The Christmas season is nearly upon us, and that means it’s time to choose your gifts, schedule the Christmas parties and take the Christmas lights out of the loft. The internet has made shopping and arranging parties more convenient — so far, so obvious — but it’s made Christmas lights easier to control too. In this article, we’ll show you how how to get started.
Instead of turning on and off your Christmas lights by flicking on and off a plug on the wall, you can do it on your phone. This is achieved using a smart plug — literally an internet-connected plug.
Simply connect all of your Christmas lights together using a 4- or 6-way extension lead, then into the smart plug, and you’ll be in business. Open the app on your phone, and you can turn your lights on and off, whether you’re in the same room or a different continent. You can also do more clever things, like automatically turning the lights on at sunset or connecting multiple lights on different plugs and controlling them independently.
Of course this isn’t just useful for Christmas lights; the rest of the year you could use it to turn on a coffee machine, lamps or whatever other appliance you like.
We have a few options along these lines at Mobile Fun. D-Link do a cheap Smart Plug with an easy-to-use app, which offers energy use tracking and overheating protection as a nice bonus. You can get this as a single plug or a discounted pack of three.
- D-Link App Controlled Smart Plug for iOS & Android
- D-Link App Controlled Smart Plug for iOS & Android (3 Pack)
Energenie also do a starter pack for a similar price, offering three plugs, a hub and a remote. Their offering can also use the stellar If This Then That (IFTTT) service, which lets you set up more complex routines. For example, you could turn on your lights earlier if the weather is bad, or coordinate with other elements in your smart home.
So there you have it – an easy way to control your Christmas lights using your Android or iPhone. Let us know what you think in the comments below, and stay tuned for more Christmas light control options in future articles!