Are there actually any programmable z-wave or zigbee Xmas lights or do they all tend to be Wi-Fi?
The Inovelli light strip (z-wave) has individually addressable 'pixels', along with something like 50 pre-programmed animations/patterns...
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Sengled also have RGBW zigbee strip lights - like the iNovelli ones that @martybird linked to.
https://www.amazon.com/Sengled-Multicolor-Required-2000-6500K-Assistant/dp/B07QD2SGDB
just to clarify… are you looking for indoor or outdoor xmas lights? or both?
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I should have specified outdoor lights. I’m not sure lightstrips would work well either Indoor or outdoor (I mean they would look awful wrapped around a tree)
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The Sengled do not appear to be quite the same as Inovelli's. The Inovelli light strip can have the RGB LEDs individually controlled (ex: a rainbow, each LED a different color). The Sengled appear to be more standard RGBW light strips. There are LOTs of those type of light strips around.
@rlithgow1:
As for specific Christmas lights... it does not appear so, no. They all are WiFi at this time. Inovelli's strips are the closest (and there are requests for outdoor Christmas-style lights from them). There are WiFi ones that work with Hubitat though... heck, I am even working on my own WS2812-pixel based set specifically for Christmas decorations.
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A recommendation (with links) would be awesome!
I'm using WS2811 pixels running on a falcon controller. These are WiFi based with the RPi based player supporting MQTT.
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Wonderful. I needed to leave the house but now I need to change my pants.
That looks awesome!
Thanks, this is just a sequence preview from xlights. It actually looks better in real life.
Are these standard lights connected to a controller and you simply hit commands with the controller? Second question does the programming happen locally or via cloud? Honestly I want to start on this now so I'm ready for xmas
What do you use to program the sequences?
They are 12 volt WS2811 pixels connected to a Falcon F16 v3 controller. The sequence is created using the open source software xLights. Once the sequence is created it is uploaded to a player (FPP) running on a raspberry pi which controls all the scheduling.
Everything is local. Here's a link to help you get started.
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Not a sham, like I said it’s an xLights preview. The program takes an image and overlays the model over it. That is why the lights appear to be on top of the truck.
Sorry, I initially mis-read your post and assumed that it was a promo video. Shortly after posting I realized my error and deleted the post.
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Sorry, I was thinking of the Tuya-based ones, like these:
Which really just look like WS2812 LEDs that happen to have a wifi/bluetooth (so probably ESP32-based) controller.
Or these small "fairy light" versions:
Or these larger "bell" shaped ones:
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are you planning for next year? or is this a festivus thing?
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I've recently gone down this rabbit hole! The 12v WS2811 Pixel Strings are definitely what you want. Controlling them with a Falcon Controller is definitely the gold standard when it comes to elaborate Christmas displays synced to music. But if you wanted a simpler approach and just a Christmas pattern, you could pickup a Quin-LED Dig-Quad LED Controller. It comes pre-flashed with WLED. There is a community driver to integrate WLED with Hubitat and you can use your computer or smartphone to control them. There's a guy on the net called Dr Zzss and he has a website and lots of youtube videos on the topic.
Also, WLED will sync with xLights so if you do get the bug to play around with sequencing, you can!
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Pixel strings are generally rated to be pretty long-lived in permanent mountings. They were designed originally for bigger displays and billboard effects if I recall.
They are also "fairly" durable, as they are sealed into their housings and handle water/snow/heat pretty well.
The Hookup had a couple videos about putting up WS2812 (he used strips) permanently on his house (the first is about it overall, the 2nd is a "3 years later" look):
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It does take a fair amount of work to set this up if you are doing this yourself. I think it took me somewhere between 3 to 4 weeks to set up my display. The roofline lights are permanent while everything else is put up temporarily for the holiday season.
I just got into this in October of last year so I can’t speak to the longevity of the products. However, like @cj_rezz mentioned, it’s definitely a rabbit hole that turns into an expensive hobby.
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