How to Save Money by Automating Your Holiday Lights

The holidays are my favorite time of year. You’ve got the cold weather, the lights and decorations, the Starbuck’s red cups filled with your favorite holiday drink and of course the presents, who could forget the presents? But it’s not all carol singing and peppermint lattes. This time of year can also mean forking over the big bucks, not only are you buying gifts, decorations and enough yams to feed an entire village but most people see quite the spike in their energy bill. Between keeping the house warm and powering the 3 miles worth of lights you have wrapped around your house all night, you can practically hear the bill going up. For the houses that go full-on ‘Griswold Family’ Christmas it could cost over $300 to decorate and power that display, not to mention having to turn everything on and off every day. So, in order to save yourself some stress, money and time why not automate all those lights and decorations?

Now you may already have a system set up using old school light timers but with a timer you only have the ability to set one schedule, so if you want the lights on from five to ten then that’s the schedule for every day of the week. But, hey, maybe you’re hosting an Ugly Christmas Sweater party on Friday (always a hit) then you have to go around the house adjusting every timer so the lights stay on later, and then do it all over again after the party. It can be quite the inconvenience, but we have a solution.  By adding a few Wi-Fi Smart Plugs (DSP-W110) throughout your home you have the ability to control whatever devices are plugged into them straight from your smartphone or tablet. Using the app you can create an on/off schedule, a different one for every day of the week if you like, and adjust them from anywhere. It’s also compatible with IFTTT and Amazon Echo so you can use voice commands to turn lights on and off or set lights to go on at sunset and off at sunrise.