The year seems to have sped past—just a short while ago, we were excited for 2024, and now we’re preparing for the festive season. For many, Christmas is an opportunity to infuse our homes with extra cheer. My initial experience with HomeKit involved automating my holiday decorations, so it feels fitting to welcome this season with my refreshed guide to enhancing your Christmas display with smarter technology.
HomeKit Weekly is a series dedicated to smart home accessories, automation strategies, and everything related to Apple’s smart home ecosystem.
Essential Equipment
Before investing in HomeKit accessories to automate your Christmas decorations, I recommend acquiring a device that serves as a HomeKit “Home Hub.” The compatible devices include Apple TV, HomePod, or HomePod mini. With these devices signed into iCloud, you’ll be able to manage and automate your devices remotely. While it’s not strictly necessary for HomeKit, it is strongly suggested.
The Christmas Tree
The Eve outlet is on the pricier side, but it equips your network with Thread support. In simple terms, Thread is a specialized mesh networking protocol designed for HomeKit and various smart home devices enabling direct peer-to-peer communication. It operates autonomously, maintaining itself, healing, and routing, ensuring seamless communication between devices.
Once installed, you can easily activate your tree using Siri or the Home app. Additionally, you can set up a HomeKit automation to turn on your lights at sunset or at a specific time (instructions for creating these automations can be found at the end of this article).
In my house, I’m not allowed to adjust the Christmas lights, but if you have the freedom to do so, consider Twinkly. With Twinkly, you can replace your tree lights with smart, app-controlled versions. Twinkly introduced native HomeKit support with their Generation II and Plus models a while back. They also offer pre-lit Christmas trees and outdoor options.
Outdoor Illumination
I previously mentioned Twinkly, but what if you’re looking to incorporate HomeKit compatibility into outdoor lights you already own? Here are some recommended products.
When dealing with outdoor lighting, ensure you use plugs rated for outdoor use; indoor plugs simply aren’t designed to handle severe cold, moisture, or rain.
The concept remains similar: plug your lights into the adapter, and then connect the adapter to the wall outlet.
Setting Up Automations
Once all your devices are connected to the Home app, you can manage them in various ways. The simplest method is through the Home app to turn them on and off at your convenience.
If you have a HomePod, ask Siri to operate them by saying, “Hey Siri, turn on my Christmas Tree lights.”
For a more automated experience, let HomeKit handle the schedule. Navigate to the Automations tab in the Home app, tap the + button, select Add Automation, choose A Time of Day Occurs, and set your preferred time. A simple approach for Christmas decorations is to have them turn on at sunset and create a second automation to switch them off at sunrise or when you go to bed.
Conclusion
There are countless creative ways to automate your holiday decorations using HomeKit with affordable devices. Starting small with a single HomeKit-enabled plug for your main tree can be a great introduction, allowing you to interact with it through the Home app.
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