That Time We Talked About Christmas Tech

Do do do do do do.

This is episode number 67 of the Homeowner Show. Whether you're DIY or looking to hire, we're here to help you find the best information and options for you and your home. My name is Kevin Hackett, and here with me is Craig Williams.

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the Homeowner Show. Happy holiday season and Christmasy good time and eggnoggy reindeer dancing Santa Claus. Gift given Yuletide season-ish.

You done?

Nope.

Okay, that was impressive actually.

Well, thank you.

Not bad at all. Um, well, it is Christmas time and that means it should be cold.

Yep.

Kind of got cool today.

It dipped down a little bit.

Yeah, but yesterday I wore shorts and it was in the upper 70s.

Thank you, Mother Nature.

Yeah, not only that, it was probably about 300% humidity. Yeah, it was yucky yesterday.

Yeah, it was getting ready for that big old rain front that was coming through.

Yeah, but it's a little bit cooler today, so we are a little bit wetter. Yeah, well, I don't really mind the wet as much as I just— it feels like it should be cool or cold.

It should be cold.

Yeah, it should be cold. It's not.

But yeah, my, my daughter's big request for Christmas this year was she wanted to go somewhere where there was snow.

I mean, you, you could go even 3 hours north of here sometimes and get snow.

I think that's mostly like sleet.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's just like nasty, muddy, frozen stuff.

Yeah, you gotta go more like probably 6 hours north of here to get good snow. Good snow, easy. Yeah, but it's out there.

Have you spent much time in some, in some good deep powder there?

Oh yeah.

Yeah?

Oh yeah. I mean, well, in a couple of ways, like I mean, I've been skiing a number of times, right? So I mean, that— I mean, anytime you go skiing, hopefully you're, you're getting some decent snow. Um, and, and we're blessed to, to be not that far away from Colorado.

Sure.

I mean, even though we're in South Texas, I mean, Colorado is still doable. And I mean, there are people from all over the world that want to come ski the Rockies.

Yeah.

So, uh, so there's some— I mean, there's some really good snow that kind of stuff. But, uh, we lived in Little Rock for 10 years, and at least once a year, if not 2 or 3 times a year, we'd get a good snow where we'd have, you know, anywhere between 4 and 6 inches. And okay, yeah, it was— and it was— yeah, it was some decent snow.

Enough to snowball fight?

Oh, definitely enough to snowball fight.

Nice. Yeah, you'd have to.

We absolutely— I mean, anytime you have the opportunity You have to snowball fight.

I mean, around here, if— I mean, if it snows and you can make a snowball, you better make it count.

Yeah, because that may be the only one you get.

Aim at the fat kid because you better hit something.

Because that's the one you got. Although there's a good chance after you get through throwing it, you just pick it up and throw it again.

And then it's full of rocks.

Yeah, that's the point, is it didn't really break to begin with.

Get cover. That's right, that's right.

Yeah, the worst is like if you have that one friend who's like, hey, this will be fun. and let's turn the water on, like, wet the soft, you know, the, the snowball.

That's not a friend.

No, that's not a friend. But we all have one of those friends that's done that before.

That's right.

Yeah.

Everything else been going good, man?

Yeah, yeah, things are, things are good. It's, um, I mean, it's just a busy time of year. Yeah, you know, I, I think probably everybody feels this way because You know, I've mentioned it before. I mean, Christmas is just one of those times where everybody's in a different mood. It seems like it's just a— it's a fun mood. People are in a giving spirit. And generally, it's one of my favorite times of year because of people's mood is typically different than it is other times of the year.

Yeah.

But with that comes like obligations, like Well, we got to go to this party and we got to go to this party, and then we've got the staff party. And, you know, like, my wife had a ladies' party that she went to, and, you know, there, there's just all of these extra things. And so it seems like every single night there's something going on.

Yeah. Um, so then right now is like high Christmas party time.

Yes.

I mean, like, we had to— we're going out of town this weekend and we had to back out of a couple of Christmas parties just because, like, Yeah. I'm sorry.

Right. And like, our staff party is, um, is this Friday, and it— we actually don't know what we're doing.

Um, I, I remember you were talking about like, it's not that there's no plan, it's like a surprise that someone else has put— I got you.

There is a plan, we just don't know what it is. We know when to show up and generally what to wear, um, but we have no idea what we're doing, and it could, it could be anything, honestly. But But the thing is, it's like you need to prepare for 5 to midnight. That's the longest staff party I've ever been to in my life, and I've not even been to it yet. But like, you, you want to try to find someone on a Friday, 2 weeks before Christmas, to babysit.

Yeah.

For that amount of time. And I, so I, I kind of lucked out because one of our other staff members, um, started looking for a babysitter before I did.

Mm-hmm.

And so she told me the people that were unavailable, but she said she went through 21 people.

Oh my gosh.

Before she found someone available.

Well, she should have better children.

Well, yeah, or better friends, one of the two. But anyway, so yeah, it's, it's high time for all of that. But I mean, it's fun and it's enjoyable. And, and I love it. Um, but you know, there's travel involved and, you know, cuz we'll go visit family and all of those sorts of things. But yeah, I mean, it's just fun.

And do, do you guys go somewhere for Christmas or you?

We do.

Yeah.

We go to my parents' house.

Okay.

Out in West Texas. And, uh, that, that's kind of our thing. Like we, we, we talked about Thanksgiving, right? And we do that with my wife's family. Right. And we do Christmas with my family. That's kind of the trade-off. So, um, we'll spend like a week A little bit, maybe 5 days with my family. Okay. And then, uh, yeah, so we'll be home after that. But yeah, that's kind of what we do.

Cool.

How you doing, man?

I'm good. Yeah. And just, I mean, man, usually, usually things, I mean, business-wise slow down for me a little bit. I've— it feels like summertime for me right now.

Really?

It's weird.

That is weird.

Like, I, I was, I was excited today. I was actually like, I know it's weird, like, I, I love working.

Yeah.

But like, today rained out. Oh, you know, and so like I had a, I had a bunch of accounts to take care of and then, you know, people that, you know, were expecting me but couldn't because of the rain. Um, but I ended up with like 4 accounts anyway.

Oh.

I mean, it was just weird.

Yeah.

Um, like just brand new stuff coming through. Um, people needing us to come and take care of stuff. And so it was, it's like, I'm glad I had this day off.

Yeah, good luck.

So I mean, like, that's a weird problem to complain about, but, um, you know, when you're, when you're kind of getting that mindset of like, oh, I'm not working today.

Yeah.

Um, and then all of a sudden, like, you're just, you're— it feels slammed because you were anticipating doing nothing.

Yep.

Um, well, at least nothing compared to what you usually do. Sure. So, but anyway, I mean, like, it's just, it's just been kind of weird because it's been just as busy. Yeah. Um, so All good stuff.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, on, on top of like all of the things going on, one of the things that my family enjoys doing is we like going and looking at people's houses, like Christmas lights.

Okay, I'm glad you added that extra bit because otherwise it's creepy.

Yeah, yeah, I, I see that.

Peeking in the windows. What are you guys doing in there?

They don't have their lights on tonight. That's weird. Uh, no, but like going Christmas light, uh, you know, watching. And, and there's some really cool neighborhoods.

Have you all gone and done one this year?

Not yet, we haven't. Uh, but there's some really cool neighborhoods here in the Houston area that like the whole neighborhood gets involved in. They do, uh, you know, themed neighborhoods and different things like that. So, uh, you know, we enjoy going and doing that sometime. And, um, I mean, as as we were preparing for this episode, you know, we just kind of decided let's talk about some of the tech that's out there.

Yeah, that—

and we, we like talking about technology and things that, you know, make our lives a little easier. If you want the technology, uh, we enjoy talking about that kind of stuff.

So, I mean, even if it's not easier, if it's just cool. Yeah, I mean, because sometimes it's not about ease, it's just like, all right, that's, that's just cool.

It is. And sometimes it makes your life a little bit better, other times it makes you just be cool.

Yeah.

And, and when you're in your late 30s, as some people are—

some people are—

or even older, I mean, it happens to some. Some, like, eventually you're like, hey, I kind of want to be cool.

Yeah.

And, and eventually you get to the point where you're like, well, I must buy a Corvette in order to be cool.

Or some cool Christmas lights.

Or cool Christmas lights.

I mean, you know, 6 is 1.

Yeah.

Corvette's another.

Yeah. Yeah. And, and so we're gonna talk about how to be cool without buying a Corvette.

Yeah.

Tonight.

Seems reasonable.

Okay, so let's do it.

I mean, both of us, if we can tell our wives, look, babe, you can either get a Corvette or some Christmas tech.

Yeah, your choice.

I mean, you know, I'm gonna be cool, right? Your, your choice as to the path.

Yeah. And, and as the eyes rolled to the back of their heads, Fine, Corvette. Yep, that's what I'm going with. I actually found a really cool, uh, Corvette the other day for $3,000.

Nice.

Yeah, of course it needed like wheels. It actually looked like the exterior looked in pretty good shape, but I think there was some interior, like some wiring that needed to be done and some other things. It was a project car, but owls. It's a 1982 Stingray though, it's pretty sweet.

Probably lots of like cocaine residue and Possibly.

Yeah, but I didn't go look at it, so I don't know. I'm not, I'm not really up on cocaine residue anyway, like what that actually looks like. I'd be like, oh, there's some stuff in here. In the fabric. Oh, okay. Yeah, like someone can upholstery clean this, please. Yeah, yeah.

Although I don't know that steam cleaning would be helpful in that particular situation, but you know, how did we— do what you want.

We, we got off on a weird rabbit trail there.

Is it a white rabbit?

Yeah. Oh gosh. Uh, yeah. Okay, back to Christmas lights though.

And kids.

Not just Christmas lights. I'm trying to keep us on topic here. We've come up with 5 things.

5, yeah. Well, so like we scoured the internet for hours upon hours to find the absolute coolest and most helpful Christmas high-tech gadgets. gadgets and gizmos to make your lights spectacular, or your—

just your holiday decor.

Yule-istic.

Yes, we want it to be— you list— make you cool. We're gonna go with that.

You were trying to come up with a Christmas one, weren't you?

Yeah, I didn't have it.

You—

you— I don't think yule-istic was a Christmas one.

It is now.

Yuletide is a thing. But anyway, you, you are the one that makes up words.

It was eulistically merry and bright.

Yeah, speaking of making up words, um, we should probably tell people about what we did last week.

Which was?

We went into the radio station. Oh yeah, we never plugged that.

We hadn't. Yeah, no, we, we went and sat down with, uh, Dick and Skippy on the morning show over at Lone Star Community Radio. And, uh, Lone Star is actually, uh, which, which, which was weird because we were on from like 9 to 11.

Yeah.

And then from 11 to 12, the Homeowner Show was on the Lone Star Radio.

Yeah. So it was weird because like we walked out of the studio and they, they broadcast the feed through a speaker outside the studio, which is on, on Main Street.

Yeah.

Down in downtown Conroe. And so we walk out and it's my voice. It just happened to be at a point where I was talking.

We were having a conversation. We kept interrupting ourselves.

It was just kind of weird.

So Yeah. So yeah, no, those guys are awesome.

Yeah. So in our, in our show airs every Wednesday, every Wednesday from 11 to 12.

So we're, we're, we're up against Rush Limbaugh. So, well, you had a good run, Limbaugh. Yeah.

Good luck from here. We are now taking over.

That's right.

Yeah. From Lone Star Radio in Conroe, Texas. People are going and, and really most people listen to that on the, on the internet.

Yeah.

Because I mean, the, the, the bandwidth that they have is not, not huge. I mean, they've got, I don't know, like, well, I mean, it's, 20-mile radius, maybe?

Yeah, it's— it's— well, and they're on 2 FM broadcasts as well, so I don't know. I don't know what the range is on both of them.

Okay. Um, yeah, so anyway, uh, but you can find—

yeah, they have a huge— they have a huge following, like, online. Yeah, most— I think— I think they were telling us most of their listeners tune in via the internet or lonestarir.com. I think they even have an app.

Okay.

Um, if I'm— I mean, I might be getting a phone call from Dick now, be like, hey, you're saying all kinds of wrong stuff. Which is fine. Yeah, we'll correct it next week.

We will get it right, we promise.

Scold me. Yeah, it was Kevin's fault. He brought it up.

Yeah, but we forgot to plug it last week, and so we wanted to plug it this week.

Um, and there's a bunch of other good shows on there too, so it's worth going and checking out. Yeah, so they— and you know, if you, if you live in our community, sure, um, you know, they're— they promote a lot of good community events. Yeah, absolutely.

But the top 5 Christmas techie things.

Yes.

We're going to talk about those, and not all of them are light-related, so spoiler alert.

Uh-oh.

Um, we have something on there that's— oh yeah, one specifically that's not light-related.

All the rest of them are.

Yeah, all of the rest of them in some form or fashion. Yeah, exactly. All right, well, let's, let's just, in no particular order, let's go with one.

Yeah, so right, right off the bat, um, let's go with some smart plugs.

Okay.

And, and one in particular stood out to us, and that's the, the BN-Link Wi-Fi-enabled outdoor smart plug. This thing is super cool. One, because most smart plugs nowadays are geared for indoor use, right? This one is specifically for outdoor use.

Yeah. And what, what makes that something like— why, why should I consider using an outdoor-only versus an indoor one that I've just got a lamp plugged into? I already own it.

Because, I mean, it'll short, it'll fry it. I mean, it's just— yeah, I mean, it's not built for the outdoor elements. This one's built for the outdoor elements and withstand rain and cold and all that, you know, all that kind of stuff and still be a smart device. Right. It's pretty cool because it's, it's a 3-prong outlet, so you can control up to 3 different devices. However, they're not independently controlled.

Not 3-pronged. They are 3-pronged, but there's 3 separate—

3 separate outlets, right?

Yeah. Sorry.

That's— yeah, that's probably a better way to put that. Yeah. 3 separate outlets, all of them 3-prong outlets.

Yeah, there you go.

Um, and the important thing there being that you can't independently control each outlet, so it's either on or it's off.

Sure, but that's mostly what you're going to be doing with this specific device.

Yes.

Right, like, like controlling or like telling it when to come on, when to— so no longer do you have to have a timer, correct, for example.

And well, Back up a little bit. There is an app that's associated with this, this particular plug, and you can set it as a timer. Sure, digital timer on your smartphone.

But that's so much easier than like programming those little dials.

Yes.

You know, and trying to figure out, am I in daytime or nighttime, AM, PM, military time? Yeah. And then I gotta— yeah, so making sure that the time is right, it's much easier using the app, right? But you're also going to be using it probably like with Alexa.

Yeah, it's voice. It's— yeah, it can completely connect with Alexa or Google Home.

Okay.

No other smart devices.

So not Apple, not Apple HomeKit.

I mean, the app obviously works on an Apple phone.

So you can use Siri, probably.

I don't know. It didn't say that.

Okay.

But I would imagine if the app works with it, you can probably activate it with Siri.

Okay.

But the example that they use in one of the videos we watched for this thing was actually turning on an outdoor projector to watch a movie.

Yeah.

Um, and, and so like, you know, you can use it for all kinds of different things outdoors. You know, our, our main purpose looking at it is just like setting up your Christmas lights outside, um, which, you know, and, and you saw our Christmas lights tonight. I mean, like, that can be like a whole production, um, which for us ends up being multiple timers. Um, and, and just because over the years we've accumulated different ones, some of them are like you know, light-sensitive timers. So like it, it goes on when at dusk, and the other ones are actually timers, and then some of them are remote activated. And it's just annoying because they never all come on at the same time, right? Um, because we have a lot of lights.

Sure, you do have a lot of lights. Um, but anyway, so you have a very long fence.

Yes.

And they're all on the fence.

Yeah. So that's how that works. It's an easy way to put up the lights, but it looks great. It's, it's a lot of lights.

Yeah.

Um, anyway, this was just a cool, cool option, one, to like And, and it has its own Wi-Fi broadcast, which I thought was pretty cool. Yeah. So yeah, you can connect it to a Wi-Fi, but it actually broadcasts its own Wi-Fi. So you don't necessarily need to be on a network to control it.

Right.

Which is cool. Yeah.

So not— I, I think again, the, the thing that makes this really nice is the ability to control it from inside the home.

Yes.

You don't have to worry about a lot of different things. A lot of these timers, honestly, you need an outdoor timer.

There's a difference. You can get a cheap timer, but it's not going to last.

Right. Investing in something like this, you don't have to just use it for Christmas lights.

Do you remember the price on this one? I think it was like $25 or something like that. Yeah, something like that. It wasn't expensive.

No, it wasn't too bad at all. you know, if you've got other things that you want to control outside that you're plugging in, right, throughout the year, whatever it might be, this would work well for that.

Yeah, and we'll put up a link in the show notes for the— to like an Amazon, uh, where you can— because I think that was where we found it, was on Amazon. And I, I, I don't think I'm wrong, I think that was about $25.

Yeah.

Um, but all— and just, just in conjunction with that 2 of the smart plugs, and we've talked in the past about the Caseta smart plug, which is very, very helpful, but probably not as cost-benefit for this application doing Christmas lights. 'Cause I mean, that smart plug I think is like $50.

Yeah.

For like an indoor one, you can get like a Wemo or an Amazon smart plug. I think they're like $20.

They're not too bad at all.

That would be really good for doing the lights on the Christmas tree. If you have any other additional indoor decorations that require power and you don't want them on all the time, you can use those smart plugs to set those up on timers as well as voice control those, control them through apps, which just makes it easier to— or you can scare your children when you're not at home and just randomly turn on that Christmas train.

Again, you can easily make your lights smarter by adding a smart plug.

For not very much money.

Right.

Yeah. Um, and I think, I think a lot of these now even have, uh, like I know on mine, I can now do my lights off of my Apple Watch.

Oh, okay.

Um, so they're like, they have those applets for those as well, which is a lot of fun.

Are they called applets?

Is that what it— I think that's what it is.

Really?

I think so. Because they're not quite a full app.

They're a little, little tiny app. I never heard it called that, but I, you know, You're probably right. It sounds like something it would be called.

Yeah.

Okay. Anyway, moving on.

Yeah. The next one is actually one that you were telling me about.

Yeah. And so, so this is a really cool thing. Um, I, I've seen one of these before. Um, and, and basically what it is, is it is a way to, to virtually set up a— use a projector to virtually project, um, a little show through your window.

Right.

Okay, so, um, the, it, the, uh, the product is, is AtmosFX, and you can go to their website, atmosfx.com, and they've got lots of different options. They've got, um, the one we're looking at specifically is Christmas, but they've got stuff for Halloween, for New Year's. I mean, for pretty much any of the holidays you can think of. Yeah, they've got different things, but basically what you do is you you download this, um, this little file. It's a video file. It's a video file. That's all it is. And they're not very long. You know, they're, they're maybe a minute long. Uh, you can download it digitally or you can even have them mail you a DVD.

Um, and there, there's different options, but basically you, you take a sheet of some sort of, um, a canvas and put it up over your window, your exterior, you know, your exterior window, but you do it from the inside, and you set up a projector and you project this video onto your window. And so what it looks like is— and they have different ones, a couple of cool ones.

Um, I think we saw like a Santa.

Yeah, one of them is a Santa like delivering, uh, delivering his bag of presents under your tree. And so it looks like a silhouette of, of him, and he actually comes to the window and like peers out a little bit. And, um, this, this goes on a loop, and so people driving by house, it would look like Santa's delivering presents in your house, right? And, and they've got other ones, um, they've got some like a snowman.

Yep.

And then they've got, uh, some different like, uh, trees, like, like Christmas tree that—

Special effect trees.

Exactly. So there's other things like that. And I mean, the thing is like these video files are very inexpensive. Um, so I, I think it depends on which one you get. They're anywhere from about like $7 or $8 all the way up to like $25, but like the most expensive one's like $25. Yeah, and it's probably just a longer video. Yeah. And there's a couple of them that have different files in it. So maybe it's this Christmas tree or that Christmas tree or, you know, different couple of options.

So you might be able to buy like a bundle. Exactly. Okay.

And so all you really need is a window, like a big, big window, or it doesn't even have to be a huge window. I mean, it's a projector, so you project it however big you want it to be, but you have to have a window kind of facing the street, I would assume. Yeah. And a projector. And you can get— I mean, you can get an inexpensive projector. Um, goodness, you can find an inexpensive projector on eBay.

I mean, some of them are like $100.

Yeah, I mean, you don't have to spend a ton of money to get a projector to do what this is going to do. And, um, yeah, just set it up and put a sheet over your window to, to give it a surface to be on, and then you're able to project through it. So really, really cool. Um, they, they've got all the— like, if you, if you want to purchase their gear, um, you can buy their Like, you can buy a whole kit that has like their projector and, um, like the sheet that you put it up with and everything for $130.

That's not bad.

Yeah, so it's super inexpensive, uh, to do that. Or you can just go on and buy like the, the hologram, um, material that they recommend. It's like $40. Um, so different things like that. And then they've even got some, some of their stuff that have sound effects. Oh, um, and you can hook it up to like an outdoor speaker or something like that.

Um, man, what would Macaulay Culkin have given for that?

Gosh, that would—

yeah, I mean, it thwarted the white bandits a long time ago.

It's a whole new— I mean, he would just have to show like, you know, that movie from like projecting it onto his window. They would have never come in.

That's like when you showed this to me, that was my first thought. I was like, that looks like Home Alone.

Yeah, it'd be like, yeah, you filthy animal.

Like, yeah, someone, someone needs to do that. Internet land, come on. I mean, give us, give us the filthy animal scene, please, for the projector. Yes, Atmos, come on, you can do that.

That would be so awesome. So awesome.

Who wouldn't do that?

I, I would right now. I absolutely would.

Take my money, $130. You are not joking.

And like, the other thing is like There's some really cool stuff that, that these people are doing, like, they're especially for like some of their Halloween stuff, like they get some like 3D hologram stuff that makes it look like there are ghosts in your house.

Oh yeah, like I think I saw that where they're like hanging a sheet like in the middle of the hallway.

Yeah.

And yeah, that was cool.

Yeah, so, you know, and you can project this in, in various places, but anyway, specifically for Christmas, it's just kind of a neat little thing. When I remember the first time we saw it, we drove by, we're like, What is going on? Yeah, this is, this is amazing. And we would— we went to that house like multiple times during the Christmas holiday just to watch that little, you know, 30-second deal happen. So pretty, pretty cool. So, um, so yeah, Atmos FX.

Do you have to, do you have to go to their website in order to buy these?

Uh, yeah, you do. So we'll link that up as well. And, um, yeah, so you can hook yourself up if, if you don't have a projector. The projector that they have here for $130 with, with the kit, like, you could set up with that and a video for like $150.

Okay.

And if you own a projector already, you're just out of, you know, $20 or so.

Yeah.

Uh, to get, to get the video.

I'd be interested to see what, what kind of a screen they recommend. I mean, I imagine that's kind of a unique thing. Yeah. I mean, some of the holographic stuff.

Yeah. What they use is, um, like a, they call it a window projection material and it's so it's semi-transparent. Um, It's— it says it's, uh, it's, it's made from a woven fabric that provides excellent contrast and light diffusion. So, um, it's just kind of a— it's semi-transparent. So what that means is you can put it up over your window.

Still see out.

And still see out.

Yeah.

So it's different than putting up like a, like a white sheet, for example. Um, although I think you can do that. It's just, it's probably not going to be quite as translucent. as this material is.

Gotcha. Okay.

I just used the word translucent, like, in context, correctly.

You get a star.

Thank you. That's all I needed. All right, what we got next?

All right, next we got this really cool product called Twinkly.

Oh yeah.

Which is the manliest sounding product I've ever heard.

Yeah, but, but it's a really cool thing.

Yeah, so what, what these are, are they're basically LED lights for your Christmas tree, right? But they're smart Wi-Fi enabled pattern and picture lights. And what that means, and I don't even know how it works. I mean, I'm kind of befuddled by this, this whole thing. But it looks like you wrap these lights around your Christmas tree and then through their app, you can set up different shapes and patterns and pictures to actually appear on your Christmas tree.

Yeah, so you can make your Christmas tree look like a candy cane, for example.

Right.

And so it would project those colors in a circular pattern.

Yep.

But I don't know how it works.

I don't either.

I mean, because I don't know how, I mean, I don't know about you, but if you're stringing your own lights, I mean, it's gonna be hard to put those in a certain order.

Regular pattern, yeah.

So there's something that they talk to each other, like each of these lights must talk to each other.

There's gotta be something, either that or we're missing something about the instructions on these things, I don't know. We haven't bought it.

No.

We just saw how it works.

Yeah.

It looked neat.

It does look neat. It looks really, really neat.

So they actually have like, I think they have like 3 levels that you can actually buy, so there's like a small, medium, and large package.

Right.

And I think the smallest package starts out somewhere like around $59.

Right.

one, which is like 252 individual lights, is like $190. Um, and so they just all come ready to go out of the box, and you just wrap the tree. And then, like, I saw a picture of one with like a heart. They put the shape of a heart on the tree. Sure. I mean, like, it looks, it looks like maybe it's pre-programmed to do some of these things. Um, I don't know if they have additional content that you can download, um, but it looks really, really cool.

Yeah, it does. And, and there's a, there's something else that's, that's neat about these lights is that You know, you're— if you're wanting some smart lights for your tree to where, you know, we talked about a plug earlier, for example, these are smart lights in that you can program them to come on.

Right. You don't need that additional plug.

That's right. So it's got, it's got its own little device that controls all of that. So you might actually be saving a part that you might not have to buy additionally in order to make these work. And then this one specifically works with what Google Home, with Alexa, with IFTTT, and with HomeKit.

Which I don't know if you guys have noticed or not, but this is becoming a more growing trend with devices in your house. If it's not voice-activated with some other existing voice activation control module, it's probably not going to fly in the marketplace if it's going to be a tech device for the home.

Yeah. It's even interesting that some devices aren't using all of the platforms. You know, like, like maybe they're— I mean, almost everything works with Alexa, right? Like, that's kind of the gold standard. Um, and, and many of them are working with either Google HomeKit or— I mean, Google Home or Apple HomeKit. Um, but it's weird to me sometimes whenever they don't go cross-platform.

Well, I mean, just, just talking to some, some programming friends out there, I mean, like, you know, as, as, as much as you and I like Apple products, as a developer, apparently they're a pain to create products for.

Yeah, because you have to go through their approval process.

And to Apple's credit, I mean, like, they're really interested in protecting your personal privacy and personal data. And so that—

and their brand.

Yes. So, you know, there's that. But I mean, honestly, I mean, like, we have Alexa in our house and it works really, really well. Sure, sure. For a multitude of reasons.

But yeah, that's good. Kind of as a spin-off to that one, I want to mention that these are specifically— Twinkly is specifically indoor light lights.

Yes.

And you can use them, I guess, wherever you want to, but specifically they're, they're kind of meant for the tree. Um, but if you're interested in smart lights for your— for the exterior of your house, there's a product out there that we found called Lumen Play, right? It's L-U-M-E-N Play, and they basically do the same type of thing as far as giving you the ability to control the color of the lights, to control like a pattern if you want it to blink a certain time or flash.

Um, and I think some of these you can like synchronize with music.

You can.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah. And so, um, this again comes with an app, lets you do all of the, the work from, from your app. So these are, um, and again, these are indoor and outdoor lights, but the, the thing that makes these different is they're larger bulbs.

Okay.

And so they're, they're creating a different amount of output. It's probably not something you're going to put on your tree just because of the size. So if you're looking for exterior, like an an app-enabled light for your exterior, Lumen Play is going to be your, your go-to. Um, and if you're looking for something indoor for your tree, Twinkly, yeah, will be your—

I would imagine with something like what the, the outdoor light though, I mean, like one of the issues we have sometimes is that Wi-Fi getting beyond the exterior wall of the house. So unless you have like a good exterior signal booster or, you know, whatever, you know, a mesh system that reaches outside. Yeah. You know, it may be difficult to, to use something like that.

Sure.

Um, so just pay attention and, you know.

Yeah. And kind of know your system.

Yeah.

Like, is your house set up to do this?

Yeah. You know, so mine's just lined with metal.

There's that too.

So good luck reading my brain, corporations.

They're gonna figure it out.

Yeah. I don't know why they want to, but there's not much to read, y'all. Happy hunting.

Yeah, he's got smart children.

So, all right, so this next one are— and this is kind of like a cool new trend that I like. One, because I hate hanging lights on houses, but these, these outdoor projectors. Yeah. Have you seen these?

Yes.

They're super cool.

Yeah, it— yeah, they, they really are. And And, uh, they're— what's funny to me is like, you, you have to figure out a way to make this work on your house. So let's explain what it is. But like, we, we have a neighbor that can explain it.

Like, let me explain the science to you on this, Kevin.

No, but like, okay, so basically this is a light, right, that you put out in front of your home and it projects uh, all kinds of lights onto your house, right? And they're patterns or cut— like, you can do solid colors or you can do patterns or whatever. And we were even talking that Disney has some pretty cool ones. Yeah, um, they've got their own line and they'll project Disney images.

They're, they're a little steep, but I mean, so is everything else they do.

Uh, we, we use the word Disney, didn't we?

So we didn't get paid for it.

No, we didn't, unfortunately. Um, but like, I've got a neighbor that has one of these on the side of his house that he's got a really kind of a long side of his house. And, and so it only kind of— there's like this block on the side of his house that he's got these images projected on. I'm like, you probably need at least one more to kind of fill your house.

Or just back it up.

Yeah, because, yeah, because the neighbor across the street has like 3 and his whole house is like covered with these. projection lights.

Yeah, and they're cool because you can get different colors and like those images can actually like be, you know, a little animated and move around and do some different things. It's kind of like having a laser light show on your house.

Yeah, yeah, this is— that's a really good way to put it, a laser light show.

So, so all you really got to do is just take this one single unit.

Yes.

Jam it in the grass, plug it in, and you're good to go.

Good to go. And now again, You might need 2. But, um, that being said, they're, they're a super easy way to have a festive house, and they're pretty inexpensive for the most part.

Yeah.

So, um, so yeah, cool.

And I, uh, I think the cheapest one we saw online, uh, I think they're at Home Depot, like $17.

Yeah, super inexpensive. Yeah.

Or $100 for the Disney one.

Yeah, I mean, if you want— if you really want Mickey, I mean, I probably do.

Yeah, let's get you some Mickey.

Uh, yeah, that's just me though.

Dig deep into pockets.

The, the problem is I probably want it and my wife is like, we are not doing that.

It's either that or the Corvette.

I know, I, I, I, I gave you options. Yeah. So now this next one— is this our last one?

This is our last one.

I'm pretty excited about this. I may have to go buy one of these. Yeah. So, uh, it's a snow machine.

Snow machine.

Like a legit snow machine. Yeah, who, who would have thought that you would be able to buy a snow machine that's affordable, right? And actually create a snowscape in your house.

Because this thing, I mean, like the machine itself is like $50.

Yeah, it's not expensive at all. And they have, I mean, We found one that was obviously from Europe because it was in euros.

What do they know about snow?

Yeah, well, probably more than we do in Houston. Um, €40 buys you the device. Um, or we found some on Amazon that were, you know, around $85, right? But then you can buy them, they're like $200.

Okay, so it just kind of depends on, on the quality of the snow machine.

Yeah, a lot of it has to do with wattage output.

Okay.

And that, you know, probably how big the capacity is for— because the other thing you have to buy is you have to buy snow fluid.

Snow fluid.

So you put the fluid in the little, um, container, and that's what it uses to, to produce the snow. Um, and so some of those have different capacities on them, things like that.

But, um, we saw some reviews. I mean, it would last a long time.

Yeah, one of them we saw said, uh, guy put it up and he used it all Christmas Eve, all Christmas Day. So they used it for, you know, roughly 48 hours, uh, and he used a gallon of the snow. Yeah, the snow fluid.

And I think that's how they sell it, is by the gallon.

They sell it by the gallon.

And it was like $25.

Yeah, the one that we found on Amazon was $25 for the gallon.

So I mean, you're roughly looking at like $75 to get snow. Yeah, for 48 hours, right? Yeah, give or take a day.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Who knows?

I mean, like, who knows? But I mean, I— we, we were watching some videos.

It looks pretty cool.

It looks pretty cool. Like, you can put it up on like your roof and, and have it snowing off of your roof, right?

Yeah, and I actually read like a lot of people who were— had bought this and were reviewing the product said that they bought it to put it on, um, like Uh, a cart they were doing for a parade. So they had snow on there coming off of their, you know, what do they call those things?

A float.

A float.

Thank you. Okay, it's late.

I'm not, not a big parade guy. Yeah, didn't, didn't take that class in college.

We actually went to a Christmas parade last weekend.

Oh yeah?

It was fun. It was good.

Were there floats?

There were floats.

Okay.

And now that you say it, I think one of them had snow.

Nice.

Yeah, now I, I just now remembered that. And I, I remember thinking to myself, I wonder how they did that. I bet they did it this way.

Probably. Yeah, it's pretty cheap. I mean, pretty— not cheap, I mean, but like it's an affordable way to like do kind of a cool effect, right? Um, what if you're just having a party, you want to, you know, put that little extra Zing. Yeah, a little pep, a little zip in your party.

It changes the mood for sure. Yeah, yeah.

Or just, you know, occupy, you know, attention-starved children or adults. Johnny, can you get all the snowflakes?

Right? I bet you can't.

I'm on it, Dad.

Yeah, exactly. But anyway, so yeah, I may have to get one of these. Super cool.

So it's either Mickey, snow machine, twinkly lights, virtual Santa, and a smart plug.

Yes. Or a Corvette.

An owl-infested Corvette with cocaine-laced seats. I mean, her choice.

But both sound awesome.

I mean, one's gonna have better stories.

Yeah, exactly. We'll let her make up her mind which one has better stories.

There you go. It's all up to you, Kim.

Yeah, it's up to you.

Not that you listen.

No, she hasn't listened to an episode yet.

She's your biggest fan.

Maybe not. She does love me.

All right.

But probably not enough to listen to the podcast. She's like, I don't, I don't do stuff with the house.

The love has found its bound.

Yeah, although I was telling her about our episode from last week. About the cleaning episode. And then she was like, yeah, I want one of those. And she meant a house cleaner.

Oh, not a podcast. No.

Okay, well, it's a house cleaner. So, uh, who knows, she might listen to that one.

Well, there you go. Merry Christmas.

Yeah, we'll see. I'm not holding my breath, I'll still put it that way.

Um, oh man. Well, I, I, I think that's it, man. Those are our top 5 Most techie Christmas Yuletide-y things that we could come up with. So yeah, root off it on over to your favorite internet store and, and get one of these. We'll have all the links up in the show notes for you guys if you want to just— And, and by the way, like every, every week, um, I know it's not necessarily to look at the show notes like via an app or anything like that, but if you want to be on our mailing list, we, we do a weekly email blast, let everybody know that there's a new episode. We also put the show notes and all the links to everybody's social and media stuff. And, and so people, if you

want that information, you know, just send us a note, say, hey, I want to be on the mailing list. or you can go to the website and I think you can sign up there. If not, we'll fix that.

Yeah, we can. And I mean, I put a lot of effort into those show notes.

Yeah.

It takes me like 10 minutes to write those things.

Right. And that's like after the team of monkeys says—

Exactly.

And so we got to go through and like, you know, fix their grammar.

Right.

Punctuation. And you know, it's not always in English. So nope, Kevin's got the lex— the monkey lexicon. Um, so yeah. Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a tough job, man.

It's a thing.

I'm glad you're doing it.

Well, someone has to. Yeah. So, uh, anything else?

No, I mean, just hit the subscribe button, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, um, you know, whatever app you want to listen to us on. Yeah.

And, you know, maybe you have an idea for an episode. Let us know. Sure. info@homeownershow.com. You can get us on Facebook as well.

And if it's a really bad idea, we'll just be happy to chastise you openly and publicly on the show. Sure.

Yeah, either way, by name, unless you leave us a review, in which we won't do that.

We'll be sugary sweet.

That's right. So go do that, please send us a review one way or the other. Uh, but yeah, seriously guys, thank, thanks you, thank you for, uh, for downloading this episode and, and supporting the podcast. And, uh, you know, we're gonna be here every Tuesday even through the holidays. So, uh, check us out, subscribe, enjoy your listening time, whether it's at your home or in your drive, whatever works for you. Until then, we'll see you next Tuesday.

See ya!