Philips Hue Festiva String Lights Aim To Smarten Up Your Christmas Tree

It's almost time to celebrate the holiday season, which encompasses everything from Christmas to Hanukkah to Kwanzaa. It also includes Thanksgiving if you're located in the United States. Regardless, the holidays offer a special opportunity to share decadent meals and joy with your entire family, including your good friends. But the holiday atmosphere wouldn't be complete without festive ornaments and decorations. Arguably, one of the coolest parts of the holiday season is getting to witness the broad variety of seasonal lighting configurations people come up with for their homes, their front yards, and their Christmas trees.

There are a wide variety of different lights that can be used to adorn such properties during the holiday season, such as the TRIKLITS rope lights, but few are as smart as those offered in the Philips Hue product line. That's because the Hue smartphone app is extremely versatile, and it can often link the full range of Philips Hue lights (such as ceiling lights, standing lamps, and even your non-seasonal outdoor lighting) so that each light is controlled from your phone or from the optional Philips Hue Tap Dial.

Aside from the recent August 2022 release of the WiZ LED String Lights, Philips Hue manufacturer Signify hasn't dabbled too much in string lighting — the type most commonly used for festive décor — however, it looks like that's about to change with the newly-announced Philips Hue Festavia string lights.

Announced today, the Philips Hue Festavia string lights are designed for the tech-savvy household that has convenience in mind. The Festavia package comes with a 20-meter cable adorned with 250 individual mini-LED lights. It attaches to a wall outlet but it can be remotely controlled via the Philips Hue app, meaning that you won't need to spend too much time configuring timers and schedules, and you can turn the lights on with the tap of a button — or with any other connected device, such as Amazon Alexa or Google Home.

As a function of the app, you can sync the Festavia lights with other Hue-connected lights in your household as well, but these lights have the added functionality of sparkling at random intervals up and down the wire, giving them a traditionally festive appearance. You can also scatter the lighting gradient so that individual LEDs display different colors in varying order.

There's Spotify and Samsung SmartThings integration included in Festavia as well, meaning you can sync your festive lighting to music, giving classic holiday playlists an even more atmospheric ambiance in your home. The Philips Hue Festavia string lights are set to become available from the Philips Hue website on November 15, retailing at an MSRP of $159.99.