When writing the tech page for Ideal Home each month, I research all the ways smart home gadgetry can make your home easier. As well as automating routines to make life more convenient, introducing smart tech to your home can save you energy, meaning you save money on your utility bills, too.
In practising what I preach, I have a pretty extensive smart home setup. and at this time of year it's working overtime.
So when it comes to Christmas smart home tech, by far the best (and let's be honest, the most fun) of all of these smart additions will be on my tree, thanks to my Philips Hue Festavia fairy lights.
Out of the box, they look pretty unremarkable, just like any other set of fairy lights, really. But once they're on the tree and synced to the app, your lighting options are fairly limitless.
Not only can you schedule your lights to go on at set times, but you can also control their colour and the brightness. Fancy warm white lights? Easy. Now you want colour? No problem. Prefer them dimmed when you're watching a movie? Simples!
Now, truth be told, they're not the most affordable of festive fairy lights (not helped by the fact you need a separate gadget called a Hue Bridge for them to work), but the Festavia lights aren't just for Christmas. They're suitable for outdoor use too, so come summertime, you can drape them from your garden wall, fence or hedge to bask in their twinkly glow once the sun has set
One more bonus of the Hue lights is that you can also avail of the brand’s free software, Hue Sync. Perfect for parties, when you play music through Spotify, Hue Sync analyses the music and adjusts the lights on your tree to suit the mood and genre of the tunes playing.
But Philips isn't the only brand that makes smart fairy lights. WiZ, Nanoleaf, Govee and Twinkly all offer ranges of smart string lights that you can sling over the branches of your (real or artificial) Christmas tree, pair with your smart home system, and control using the smartphone app or via voice control.
But, if your budget won't stretch to buying smart fairy lights, or you've held out this long to buy a discounted best artificial Christmas tree this year, there are several other ingenious ways to make your tree smart.
Invest in a pre-lit tree
While pre-lit Christmas trees that operate via basic remote control are available, Twinkly dominates the straight-out-of-the-box, plug-and-play smart lit artificial tree market.
Not only does it have its own artificial pre-lit tree in three sizes on its website, but it has teamed up with luxe tree maker Balsam Hill to provide a ‘Twinkly Light Show’ on a select number of the brand’s faux trees.
Balsam Hill’s Twinkly trees cost a fair bit more than its traditional pre-lit designs; however, the functionality – from the ability to change colours and designs and switching the lights from still to animated – adds so much more to your festive set-up.
Try a smart plug
Don't have the cash to splash on a new set of lights? You can still make your tree lights smart for less than a tenner by attaching them to a smart plug.
Yes, your control over the lights will be far more limited than with smart lights, meaning you’ll just have a basic ‘on and off’ action via your smartphone. But on the upside, you can have them on a schedule so the lights go on and off at specific times, meaning you won't need to crouch down under the branches to do it manually.
Bring it outdoors
Fancy bringing some festive light to your garden this year? Twinkly’s 3D Smart Light Tree is a weatherproof flagpole-based frame with lights that wrap all around it to create a striking tree shape.
You can change the colour of the app-controlled lights, making them flash, flicker or remain solid whenever you choose. They also work with Google and Alexa for easy voice control.
