HBN Smart Outdoor Indoor Color String Lights Review

HBN Smart Outdoor Indoor Color String Lights Review

Buy it at Amazon: HBN Smart Outdoor Indoor Color String Lights [Affiliate Link]

Takeaway: Easy to control, durable, weatherproof, bright, and colorful for year-round outdoor use.

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You’ll receive the string lights and a brief instruction manual. The string lights come attached to a waterproof power brick with a thick, heavy 2-prong cord. The power brick measures 5""W x 2""L x 1.25”H. The total length including the power brick is about 24 feet from end-to-end. The light bulbs are made of a durable, hard clear plastic and since they are LED there are no filaments inside and the risk of it breaking or burning out is pretty low. While the bulbs themselves are not replaceable, if the string lights stop working, you may want to check the fuse in the plug end to see if it needs to be replaced.

Each light bulb is spaced just under 2 feet apart from the next. At the top of each bulb socket is a small open-loop plastic hanging hook which rotates 360 degrees. This designed allows you to attach these hooks to nails, string, or wire depending on your setup, though keep in mind the hooks are fairly lightweight, and the string lights may need additional support when hanging. At the terminal end of the lights is a waterproof cap that covers a jumper port which allows you to attach another set of compatible lights in series. You can chain together multiple sets for a longer run of lights on a single power source up to 144 feet in total length.

The power brick can be removed from the lights in case it needs to be replaced, or if you’d like to use them with another set of lights. The screw down cap is also waterproof, so you’ll be able to use the entire unit outdoors year-round without worrying about it getting wet. I tested these lights while operating outdoors and drenched them in water to simulate rain, including the power brick, and the lights continued to work fine. The power/mode button for the lights is on the left-hand side on top of the brick. When you first plug the lights in, the lights will flash red, indicating they are ready for WiFi pairing. Short pressing the power button cycles through the pre-programmed scenes like blink, chase, Christmas (alternating red and green), America (alternating red, white and blue), Pick 2 (alternating user selected colors), Multi (rainbow along the whole string), strobe (which cycles through different the colors), fade, and pulse.

These lights can also be controlled via the smartphone app Smart Life. The lights were detected by the app automatically and took only a couple minutes to add after providing my network name and password (2.4 GHz networks only). I gave the lights an easy-to-remember name for voice commands. In the app, I can quickly choose any of the preset modes by tapping the mode name. For the 'Pick 2' mode, tap and hold it and then choose your two colors. In the color menu, use the color wheel, brightness and saturation sliders to set a custom color. You can also use the presets provider or modify or add and delete your own. The last menu allows you to set timers and schedules for the light, for example, if you want the lights to turn on at 9 PM and off at midnight. This can be a one-time timer or you can have the timer repeat on specific days or everyday if you like.

Connecting to WiFi also lets you use your AI voice assistant to control the lights. You can change the color, adjust the brightness, and turn it on and off with voice commands. However, I wasn’t able to figure out how to select the preset scenes, so if anyone knows the voice command or how to set that up, let me know in the comments below. The other thing I wasn’t able to do was adjust the saturation. Each time I called out a percentage for the light it would only change the brightness. Another quirky thing is that unless you have the Smart Life controls open to the color menu, changing the brightness via voice automatically switches the light back to white.

Overall, these string lights are great for adding ambience and color whether you’re indoors or out, though at night, depending how spread out they are they don’t throw off a ton of light for illumination purposes, but it’s enough to throw some light on a pathway with the right color and brightness settings, and I really like that you can leave these setup and plugged in year-round in all sorts of weather conditions and link up to 144 feet of them together to cover a large space.

Buy it at Amazon: HBN Smart Outdoor Indoor Color String Lights [Affiliate Link]