For the last few years I've always wanted something a little different from the standard LED Christmas Lights with their 8 pre-programmed flashing features that seem to irritate instead of actually looking good. I remember back when I was young there were standard incandescent Christmas Lights that would play melody's (anyone remember that?) then the LED replaced that incandescent bulb that always seemed to have one blown bulb - it was an absolute game changer. With each year, LED technology has both grown brighter and cheaper - these days you can get a decent string of random coloured LED lights complete with one of those pre-programmed LED controllers for less than $20 from your local brick and mortar store.
But, what happens when you spend a little more? Well, you get the envy of your friends is one but you also get a truly dazzling Christmas setup that'll get your significant other off your back for spending all this money on Smart LED's. I actually personally bought my set of Twinkly lights before I reached out to Twinkly to ask if they'll like me to type up a little something for them - I was confident I was going to like it and I am really glad I did. But thanks to Twinkly I now had a few more sets to play around with also for review purposes.
I must add - RGB LED's are nothing new. You can find them almost anywhere these days from computer gear, to Smart LED lightbulbs. I even experimented with using some bulk-standard cheap WS2812 addressable LED's along with building my own controller but the biggest problem with these is they were not really "Christmas Tree Friendly"- the LED's were large and chunky and the wiring was simply too heavy for tree use. Also they didn't have a mature "family friendly" smart app allowing you to map out the tree and have the whole family get creative. Long story short, my initial method of getting smart lights on the tree didn't have a high approval factor from my significant other.
Anyway, to start - I have to say these lights are simply stunning. They're the kind of lights you actually want to keep around all year and personally if my significant other would let me (and it wouldn't be weird) I'd love to keep the Christmas Tree up all year as a permanent feature with these lights.
As you can see, even in the light you're still able to see whatever effect is played on the tree quite clearly. This tree is a 6ft and I have the 250 LED kit running on it. I felt it was a good idea to include @Johnk's 2020 Christmas Decoration to show that the lights up-close just look like regular LED fairy lights and also to show off his glorious 2020 pandemic mask. Also, who can spot my cat Pixel under the tree?
The app is the reason for these lights - basically when you first set up the lights and open the app you're instructed to pair the lights to WiFi (or not, they can work directly) and scan your tree / area where you have them set up:
Within the app you're able to apply effects on your lights either as a group (provided you've got the same sort of lights in your group) or separately - these effects can come from the effects store or "painted on" the tree with the Create FX option. Effects are then uploaded to the controller on the Twinkly lights so if they're powered off at the wall, they'll always boot back up with the last effect that was applied. As the app knows the location of your lights on the tree the effects are rather stunning to play around with - my personal favorite one is the colour fade as it doesn't look like any Christmas light I've seen.
I decided to test how well this works by applying a 100 LED string around the mirror in our lounge (photo), the string was wrapped around this mirror a few times with no care taken - the lights were scanned with the app and the same rainbow effect that is playing on the tree was applied. I was actually rather impressed with the outcome of this test not only because I now have a "gaming mirror", but the app does a very good job of mapping out the LED's and effects actually looked rather unique playing on the mirror.
The lights also have Google Home and Amazon Alexa support however only for the basics (turning off and on + adjusting brightness) - you need to use the mobile app to apply effects to your lights. I have my lights grouped together with my Philips Hue lights so with a simple "Hey Google, turn the lights on" the living room comes alive with the Christmas Tree and the lights. Being grouped, simple voice commands can be used to dim all the lights in the room. There are other integrations for Home Assistant, Hubitat etc if you wanted to integrate them deeper within your smart home.
Twinkly lights can also be used outdoors just like their cheaper flashing counterparts if you wanted to add some bling to your house, trees and garden gnomes - you can map larger objects using their app by taking several photos of your setup at different angles for them to all sync up together provided you're using a like-for-like kit (eg - RGBW won't sync together with RGB kits).
Twinkly also have an add-on called "Twinkly Music" that is basically a little USB powered dongle to add some music smarts to your lights (https://www.twinkly.com/twinkly-music/) however at the time of the review they were still awaiting stock of these in New Zealand. When I get my hands on one I'll be sure to do a follow-up review.
You can buy Twinkly lights from both Mitre 10 and Briscoes (however stock currently within New Zealand is rather limited thanks to the global pandemic). The supplier is expected to have a bigger range of Twinkly lights in New Zealand early next year however if you'd like some lights for your tree this Christmas you may find stock online on the Mitre 10 website for the RGB Sting and Icicle RGB models or purchase from The Market which ships from Australia.
