google Assistant), IP54 waterproofing (both the lights and power adapter), and the ability to work seamlessly with other devices in the Hue ecosystem.
Twinkly Cluster
Pros
- Unique cluster layout looks fuller
- Individually customizable LEDs
- Shape-mapping allows for easier customizations
Cons
- White light quality not the best
- No music sync built-in
This the second of Twinkly’s smart Christmas lights in the list and what sets it apart from the first one is the way the lights are configured. While the Strings above have a traditional Christmas lights setup, this one puts a bunch of LEDs close to each other in a cluster, with varying distances between the clusters giving the whole thing a fuller, more dramatic feel. It has a similar feature set to the Strings light, so you can customize each LED individually, map the lights virtually, and play around with the numerous presets that you can personalize pretty easily. Naturally, it also gets the same downsides, such as the limited white temperature range and the lack of music syncing in tow. The big selling point, though, is really the cluster design, which gives you whole new options in decorating, especially since you can sync this with their standard Christmas string lights.
