The holiday season is creeping closer, and one way to create the right atmosphere is to snag some smart string lights. They’re perfect for the tree, but you can also use them as outdoor lighting around your porch or hang them on furniture to cozy up a room. Govee offers a frankly astounding lineup of smart lighting, backed by perhaps the most feature-packed app, so it’s a great choice if you want to light up your life.
The Govee Christmas Lights 2, the budget pick in our best smart Christmas lights guide, are already relatively affordable, but a further 25 percent discount is not to be sniffed at. You can get $25 off the 66-foot length, perfect for the average tree, all the way up to $100 off the 328-foot length to cover your entire front yard. I haven’t seen them priced this low since Black Friday last year.
These string lights are IP67 rated and can withstand extreme temperatures, so you can use them just about anywhere. That said, you’ll need an outdoor outlet, and if you aim to get a good outdoor lighting display going, I recommend a weatherproof electrical box.
The string itself is green, so it blends in perfectly with a real or fake indoor Christmas tree or any real outdoor trees or shrubs. The spool makes it easy to unravel the string and get them installed. You can connect them via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi and use the Govee app, or add them to your smart home ecosystem of choice via Matter. There’s a little control unit with a power button, but you’ll want to connect them to your smart home for remote control and automatic scheduling.
While it may take you a few minutes to get your head around, I recommend using the Govee app because it is packed full of fun features. At the shallow end, you can change the color and brightness of the lights, but there’s so much more to it than that. By mapping your lights using your phone camera, you can select complex animated lighting effects. There are well over 100 presets to choose from, but you can also have the app generate effects for you based on your interests.
They may have Christmas in the name, but these string lights are so versatile that you can find effects to suit any scenario, from spooky Halloween animations to classy white light that works year-round. I’ve used these outdoors for a couple of years now, and they’re still going strong.
Power up with unlimited access to WIRED. Get best-in-class reporting and exclusive subscriber content that’s too important to ignore. Subscribe Today.