Ask HN: What are the best programmable holiday lights? I am replacing some old outdoor lights and I want to get LED lights that I can program? Any suggestions on the best ones? Ideally replaceable/extendable light strings with some kind of programmable controller that has usb/wifi. If it has an app my family can use that’s a plus. |
Many 'effects' already prepackaged. Plus the ability to schedule time based changes (on/off/change pattern/etc.). Includes a web server to provide "app like" control over a phone or PC. Also includes integrations for several "home control" systems and a http API for programmatic control from another system. Can even synchronize plural controllers into a whole 'net' (note, I've not used this feature yet).
Small ESP32 boards (with wifi capability) such as this example (no affiliation, just an example that works):
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09Y8X1GK7
WS2811 LED strings [1] (of which there are an infinite variety) suitable for outdoor use. One example (no affiliation):
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CYZF1WCR
Suitable power supplies, outdoor weather sealed boxes, and wiring (all left to you to locate).
Willingness to assemble the pieces and some time to do so. Having a soldering iron is helpful here, although one could possibly get by with screw terminal blocks inside weatherproof boxes if need be for many of the 'connections'.
[1] Or other 'programmable LED' strings for which WLED is compatible (it works with numerous different programmable LED standards, browse the WLED website for details).
I want to take a moment to ackno.wled.ge how absolute awesome of a domain hack “kno.wled.ge” is for the website of a WLED project!
I personally buy them from AliExpress since I dont care if they arrive in a week as opposed to 1-2 days from Amazon.
I used to build my own controllers from ESP development boards, but it's just not worth it when an enclosed controller with convenient connectors is priced between $10-20.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CHHZTGJR
Power is passed through from either connector, so it’ll work on 5v or 12v strings. And it’s got two output channels. It’s only an ESP8266 inside, but that works fine for my needs.
For a slightly more DIY approach, try this one:
https://wiki.vdbx.io/product/flip_c3
Has everything you need to give it some sort of power and get the requisite data signal out.
I used one for a panel I made, and it would bootloop constantly, until I added a big capacitor to the 5V rail. Pretty shoddy.
The mottramlabs or QuinLED boards don't have this problem.
you can find the controller on amazon comes with usb-c for 12v and 5v and currrently using it with some BTF-LIGHTING WS2812B fairy lights
Do not roll the dice on the power supply, buy a UL listed one. If you buy some shitty Chinese PSU and it lights your house on fire, your homeowners insurance will deny the claim.
This one puts out 30w @ 5VDC and is also UL listed: https://poliledsigns.com/shop/poli-5vdc-30w-waterproof-led-p...
Even though it says ‘waterproof’, it needs to be installed in an enclosure, NEMA 3R rated enclosure if it’s installed outdoors.
But you should get a good power supply anyway because the hassle is not worth it.
Also why do you specifically call out Chinese parts as being shitty? Where do you think the majority of electronics come from? This feels like xenophobia. The power supply can be cheap and crappy and come from anywhere. Or it can be great and come from anywhere. That one you linked, by the way - Made in China.
However, their 2D wizard might be new, so give it a shot if you haven't tried it.
The Home Assistant integration works great as well.
the tl;dw is that most color LED lights work by emitting a single frequency of light. Compared to classic christmas lights, which are incandescent filaments filtered through dyed glass, the LED lights look a bit... radioactive.
My personal pet peeve are white LED lights. If you're not careful to buy the ones labeled "warm" they look cold, and imo, not very festive and inviting.
Of course, this is all a matter of taste, but once I became privy to the difference, I could no longer ignore it. I guess I'm just a millennial nostalgic for the lights of my youth.
I completely agree. This is true also for all household LED lighting. I prefer cold for kitchen food prep areas and bathrooms, but warm everywhere else.
Morning/evening is for warm (and in some cases dim) light, during "work hours" I want the whitest of white lights and as bright as possible.
I solved the issue with the "Natural light" scene from Philips HUE. Not only it manages the temperature for you during the day, but also the intensity.
It only requires the "White Ambiance" lightbulds, cheaper than the "Color" ones.
I wanted to get the incandescent opaque-paint-covered lights I grew up with but the power consumption - and the number of outlets required if you follow the "don't chain more than 2 or 3 strings together" guidance - was (unsurprisingly, in retrospect) WAY higher, so I just found the closest LED version I could find.
They look pretty decent at the end of the day, and one pro is that you can get more brightness and vividness out of them (helpful if you have other newer, bright-LED decorations).
Last year we put up this Govee LED grid "curtain" and my son had some fun programming it.
I just mention it because you’re planning on putting the time and effort into a permanent install.
I have big reservations about ‘smart home’ stuff, and it’s only the second such device in our house. But I’m clearly losing that battle, and will be looking into some ways to mitigate the privacy concerns. But gosh, it sure is nice to pick from a gazillion light patterns.
Half the price but four times the headache.
Some reasons why: - It has a much more intuitive user interface - It's far easier to program new patterns. Programming is done in-browser with a language that's a subset of Javascript, with code changes being applied in realtime. - Due to the way its rendering engine works, the patterns it produces are generally far more 'organic' looking and smoother than most of the WLED ones. - It's possible to map LEDs in arbitrary 2D or 3D configurations (think lights strewn all over a Christmas tree), which WLED can't really do at all. - If you have multiple Pixelblazes you can get them to sync with each other over Wifi. - A really helpful community forum.
Downside: - The firmware isn't open source, though some of its tooling is, and the firmware is stable and gets fairly regular updates, so it's not a huge issue to me. YMMV.
For the LEDs, you probably want wired bullet-style strings of LEDs rather than the thin copper LED strips since they're generally more suited to outside use. By far the most common (and generally cheapest) type of LEDs are WS-2812B or similar. They're OK, though you might notice they don't have good definition at low brightness levels. APA-102 or equivalent are a bit more expensive, but have MUCH better dynamic range, so I'd suggest going for these if you can. There are other better (and more expensive) LEDs still, but it starts to become diminishing returns, plus they can be hard to come by or find suitable controllers for. If you're running lengths of more than a 150 or so LEDs then power starts to matter, and you'll either need to inject power regularly into the strips, and/or use LEDs designed to take 12V or 24V. These can come with caveats such as worse power consumption and/or fewer addressable LEDs per meter, so research what you're buying carefully.
For any addressable light system for a tree or bush I would recommend getting more lights than you think you need.
My personal christmas decoration consists of a charly brown christmas tree with a single ornament on it. It started as a joke (and convenience for ongoing construction), but it became a tradition. I truly appreciate the zen nature of unfolding it into an appealingly broken pattern and also having just a single ornament.
This is a simplistic view of what it looks like.
http://www.brianhensley.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Chris...
My personal preference is 12v ws2811 bullet-style voltage-regulated nodes. They’re extendable, individual nodes on a strand are replaceable if you’re willing to do some cutting and crimping.
I like the 12v because you can go for longer strands without losing colors from voltage drop. Regulated over a resistive voltage divider = less heat.
As has been mentioned, you can install WLED onto a microcontroller and have a web-page for a remote control.
LED lights as a string or strip - sk8612 are RGBW, which you need if you want a nice looking white. Lots of strips of varying density and waterproofing are available everywhere; strings ("pixels") can be harder to find but are available on AliExpress.
Controller is https://quinled.info/
Runs wled which has a simple web interface, mobile apps, and works with home assistant.
Have them around eaves/gutters, windows, whatever. Is there some aspect of this I'm not getting that makes it impractical (or ugly in the off seasons)?
Unless it’s a home built for one customer.
For your specific question, Wally’s Lights is great, and like others have mentioned, something running WLED to control them is a great choice.
There're a couple of other variants of that board too, one with wifi. Basically you can animate Neopixels with about 6 lines of pretty simple python.
https://github.com/arisona/mpm
There are media players and graphics generators that will run on a RaspPi also. Finding a bright enough projector and sheltering it for outdoor use might be the main challenge.
Another approach might be a galvo scanned laser with DMX software to control it, though there may be safety/liability issues with that.
If you're fine with one colour for the whole strip, this is an easy plug-and-play-ish solution.
https://quinled.info/2019/06/03/what-digital-5v-12v-rgbw-led... good intro to the subject.
I installed a Honeywell similar to this one [1]. You tell it the date and your lat/long, and it knows the times for dawn and dusk.
I had a previous version of it 10 years ago [2]. Worked great.
The only nitpick I have is it's paired to only one phone, so we pick one person in our family to "manage" the lights.
The app has a bunch of canned patterns and there's an online site for user designs and of course you can design your own. It's a lot of fun and they aren't terribly expensive (there was a good black friday sale).
I’ve been using a pixelblaze with a long string of cheap 2812 LEDs on my Christmas tree for three years now with tons of compliments from neighbors.
I’m an embedded software guy, and every year I mean to dig in and try roll my own, or do something clever with an RP2040 board (also a shoutout for the Pimoroni Plasma), but the demands of life and “get the light show started” mean I keep using the Pixelblaze.
I even upgraded to their newer versions last year, and used some of the smaller ones to make some LED tutus for my girls that synced pattern with the tree (the tutus were synced with each other for a Christmas show, but it was trivial to then add the tree for fun afterwards).
The mapping is huge for the wow factor, and the pixelblaze makes it so much easier to get something fast and good enough.
There’s so many community-shared patterns to choose from, and it’s been easy to make small modifications to look better once mapped to a tree, though most work as-is.
My project I won’t get done this year is to try to make some calibration patterns and use ChatGPT to analyze some photos/videos to make a 3-D map, but I’ll realistically probably end up with the vaguely-triangular 2-D map again; I can get it done in about 30 minutes now.
The following is a couple years ago. I think last year I was up to 1100 LEDs and the mapping was a bit better, but I didn’t take good videos.
I have no intention of swapping to Twinkly for my normal accent lighting around the house - btf-lighting.com + WLED is still your friend for that.
I wish there was a bit more customization. Particularly around the flashing effect. Also, oddly, the color settings are HSV, but they don't give you the V, so you can't get a clean grey color. I wanted dim white lights with sparkle flashes, but I haven't been able to make that happen.
Always standardise your connectors. I'm a fan of the Ray Wu ones.
ESP/WLED driven is my preference, but the Falcon controllers are popular amongst people who are more DIY/woodworking oriented as they're much simpler to set up and not _heaps_ more expensive. Falcon Player/xlights is the standard software for designing/playback of your show regardless of hardware.
Coro props (corrugated plastic, corflute) are a cheap and effective way to stand out from the crowd. Animatronics, smoke etc are also an option when going more advanced.
It's a lot of work. You rarely want to start after October or order your goods after July. You are running a live production and things will go wrong. Good luck to anyone entering the space, it's very fun and expensive!
I haven't found this to be the case. All my lights use WS2811 chips, and are individually addressable. The 12v does have to be regulated down to 5v, but that's happening on the node anyway.
> Coro props (corrugated plastic, corflute) are a cheap and effective way to stand out from the crowd.
I'll add to this that if you have a 3D-Printer, you can do some neat stuff if you're up to designing it. I am in the middle of adding 16" snowflake props to my setup this year. It took a couple of revisions, but I've got them all setup and I'm just finishing the controller to drive them now.
It is a super fun hobby, and as averageRoyalty mentioned - it can be spendy.
The popular free software, xLights, has a ton of features (and pitfalls). You can export the sequence to Falcon on a RasPi.
I would rather get back to programming my own sequences. That was a lot of fun on Arduino with WS2812.
In terms of making custom sequences for lights, my go to is Xlights - an Open source project that allows you to create layouts, and build sequences.
They are strip lights, but the light is mostly omnidirectional, and the strip material is flexible. If you want a dark-colored strip, which looks better on a dark-green tree, here's a non-BTF option: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805412113378.html
NOMA has a “smart” line of traditionally packaged lights, but these appear to use a proprietary box: https://www.canadiantire.ca/en/cat/christmas/christmas-light...
I think that these people are not complaining about the API itself, which might be well-designed. The problem is, in my opinion, elsewhere.
It seems to me that the main reason for criticism is that having a browser perform operations on your USB port or on your Bluetooth is potentially dangerous, if you do not know what you are doing.
At the same time, the target audience of these APIs is typically the people who cannot be bothered to or are unable to use a command line tool. So, in a way, by having these APIs in the browser, a potentially dangerous tool is being put into the hands of people who may not be capable of realizing how dangerous it actually is.
I think it is fair to note that some people often do not review the scripts they download before running them, either. They just trust the source. Which might be a good-enough approach in some cases. From that point of view, having the browser run a script from a trusted website and operating a USB device is similarly safe. Or similarly unsafe.
But with a browser having this kind of capability, there are other threat models. If a scammer wants to read the user's USB devices and look for something to exploit, they can either ask the user nicely to run their probing script. Which, for better or worse, many people that may be prone to this kind of attack, would just be unable to do.
Or, an attacker might simply use the browser's API to do the same thing. And they may even present a nice guide to the user explaining how to allow it to run. It seems to me that there is more people who would be prone to falling for this kind of trick than there is people who may be tricked into and capable of running a script.
Amazon does not have audited supply chains. The power supply I linked is sold by Sylvania, it has a warranty, and it’s UL listed, not sold on Amazon by Xfrtteg or Psygwist. You can have quality goods manufactured in China, it’s Amazon that I don’t trust.
OP is making a distinction between directly-sourced parts, versus those commissioned by a Western or Western-affiliated company that’s gone through the “trouble” of a CSA/UL certification. One is built to a price point, one is built to limit liability.
I would be shocked if that's true, considering here in Texas you don't need a permit or inspection to do DIY work on your own house.
Personally, I've found the ESP8266 version adequate in the year I've owned it.
You’d need to read what the policy has to say about uninspected electrical work performed by or at the direction of the homeowner. If you use a hardwired power supply, non-UL/cUL equipment won’t pass an inspection [0]. You can bypass the inspection by using a cord and plug 120V rectifier which wouldn’t need to be UL listed since it wouldn’t need an inspection.
[0] NEC Section 110.3(c): https://up.codes/s/examination-identification-installation-u...
> 110.3 (C) Listing Product testing, evaluation, and listing (product certification) shall be performed by recognized qualified electrical testing laboratories and shall be in accordance with applicable product standards recognized as achieving equivalent and effective safety for equipment installed [1] to comply with this Code.
[1] ‘Equipment installed’ means hardwired.
