It almost that time of year when you venture into loft or attic and search for your holiday or Christmas lights. Once you have finished untangled them why not turn them in to smart lights and control them from Amazon Alexa. There is no need to go round all your lights and turn them on manually or use ancient timer plugs, just say to Alexa “Alexa, it’s Christmas” and all Christmas tree lights come on, the outside lights, my Philips Hue lights, and other decorations turn on.

I say “Alexa, turn on Christmas tree lights” and my tree lights turn on. I can also say “Alexa, cancel Christmas” and it turns everything off.

All you need is a smart plug and an Alexa. For the smart plug there are plenty on sale and over the last couple of years I tested a TP-Link HS100 which costs around £28 and D-Link DSP-W115 costs around £29. Last year I tested Gosund Smart Plugs which cost only £18.99 for a pair of smart plugs.
It does not really matter which one you use as they all do the same things, checkout my reviews to see which is best for you.

To get setup plug your Christmas lights into your smart plug and name the plug in your app appropriately (e.g. tree lights, reindeer) and make sure you link your smart plug’s manufacture skill in the Amazon Alexa app. Once linked you can ask Alexa to discover devices and then they should be available in Alexa, you should be able to say “Alexa, turn on Christmas tree lights”.

Using Alexa Routines to control your Christmas lights

As well as controlling a single plug you can also light all your lights together in to one routine. It doesn’t matter if the smart plugs are from different manufactures, as long as Alexa can control them you are good to go.

If you have multiple devices, you can create a routine in the Amazon Alexa to control in one action. Go to the Alexa app and select Routines, click on the plus button to create a new one.


The first step is to select the trigger so tap on Voice and then enter the phrase you want to turn the lights on e.g. Start Christmas. Then tap on the Add action button and select Smart Home.

You can then select Control device and pick your smart plug from the list and have the option set to On. You can then add an additional plug. If you have smart lights like Philips Hue you can also add them into the mix.

You can also create a routine to turn off the lights, I called mine “Alexa, cancel Christmas” and have it turn the lights off. The setup is the same as the routine to turn them just with the Off option selected.

If you want to take it to the next level you could also get it to play your Christmas playlist from Spotify play at the same time.

Video: How to control your Holiday / Christmas lights with Amazon Alexa

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