Philips Hue is expanding its line of smart home products with something many people have been waiting on: Festavia string lights. These new string lights pack HomeKit connectivity, among a number of other useful smart home features. They’re perfect for holiday decorations but can also be used year-round for accent lighting and other special occasions.
The new Philips Hue Festavia string lights feature 250 smart LEDs along a 20-meter cord, with Signify saying that they offer “plenty of flexibility to decorate your Christmas tree, staircase, or any area in your home.” They can be used with HomeKit, the Philips Hue app, Amazon Alexa, and more.
The Festavia string lights offer all of the different smart features you would expect from a Philips Hue product, including brightness control, colors, timers, schedules, and more. Philips Hue is also adding new Sparkle and Scattered options designed specifically for Festavia:
What’s more, users can choose several color points to create a gradient light effect along the string, bringing the colors to life. As with all Hue products, the Festavia string lights work in harmony with other Philips Hue lights in the space
Along with the Festavia string lights, new features are available in the Hue app. The new Sparkle effect makes each light on the string twinkle, creating an extra festive look. For a cozier setting users can of course choose the existing Candle or Fireplace effect. Adding to this, Festavia comes with a new style for users to select: Scattered. While the existing Linear style produces a seamless gradient of color from one end of the string to the other, the Scattered style spreads up to five colors randomly along the string for a colorful, festive experience.
The new Festavia string lights come at a cost. They’ll be available to order on November 15 for a steep $159.99, exclusively from the Philips Hue website. For years, many people have settled on using “dumb” string lights paired with a smart plug to bring HomeKit connectivity to their Christmas dectorations.
The new Philips Hue Festavia lights offer some additional features over a setup like that, such as precise color and brightness controls and features like “Sparkle.” Whether or not those features help justify the cost is up to you. What do you think? Let us know down in the comments.
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