Philips Hue launched a new version of its smart Christmas lights earlier this fall deemed the Festavia string lights. Smart home owners have been waiting for festive lights you can control with your voice for ages. Now after using them for the past few months, it’s safe to say that Philips Hue has delivered just the solution – if you’re willing to shell out enough frankincense, myrrh, and gold.
Philips Hue’s strategy around decking the halls with festive lighting has been in the works for years at this point. Back in 2022, the company first launched the Festavia series only to have them sell out months before December even arrived. Consider it a trial run, if you will. But now for 2023, the company is back with an actual rollout.
Right when Philips Hue revealed its new Festavia smart Christmas lights, I had to score a set. I opted to pick up a set of the 65-foot lights which include 250 of the color-changing bulbs and quickly strung them up around my apartment. Not to spoil too much from the rest of this story, but I fell in love with them instantly. So much so that I went out and bought a second set of them now that there’s a Christmas tree right in the center of my living room.
So now that I’ve used them for two different use cases, I have a lot of thoughts so share about the whole experience. And it really is a costly one. There’s no getting around that the Philips Hue smart Christmas lights are on the more premium side, making one of the more expensive smart home brands even more so. The set that I picked up sells for $220 regularly, meaning I dropped almost $450 on Christmas lights.
Do I regret it? That’s a bit more complicated than just answering yes or no, so indulge me a little.
I’ve been waiting years for the ability to buy a string of Christmas lights, plug them in, and then begin barking orders at Siri to turn them not just on or off, but also have my digital helper change the colors. I’ve tried every trick in the book up until now to convert your standard pair of lights over to the smart side, and now that it’s all said and done I am so happy to have a pair that I don’t have to fuss with.
And before I get too far ahead of myself, the new Festavia lights arrive in two different lengths with different lighting zones for each. Like I said already, I brought home the 65-foot strand, but there’s also the 130-foot option with 500 LED bulbs. Each one is weather-resistant for outdoor use, and comes with either five or ten lighting zones depending on the length.
Right out of the box, these are like any other release from Philips Hue. The lights get plugged in with their weather-resistant power supply and then can be paired with your existing Philips Hue bridge. Mine were set up in just a minute or so, with the act of actually stringing them around the Christmas tree being the far more time consuming part.
And now after using them for awhile, I really am sold. I adore the smart home control, with the multi-colored features really being the one aspect that sell these for me. Having five different lighting zones to tailor the lights to look however I like is exactly the reason I wanted to splurge on a more premium lighting option this year, and Philips Hue is delivering. HomeKit support may not be the best for this feature, but I am reminded just how good the Hue app is.
By far the biggest issue with the Philips Hue Christmas lights is that I wish they were just a little smarter. The main offender of this is that I don’t think there are enough animated lighting effects available in the app. I really wish that Philips Hue took the time to launch a new effect for these – something multicolored and Christmas-y would have gone a long way. The ones that are included right now are very solid, but they just lack the festivity I would have loved to see – especially at $220 a pop.
I do appreciate that Philips Hue launched a few new lighting effects just a few months back, and so there’s a lot more ways to take advantage of the five different lighting zones with animated scenes. But if there’s one thing that the company could do, it would be offering the ability to make your own animated effects like tons of other companies let you do.
9to5Toys’ Take
So back to that question of are the Philips Hue Festavia lights worth it? I’d say so. I’ve had both strands set up for about a week now and maybe it is the Christmas spirit in me hijacking the keyboard, but the novelty of having all of these smart features is certainly not lost on me. I did also have the first pair installed for about 2 months, and so the answer was pretty much locked in the second I went to go buy a second strand of these smart Christmas lights.
But I don’t think everyone should buy these. Only more hardcore smart home owners like myself are going to love these like I do. People who will relish all of the customization and lighting effects are going to find these to be the solution that many of us have been waiting for. And at the time of writing, you can take 15% off both strands of Festavia lights, helping you bring home a little smart festivity for less.
If you’re on the fence, it’s just a good idea to go grab a smart plug and upgrade your existing Christmas lights. The Philips Hue Smart Plug is an easy recommendation because we’re talking about the ecosystem. But if you want just a standalone option, the meross Matter Smart Plug will work with pretty much every smart home system, voice assistant, and smart home out there for only $16.
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