Make your life easier and save energy this Christmas with a £9 gadget that lets you control your tree lights

Illuminating your home with Christmas tree lights is one of the most magical parts of the festive season. But it comes with its fair share of headaches. And switching them on and off is at the top of the list, especially if the socket they’re plugged into is hard to reach. But all of that can be solved with getting a smart plug for Christmas tree lights.

Whether you’ve invested in the best Christmas lights or settled for something simple and cheap to make your home merry and bright, this little gadget can completely transform your experience of using them. A smart plug lets you schedule when your lights switch on to welcome you first thing in the morning or upon arrival home and when they turn off once you leave the house or go to bed. This is going to make a huge impact on your energy usage as well, especially considering the recently announced rise in the January energy price cap.

And it lets you do all of that with the accompanying phone app or can be controlled with voice command if you have a connected home. And it’s only £9! A worthy investment indeed, if you ask us.

 Smart plug for Christmas tree lights

This aptly named device really is as clever as can be and getting a smart plug could save you money not only during the Christmas period, but also throughout the year. But the festive season specifically is the perfect time to invest in one like the Tapo Smart Plug from Amazon - which also includes an energy monitoring function, which our editors use for appliance review tests - to take the hassle out of efficiently using your Christmas lights.

‘Smart plugs give you flexibility and allow you to control your Christmas tree lights remotely, using a smartphone or a voice-activated assistant,’ says Ben Wightman, product expert at Christmas Tree World. ‘Your lights can be turned on remotely or scheduled ahead of time eliminating the need for you to physically be at home or in the room to control them, meaning your beautiful tree can be ready to greet you upon arrival home!’

Becky Tasker, PR manager at Lights4fun, continues, ‘Using a smart plug with your Christmas tree lights will allow you to illuminate your tree effortlessly, especially if your plug socket is hard to reach. If you have a connected home, smart plugs are a great addition.’

That’s right. If you use Amazon’s Alexa or Google Home voice assistant to control music, lighting or anything else, you can also connect it to your smart plug to control your Christmas tree lights.

‘As smart plugs enable you to schedule when your Christmas lights turn on and off,  you can create a personal daily lighting schedule, and ensure your tree is lit when you want it to be without any manual intervention. Smart plugs can also help you save energy as you can turn off your Christmas lights when they're not needed. This allows you to control your lights' power consumption and helps to reduce your electricity costs.’ Ben says.

And if you’re looking to take your Christmas light game even further than a smart plug, then specific smart lighting like the Twinkly Smart App Controlled String Lights from Lights4Fun are an option too. 

‘If you are looking to take it one step further choose smart lighting, which not only can be controlled by app or smart speakers but with Twinkly smart lighting, you can even control the colour of each individual LED as well as creating intricate animations to add a touch of festive magic to your home,’ Becky advises.

But, of course, the smart plug is a more versatile and cheaper gadget that can be used for any device throughout the year.