Ask HN: What are the best programmable holiday lights?

https://kno.wled.ge/

Many 'effects' already prepackaged. Plus the ability to schedule time based changes (on/off/change pattern/etc.). Includes a web server to provide "app like" control over a phone or PC. Also includes integrations for several "home control" systems and a http API for programmatic control from another system. Can even synchronize plural controllers into a whole 'net' (note, I've not used this feature yet).

Small ESP32 boards (with wifi capability) such as this example (no affiliation, just an example that works):

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09Y8X1GK7

WS2811 LED strings [1] (of which there are an infinite variety) suitable for outdoor use. One example (no affiliation):

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CYZF1WCR

Suitable power supplies, outdoor weather sealed boxes, and wiring (all left to you to locate).

Willingness to assemble the pieces and some time to do so. Having a soldering iron is helpful here, although one could possibly get by with screw terminal blocks inside weatherproof boxes if need be for many of the 'connections'.

[1] Or other 'programmable LED' strings for which WLED is compatible (it works with numerous different programmable LED standards, browse the WLED website for details).

This is a tangent, but I feel like we can't talk about LED christmas lights without linking to this video by tech connections: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBFPJ3_6ZWs

the tl;dw is that most color LED lights work by emitting a single frequency of light. Compared to classic christmas lights, which are incandescent filaments filtered through dyed glass, the LED lights look a bit... radioactive.

My personal pet peeve are white LED lights. If you're not careful to buy the ones labeled "warm" they look cold, and imo, not very festive and inviting.

Of course, this is all a matter of taste, but once I became privy to the difference, I could no longer ignore it. I guess I'm just a millennial nostalgic for the lights of my youth.

I’ve been super impressed so far with the Govee lights I’ve gotten. The app is pretty easy to use has tons of cool effects, and they have a LAN API (https://app-h5.govee.com/user-manual/wlan-guide) for most of their lights that have WiFi. Don’t have enough time this year to program a custom show but was going to start earlier next year now that I have a couple of these. The new scene stage thing they just released where you can map your lights and have them all work together is pretty slick too.

A lot of people here are recommending WLED for the controller, but I would suggest you look at the Pixelblaze [1] instead. I've used both in a bunch of different projects and strongly prefer Pixelblaze over WLED.

Some reasons why: - It has a much more intuitive user interface - It's far easier to program new patterns. Programming is done in-browser with a language that's a subset of Javascript, with code changes being applied in realtime. - Due to the way its rendering engine works, the patterns it produces are generally far more 'organic' looking and smoother than most of the WLED ones. - It's possible to map LEDs in arbitrary 2D or 3D configurations (think lights strewn all over a Christmas tree), which WLED can't really do at all. - If you have multiple Pixelblazes you can get them to sync with each other over Wifi. - A really helpful community forum.

Downside: - The firmware isn't open source, though some of its tooling is, and the firmware is stable and gets fairly regular updates, so it's not a huge issue to me. YMMV.

For the LEDs, you probably want wired bullet-style strings of LEDs rather than the thin copper LED strips since they're generally more suited to outside use. By far the most common (and generally cheapest) type of LEDs are WS-2812B or similar. They're OK, though you might notice they don't have good definition at low brightness levels. APA-102 or equivalent are a bit more expensive, but have MUCH better dynamic range, so I'd suggest going for these if you can. There are other better (and more expensive) LEDs still, but it starts to become diminishing returns, plus they can be hard to come by or find suitable controllers for. If you're running lengths of more than a 150 or so LEDs then power starts to matter, and you'll either need to inject power regularly into the strips, and/or use LEDs designed to take 12V or 24V. These can come with caveats such as worse power consumption and/or fewer addressable LEDs per meter, so research what you're buying carefully.

[1] https://electromage.com/pixelblaze

I ended up buying a couple strings of Twinkly lights a while back - after considering a diy solution. The mobile app has been solid and (assuming they didn't muck it up) there's are libraries out there for interfacing to them as well (over WiFi). The cost is not cheap but seems fair to me and seems to be well built. (The light mapping is pretty fun. You can zigzag a bunch of lights across a wall and basically create a low res display.)

Adafruit has a couple holiday guides based on their Feather boards and NeoPixel lights. https://learn.adafruit.com/festive-feather-holiday-lights/ov...

I would take the new "Plasma 2350 w" from Pimoroni https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/plasma-2350-w and connect some APA102/Dotstar or WS2812/Neopixel either from BTF Lightning, Amazon or Pimoroni

Several years ago I made a simple 2D display with WS2812B led strings, just daisy chained together for a serial interface. Controlled by an ESP8266, with a number of static images (snowflakes, xmas trees) that scroll or display with various effects (e.g. falling snowflakes). 9 led strings are simply draped over a ~9 ft tall pvc rack in a coarse 2D front and back display. Not that much work to put together and surprisingly nice looking effects are possible.

We've been happy with our Twinkly lights (after several years). Not really "DIY" but you can create your own light scheme/shows.

https://twinkly.com

https://www.shelly.com/products/shelly-plus-rgbw-pm

If you're fine with one colour for the whole strip, this is an easy plug-and-play-ish solution.

This is a huge space to get into. I’m on my fourth year doing an outdoor light show.

My personal preference is 12v ws2811 bullet-style voltage-regulated nodes. They’re extendable, individual nodes on a strand are replaceable if you’re willing to do some cutting and crimping.

I like the 12v because you can go for longer strands without losing colors from voltage drop. Regulated over a resistive voltage divider = less heat.

As has been mentioned, you can install WLED onto a microcontroller and have a web-page for a remote control.

White, non-blinking lights are the only acceptable holiday lights. All others are exceedingly tacky and should be banned.

I'm a huge fan of the Falcone system. It's a lot more that things that have been posted so far. It's allows you to grow in lots of different ways. The F16V5 costs about $250 and needs a power supply.

This is a simplistic view of what it looks like.

http://www.brianhensley.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Chris...

I've used strings of Twinkly lights for a couple seasons now. They can sometimes be found on eBay for cheap. They're easy to set up, whether standalone or by clustering multiple units into one larger virtual canvas. The app has a lot of good looking animated patterns included.

If you're interested in DIY:

LED lights as a string or strip - sk8612 are RGBW, which you need if you want a nice looking white. Lots of strips of varying density and waterproofing are available everywhere; strings ("pixels") can be harder to find but are available on AliExpress.

Controller is https://quinled.info/

Runs wled which has a simple web interface, mobile apps, and works with home assistant.

I had fun with this little board: https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/plasma-2350?variant=42092...

There're a couple of other variants of that board too, one with wifi. Basically you can animate Neopixels with about 6 lines of pretty simple python.

If you ever want to go all out with a musical light show, I have some recommendations here: https://aluhrs.com/blog/holiday-lights-electronics/

For your specific question, Wally’s Lights is great, and like others have mentioned, something running WLED to control them is a great choice.

Somewhat related topic: anyone used something like the Luxedo to do a projection mapping? It seems like it’s more complicated and expensive but I love the idea of doing something cool to the house for Halloween and Christmas without having to lug out a ton of lights and decorations.

Maybe i can piggyback onto this question: Are there timer switches that can change the times depending on the calendar? I want to turn on some lights shortly after sunset but they don't have a brightness sensor. So i'd like to do it by time of day.

Not quite what you're looking for perhaps, but I'm very happy with my "dumb" lights controlled with a couple smart plugs flashed with Tasmota.

The Eufy / Govee outdoor light strips are probably the easiest to install and setup.

Has anyone come across many distributors for HD108 LED strips per chance? I've found only the bare LEDs on Aliexpress currently.

For Twinkly: https://github.com/scrool/xled

Maybe relevant: https://youtu.be/TvlpIojusBE

Check out Twinkly. Little pricey, but if you can grab them on sale they're super cool.

I keep wondering why lights aren't getting built into new-build homes. They're no longer bulbs, but LEDs, they're programmably colored (you can do orange/purple for Halloween, etc), and they'd be practically invisible when off.

Have them around eaves/gutters, windows, whatever. Is there some aspect of this I'm not getting that makes it impractical (or ugly in the off seasons)?

I want a mesh grid of LEDs that I can lay across the house maybe with 6” between each one so I get a low res screen of dots and then play Die Hard on it to see if people figure it out. It would kind of be like a TV but with 9 out of 10 pixels missing, more or less.