5 Smart Christmas Lights You Can Reuse Every Year

Someone got a bright idea, and convenient smart Christmas lights were born. Smart Christmas lights use Wi-Fi to communicate with a phone or voice assistant, letting users customize how they light up. These days, you don't need the old, bulky and often boring lights on the Christmas tree. Instead, investing in one of the best smart Christmas lights will do a better job for years to come.

A smart Christmas light needs to be smart in usage, energy saving, and heat generation. Customizing smart lights is easy, enabling users to make on-the-fly adjustments or set the mood with a few taps on the phone. Custom lighting scenarios can be set, making orange and purple for Halloween or red, white, and blue for the 4th of July possible. The easy customization makes the lights great around the year and can be used for birthdays, Easter, New Year's Eve, and parties. These smart lights do most of the legwork for you and deliver a stunning Christmas tree, wreath, or outdoor lighting.

The Philips Hue Festavia string Christmas lights brighten the Christmas tree in style. The lights come in 65-foot or 130-foot lengths. The 65-foot version is lightweight and easily managed by a single person, perfect for apartment trees. It also comes with 250 LEDs that animate with different effects and colors. The longer 130-foot version comes with 500 LEDs, great for larger trees. The Philips Hue Festavia also includes light scenes that automatically set the festive mood. 

The Philips Hue companion app is available for iOS and Android. The app offers color palette selection and brightness adjustment. Users can also add effects from the Hue gallery. Plenty of scenes go well with the holiday theme. With support for voice commands through Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant, you won't need to take your phone out for adjustments. The Philips Hue Festavia can sync to music by linking to Samsung SmartThings or Spotify. The lights are not individually addressable. Instead, users control three points along the string to create a light gradient. While it reduces the customization potential, the gradient flow is smooth and pleasant.

Pick up the 65-foot Philips Hue Festavia on Amazon or the Philips Hue store for $219.

The Twinkly String Lights come in sizes ranging from 26 to 197 feet. While expensive, they are stunning when lit up. Connect the lights to the Twinkly app, and a new world of light effects opens up. The company has done a remarkable job of offering pre-made effects, many of which nail the festive theme. The app also lets users make their effects, which are perfect for around-the-year lighting. 

The physical button on the power cord turns the lights on and off and changes the pattern without the app. The light quality is outstanding, delivering rich colors and pearly bright whites. The individually addressable LEDs are the star, letting users map effects and advanced animations. The placement scan feature in the app (iOS, Android) makes everything easy to set up. The scan feature uses the phone's camera to determine the lights' location. 2D scan is great for flat surfaces like wreath, garlands, and the front of the Christmas tree. If you really want to go deep into effects, the 3D scan option makes a virtual tree and maps lights individually. 

Get the 105-foot Twinkly String Lights on Amazon for $129.

The Govee Christmas String Lights don't hold back in the brightness department. The flashy lights are bold, colorful, and, most importantly, inexpensive. Govee Christmas String Lights come with individually addressable LEDs, a clear advantage over Philips Hue Festavia. At half the price, the lights are a great way to light up your festivities in an affordable way. 

The Govee lights come with preloaded light effects. While less elaborate than the Twinkly String Lights, Govee still has plenty of wild options to wow visitors. Shooting a star around the tree or across the room is a spectacle, although it might over excite the feline residents. There's also the music sync feature, making the lights dance to the beats. The only drawback is the stark white cable that looks out of place on a Christmas tree. 

The 66-foot Govee Christmas String Lights is available on Amazon for $79.99.

Nanoleaf is known for its light-up panels, which are popular among streamers and gamers. The company also offers Christmas smart lights, which, like the light panels, are well-made and implemented. The Matter-compatible Nanoleaf Smart Holiday String Lights work well with any smart home system. They have rich, temperature-adjustable colors, and the individually addressable LED lights are bright and of high quality. The biggest selling point is the Matter compatibility, meaning you only need to add them to your smart home platform to enjoy the lights. 

The Nanoleaf app (iOS, Android) offers easy customization options. Nine preset scenes are available, including holiday-themed ones like "Crackling Fireplace" and "Holiday Magic". You can also download more effects made by the community or create your own. The lights can sync to Christmas music, although it can get somewhat chaotic depending on the music and the number of lights. The lights come with IP44 water and dust resistance and can withstand mild weather. It's best to keep the lights indoor if your local weather is harsh. 

Pick the 65-foot Nanoleaf Smart Holiday String Lights on Amazon for $99.

Christmas lights look great, but putting them up and taking them down every year is a chore. The Govee Permanent Outdoor Lights Pro eliminates the hassle of packing and reopening Christmas lights. The permanent smart lights are weatherproof, with an IP67 rating for the lights and an IP65 rating for the control box. They can withstand temperatures ranging from -4 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit, so technically, you can feel festive all year round. 

A flat cable joins the bigger-than-usual smart lights. Adhesive fixes the lights to surfaces, but screw clips are also included for extra security. Additionally, the companion app lets users set color zones, change color temperature, and apply light effects. The Govee Permanent Outdoor Lights Pro can serve as fixture lights depending on how you fix them on the house. While expensive, the Govee lights offer what no other smart Christmas light does: less work every year. 

The 100-foot Govee Permanent Outdoor Lights Pro is on Amazon for $399.99.

I've had hands-on experience with the Philips Hue Festiva Christmas lights, helping a friend set up an entire room smart light setup. Apart from Christmas lights, the room also included Hue smart bulbs to complete the "gamer" aesthetic. The lights scored well in SlashGear's Philips Hue Festavia review. A mixture of friends and family recommendations, reviews, and forum posts selected the rest of the list. All lights have a four-plus rating on Amazon, with plenty of reviews praising them. I spent plenty of time reading discussions on forums and Reddit to better understand features and the technology behind them. Of course, no product is perfect; the same goes for the smart Christmas lights. I also pointed out significant drawbacks of each light, so you can find lights that hopefully serve all your Christmas lighting needs for years.