Twinkly Strings 400 LED RGB, LED Light String for in- and Outdoor, Smart LED Lights, Mappable LEDs, Compatible with Alexa and Google Home, IP44, Controlled by App, Black Wire, 32m

The Twinkly 400 RGB-W string lights are honestly on another level. Setup was quick and the app mapping only took a couple of minutes. Once they’re connected, the animations are smooth and the colours are incredibly vibrant without looking cheap or harsh. One of the best features is the customisation. You can go from warm, classy white to full Christmas rave mode in seconds. You can even create a playlist of effects or sync the lights with Twinkly Music, which looks amazing if you’ve got multiple sets running together. The built-in timer options and scene modes make it even easier. Set it once and forget it. They switch on and off automatically and remember your last settings. Everything works flawlessly, responds instantly through the app, and makes the tree look like something out of a high-end display. If you want Christmas lights that properly stand out, these are worth every penny.

They work perfectly and fit my Christmas tree, they connected and linked with the app very quickly and was easy to set up they are bright and can be adjusted and customised through the app. They are very high quality and look amazing on the tree.

I'm thrilled with these lights and my friends - many who'd never heard of Twinkly - have been wowed by them, even before the decorations were added to the tree. Had been wanting these for years! If you've been on the fence too, I highly recommend treating yourself. My favourite sequence is the rainbow effect, shown in my video. Just stunning. I have about 80 effects to choose from, which includes ones that were already installed on the app plus some extras I downloaded. From my own personal taste, I'd say that you probably won't use the majority of them - though it's fun trying them all out - and the ones you will use are wonderful. We love being able to control them from our mobiles and you can set a timer for them to come on and switch off if you want. You can also edit the animations by changing the colours, brightness and speed, create your own, upload a gif file, and "draw" your own design colours onto the tree via the app. Some animations, I think, (such as a running reindeer) must be for the Twinkly panels or possibly for a huge tree smothered in lights, as you can't make out what they are on smaller trees. Setting up: The instruction booklet has miniscule writing that was difficult to read. The QR code inside it, which takes you to the Twinkly website to download the app, no longer works, so just download it from your app store. I'd given the app permission to know my location so couldn't understand why it came up with a location error while trying to pair the lights with the app. It turned out to be because my overall location permission was disabled on my phone (from the swipe down screen on an android device)! Obvious really! You'll need to enable bluetooth when initially setting up but it doesn't need to be on after that. The lights come in two strings, joined in the middle by the controller unit. The idea is to wrap one set around the bottom half of the tree and the other round the top, meeting in the middle, and best not to bury them too far into the tree. The 3 pin plug is removable. The mapping took a bit longer than expected, and we ended up having to abandon the first attempt and start again, but then found doing it on another mobile was quicker. Within the app you hold your phone up to the tree while it scans the tree to locate the bulbs. As it finds the location of each one they go green, and any it hasn't yet located remain red. You then change angle and do it again (maybe several times) until all or most of the lights turn green ... then the fun begins! Choosing how many you need: We have a 6ft artificial tree and from the advice I read I first thought we should go for a 600 light set, but then watched some YouTube videos of other people's trees, which swayed me to the 400 light set, since our tree is fairly slim. I was worried about not getting the full effect due to a sparse amount of lights or having too many, but I seem to have about the right balance, and the density of lights looks similar to what others have done. If you're new to Twinkly lights I recommend doing your research first so you purchase the correct quantity. Having said that, you can use more than one set on the same tree and synch them both together in the app. (These are the 400 RGB + White strings, which I think were more expensive than 600 RGB.) Packaging: Arrived in an Amazon brown paper bag. The Twinkly outer box sleeve was slightly dented and torn, but importantly the lights were not damaged, so it doesn't matter. I mention this in case anyone was wanting to purchase them as a gift. (Most of my photos and the video were taken in daylight, but obviously the effects are even better in the dark.)

Brilliant functioning lights, can go super bright and also as dull as you want for any type of ambience you want. Lights can go from Northern lights style all the way to a Marilyn Monroe photo, absolutely crazy! Maybe still a bit expensive but I brought 2 sets when they were on offer but they are great lights. I also brought the music sensor and it flawlessly worked with that and would blink along with whatever sounds it was picking up! So fun and will be magical to get on the tree this year.

Not a great start with these as the first set I ordered arrived with a 'Type F' (two pin Germany) power supply rather than a 'Type G' (three pin UK) power supply. Amazon soon put that right the following day. I got them out to test them still (coiled in their wrapping bands) and they worked perfectly. They joined my bluetooth on my phone and subsequently joined my WiFi network and even sync'd to audio via the Twinkly music dongle I purchased at the same time. They're nice and bright and really can do all the colours except... any form of "warm white" (they all have a strong hint of another colour in them). And that's when it dawned on me... when I don't want my Christmas tree to be a "night club", can I just have a nice, simple static warm white...? And the answer is... spend the extra and go for the RGB+W version. So I have and returned these. They were great. Easy to set up and worked flawlessly (I know I didn't actually set them up on a tree but even in their wrapped state, you can tell these are fabulous). But for absolute versatility, RGB+W. They do it all.

I've bought many boxes of Twinkly lights since 2022 and the outside lights which I leave on the tree each year always fire up for the Christmas period. Very robust lights and each year the Twinkly app comes up with more displayable sequences. Once you've downloaded the app and put the lights up it's easy to map the lights with you phone which always look great when on. You can easily control any light display you want from your mobile phone to suite your mood. One thing is the plug is bigger than your standard plug.