High-Tech Holiday Lighting

Outdoor decorative decor—especially of the lighting variety—can be a real drag, but modern technology has taken a lot of the hassle out of hanging holiday cheer.

Whether you’re a neophyte or known throughout the neighborhood for your holiday cheer, these intelligent illuminating devices will help you achieve the appropriate seasonal ambiance without the agita.

Lumenplay

Here’s a most modern twist on a holiday classic—the string lights. Unlike its predecessors, Lumenplay allows you to control nearly every aspect of its extendable string of RGB LED bulbs. With the accompanying Lumenplay app, users can control effects, brightness, speed and direction of the lights, as well as pick from 16 million colors or a number of pre-set color palettes. Lumenplay is also equipped with a Music Visualizer, pairing appropriate effects with whichever holiday hit you happen to be playing.

Lumenplay is available for $49 to $79 depending on string length.

Lumens Outdoor Lighting

Lumens’s stable of outdoor lighting features comes in all shapes and sizes—quite literally. Orb to egg, cylinder to cube, and many less describable shapes in between, these waterproof, Bluetooth-enabled lights allow users to schedule illumination and control color, effects and dimming from their phones. Pro tip: Outfit yourself with a few Cube Bluetooth Sharp LED Lamps and some oversized ribbons and it will appears as though Santa has spilled a selection of presents on your property.

Lumens Outdoor Lights are available from $115 to $2,070, depending on size, shape and features.

MiPow Playbulb Garden

The MiPow Playbulb Garden is a water-resistant, disc-shaped device which can be planted directly into the ground and controlled—16 million colors, five lighting effects—entirely from your phone. Multiple Playbulbs can be chained together to provide matching palettes and seamless effect transitions. Best of all, the solar-powered lamps are smart enough to automatically recognize when it’s light or dark and will alter their illumination accordingly.

The Playbulb Garden is available for $39 per device.

Frontgate Meteor Lights

Looking for something subtle or, dare we say, elegant? Frontgate’s Meteor Lights provide seasonally aware ambience with a serving of class. Featuring variable lengths (two 3-foot and one 4-foot per set) 12-channel LEDs in each set, these hanging strands produce a warm glow with six distinct and decorative lighting effects: a steady/constant glow, shimmer, random twinkling, chasing lights, lightning/meteor shower or stacking lights.

A set of three Meteor Lights costs $169. Frontgate recommends a minimum of eight sets.

LIFX Z LED Strip

While holiday lighting is primarily for the enjoyment of individuals outside your home, that doesn’t mean your lighting scheme needs to be on the exterior only. Offering a near endless supply of colors and effects, the LIFX Z LED Strip is a WiFi-enabled strip of LED lights which you can place nearly anywhere inside the home and control completely via smartphone app—or voice, thanks to Amazon Alexa and Google Home. Ring your windows with this flat and multi-faceted smart strip and you’ll be quickly and easily projecting a seasonal glow to the public and private alike.

LIFX Z 2m LED Starter Kit, featuring a 2 meter strip and power pack, is available for $89.