It’s the most wonderful time of the year--that is, until you have to fight your way through 12 months of knots and brave the cold so that Santa knows to stop at your house for some cookies. Of course, it’s just not Christmas without lights, and it’s just not Mac|Life without a few iPhone apps to help you deck your halls and keep everything calm and bright.
Even if you’re just a bush-and-awning decorator, that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the hard work of other jolly souls in your neck of the woods. You could go old-school and drive aimlessly after dark until you come across a house worth slowing down for, or you could grab Christmas Lights GPS (free), which will lead you to the best and brightest light shows around your block and let you tour displays around the world. And if you think your collection of oversized light-up figures and flashing bulbs is up to snuff, you can take a few snapshots and share your handiwork, too.
If you want to revel in the Christmas spirit without leaving the house--or are looking for a few ideas to spruce up your yard--look no further than Christmas Light Show ($0.99), the next best thing to a virtual yule log. Light Show lets you choose between three settings--city trees, holiday house and mini village--and a variety of blinking patterns and set-up options to create your ultimate holiday fantasyland.
Now that you’ve been properly injected full of the Christmas spirit, it’s time to get down to business. Of course, iPhone can’t very well string up the lights and inflate your blow-up Frosty for you, but after you’ve done the legwork, there are a few apps that can certainly make things more fun.
The first thing you’ll need is a wireless controller to get your lights on iPhone’s wavelength. There are a few options, but the easiest (and most expensive) is iGlo’s 16-foot set of 120 Wi-Fi-enabled LED lights ($299). Vivid and fully programmable via a companion iPod app (free), this set of colored bulbs will take your display to the next level--and when the season’s over, you can simply transfer them to your car instead of the attic.
Even if you don’t want to plunk down $2.50 per light, you can still get your fill of high-tech ho-ho-hos with Schlage Link Mobile (provided your house is already set up with the $299 Wireless Keypad Lever Starter Kit). Simply plug in an extension cord to the Z-Wave-enabled Light Module, download the Schlage Link iPhone app (free; $8.99 monthly subscription) and turn on your Christmas lights from anywhere in the world.
But true control freaks know there’s only one real option for a professional holiday lights spectacular. With dozens of compatible gadgets that add simple wireless connectivity to every outlet and switch in your house, the open-source, power line X10 protocol will make your holiday display sing on command--and X10 Commander ($9.99) puts all that automation in the palm of your hand. Like each of these options, extra equipment is required, but the desktop client (Thinking Home, $79) and USB interface will cost significantly less than the above options.
And since this is the season of giving, we have one last solution for you, one that you won’t find on the App Store. A few years back, IntelliAdmin developer Steve Wiseman set out to use his iPhone to control his own Christmas light display with decades-old X10 equipment. He chronicled the whole experiment, which resulted in a fully-working iOS app and a very Merry Christmas.
But now that he’s got an iPhone 4, he’s downloading X10 Commander, which was “exactly what I was looking for when I developed my little app."
