Connected lights for the holidays

Buying holiday lights used to be pretty easy. The parameters were indoors/outdoors, small/large, white/multi-color, and string length. Wow, things have changed! Now, you have to consider which of the myriad of light sizes and styles (icicles, drapes, nets) you want, choose whether or not to go solar, and decide if it’s time to switch to LED, to just name some of the variables. The big question for me, though, is whether this would be the year of connected, color-changing LED lights. The answer is yes, but they’re not what they should be yet.

This year, the available options are rather limited, but I found a promising product: iTwinkle, sold by GE. (Yes, that name is definitely in the running for one of the worst product names ever!)

The iTwinkle technology allows you to control a string of color-changing LEDs from your smartphone or tablet using Bluetooth. The app lets you change colors, select different patterns, and even program the lights to react to music or your voice.

I tested the 36-light Christmas String lights and the 25-light Pathway Markers (larger lights on stakes) using my iPhone and an Android tablet. They also sell a 50-light string and some pre-lit Christmas trees that use similar technology.

I set up the pathway lights in front of my house and the string of lights around the whiteboard in my office. The short review is that they are great fun, especially in meetings! Everyone who sees them wants a set. One person said it would be perfect for his daughter’s dorm room.

Though the iTwinkle lights are fun, I found the things that they can’t do rather frustrating. One of the worst is that you can’t plug one string into another; there is no receptacle at the end of the string. That makes lighting the outside of a house or even a tree a hassle. Who uses a maximum of 50 lights to decorate?

On top of that, you can’t control multiple strings as a group. I mean, really, how cool would it be to have colors cascading, from one string to another, around the whole house or up a really long driveway! Right now, there’s no way to do that.

One of the silliest limitations is that you can’t turn the lights off (or on) from the app. Instead, you need to unplug the lights from the wall or have them on a switch of some kind. Plus, there is no app-driven timer. To solve these two problems, I put my iTwinkle lights on an old-school timer with my other outdoor lights. This is definitely not the connected world I was hoping for.

There are also software shortcomings that iTwinkle may fix over time. For example, some patterns are available only when you shake your phone within the app. One of those hidden gems is the traditional holiday design where each light is a different color along the string. I shouldn’t have to shake the phone until the right pattern shows up to get that! Another example is that you can’t set individual light colors or patterns (like red and white for Valentine’s Day, green and white for St. Patrick’s Day, or red, white, and blue for Independence Day). If I could do that, I would leave them up year round!

At this point, the iTwinkle lights are really just a novelty item. Given the functionality issues and the minimum price of $70, at most you will want one set to play with. However, they do give a hint of what the future will bring. The prices will come down, and the functionality will go up. Maybe by next December I’ll be able to hang up some strings on the house and leave them there all year. That sounds like a great Christmas present for 2015!