Twinkling fairy lights are the mainstay of the holiday period. Stick them on the Christmas tree to really make that tinsel shine, put them up around the house to bring some festive spirit — a house without softly color-shifting tiny lights is a house that forgets the love of the season.

Nanoleaf, maker of some of the best smart lights around, wants to make the festive season smarter, with a new set of smart fairy lights that aren’t just for Christmas — but they’ll sure make the period more fun.

Ensmartening the Holidays

You could never call 'holiday string lights' boring — it’s a wire with colorful lights down the sides that glow in different, often changing colors. That just oozes fun. What you can say is that they aren’t smart. Plug them in and press the on button, and off to festive bliss you go.

Nanoleaf’s new string lights bring the smarts, with addressable RGB, and scheduling so that the lights can go on and off at certain times. It’s weird it's taken the company so long to get them out, but now they’re here, lighting the house in the most wonderful time of the year just got a whole lot more fun.

The lights use ninety percent less energy than old incandescent bulbs, with LEDs all the way down the wires. There are loads of lighting modes accessible through the Nanoleaf app, including some festive-themed ones like ‘crackling fireplace’ to really up the ambience. They’re interactive too, so they’ll jump along while watching Home Alone for the seventh time in two weeks. Link them up to Siri and HomeKit, and command your Christmas lights to change color with Siri.

Once the Holiday season is over, don’t pack them back in the box and put them in the loft for next year. Avoid the yearly lights detangling, and put them up around the house or outside for some extra, addressable ambience — after all, lights aren’t just for Christmas.

Get yourself a pair on the Nanoleaf website for $119/£119, with orders shipping from October 31st.