With the help of smart home technology, you can transform your home into a modern Christmas wonderland. We'll show you which components you need.
In the front yard, the reindeer greets you with his sleigh, a string of lights decorates the balcony, the swing arches shine in the windows and the Christmas tree sparkles in the living room: With the right lighting decoration, you immediately get into the Christmas spirit.
With the help of smart home technology, you can transform your home into a modern Christmas wonderland. We'll show you which components you need.
In the front yard, the reindeer greets you with his sleigh, a string of lights decorates the balcony, the swing arches shine in the windows and the Christmas tree sparkles in the living room: With the right lighting decoration, you immediately get into the Christmas spirit.
Normal timers are impractical
If you don't feel like manually turning your Christmas lights on and off every day, you can use timers. But that's not particularly practical: You program them once and they stubbornly stick to the set times. But what if you come home at different times every day and never go to bed at the same time? Then you'll be sitting in the dark some days because the lights turn on too late or off too early. Or you'll waste energy because the default setting leaves the lights on much longer than necessary. Smart home technology solves precisely that problem.
Better: Controlling Christmas lights with smart home technology
With smart home technology, you can control your Christmas lights as needed – either with a click on your smartphone or by voice command ("Alexa, turn on the Christmas lights!"). All you need are smart plug sockets (often colloquially referred to as adapter plugs). Or you can get lighting products with integrated smart home functionality, such as a smart string of lights. If you want to use voice control, you'll also need the technology for the voice assistant.
Smart switch socket for indoor use
Smart switch sockets are available as individual plugs (e.g. the essentials Smart Home switch socket 10 A ) or multiple plug (e.g. essentials Smart Home 4-way USB power strip ). All essentials switchable sockets are plugged between the standard socket and the lighting element, connected to the Wi-Fi, and controlled via the essentials app. This means: You only need to download a single app to your smartphone. There you can add the smart plug adapter as an application, assign it to individual rooms, and then program it as needed. You can then turn the Christmas lights on and off centrally via the app. And of course, you can also add other family members to your user account in the app, so that every roommate who has downloaded the app can give the command to turn them on and off.
If you already use smart voice control via Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant, you can also pair the essentials switchable sockets with them.
Smart switch socket for outdoors
There are also smart switch sockets specifically designed for outdoor use, such as the essentials Smart Home Switch Socket Outdoor 16 A. Weatherproof sockets can be identified by their IP44 protection rating. The second digit indicates the degree of protection against water – the 4 means "protection against splashing water from all directions." Technically, the smart switch sockets for gardens and balconies work just like the smart switch sockets for indoors: You plug them between your balcony or garden socket and the light decoration, connect them to your home Wi-Fi network, and add them as an application in the essentials app. Voice control via Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant is also possible.
Smart fairy lights
Alternatively, you can also get a smart fairy lights which plugs directly into a standard socket. The smart essentials fairy lights .
