The best Christmas lights

By Doug Mahoney

This post was done in partnership with The Sweethome, a buyer’s guide to the best homewares. When readers choose to buy The Sweethome’s independently chosen editorial picks, it may earn affiliate commissions that support its work. Read the full article here.

After spending over 60 hours researching Christmas lights, interviewing experts, and testing 20 strands of lights side by side, we’ve found that GE’s Energy Smart Colorite LED Miniature Lights (available in multicolor strands of 50 bulbs or 100 bulbs and in warm white strands of 50 bulbs or 100 bulbs) are the best all-around indoor Christmas lights. This is the third year we’ve named these GE lights as our pick, and we can’t find any lights that match their color quality and their ready availability at Home Depot.

How we picked and tested

Ready to begin testing. Photo: Doug Mahoney

We concentrated our research and testing strictly on nonblinking miniature lights, the traditional, small, stranded Christmas lights with a clear or semiclear bulb and a candle shape. They’re the standard, and we wanted to focus on the lights that most people will be using, rather than those with a lesser following. Still, we do have some thoughts on larger-bulb lights, and on other bulb sizes that didn’t make the cut in our full guide. During our research, we also found that blinking lights are a very small minority of available lights, so we stayed with the type that remains lit at all times.

Once we dug into our options, we soon realized that our recommended lights would be fully rectified LEDs and not traditional incandescents. They’re more durable, they’re safer, and you can connect together a much higher number of strands without any risk of tripping a breaker or a GFCI outlet. There’s no question that LEDs cost more than incandescents (they’re at least twice the price), but we believe that the long-term benefits are worth that added cost. For more on the different types of LED lights, check out the How we picked and tested section of our guide.

In selecting the strands we wanted to test, we searched both larger online retailers and specialty retailers that deal only in Christmas lights. We dismissed companies that had overall poor reviews, strange or incomplete bulb selections, or suspiciously low pricing.

To evaluate the lights, we wound and unwound them, draped them over and into Christmas trees and rhododendrons, and tucked them in and out of deck railings. Basically, we tried to use the lights how they’re intended to be used. We tested the weather impermeability of the exterior lights by plugging them in and sinking the strands of lights into a 3-gallon bucket of water. Though this test was a bit extreme, it’s certainly possible that any set of exterior lights will end up in a puddle or draped in a gutter. We also assessed each strand for color quality, using a high-quality incandescent strand as a benchmark.

Our pick for indoor lights

GE’s incandescent (top) and LED (bottom) strands. Photo: Doug Mahoney

The best lights for indoor use are GE’s Energy Smart Colorite LED Miniature Lights, which are available in multicolor (50 bulbs or 100 bulbs) and warm white (50 bulbs or 100 bulbs). These bulbs offer all the benefits of LED lights, including high durability, zero heat output, and a long life expectancy, but one attribute sets them apart: Of everything we tested, GE’s Colorites came the closest to replicating the glow of incandescents. This was particularly true with the warm white bulbs, which were impressive in their color quality. These lights also have a nice wire that’s easy to handle and to drape through a tree or railing. And unlike some other LEDs, they don’t flicker.

The GE lights have sold out quickly the past two years, so if that happens again, we recommend Christmas Designers’s T5 Smooth LED Lights (available in warm white, multicolor, or solid color).

Our pick for outdoor lights

The Christmas Designers 5mm Wide Angle Conical LED (top) and the regular GE Colorite LED (bottom). Photo: Doug Mahoney

For outdoor use, we recommend the 5mm Wide Angle Conical LED Lights from Christmas Designers. They are available in warm white, multicolor, or solid colors in a variety of lengths and bulb spacings (note that the 50-bulb lengths have a bulb spacing of 6 inches, not the more traditional 4-inch spacing of the 35-, 70-, and 100-bulb strands). The odd shape of the 5 mm bulb gives a lot of depth when seen from a distance. Depending on how you view the bulb, the light emits a different level of brightness. That combined with their warm colors makes them perfect for just about anywhere outdoors, including a window box, a tree, a wreath, or a roofline.

Like other LEDs, these lights cost more than incandescents, but because they’re specifically designed to withstand long-term exposure to moisture, your investment will be protected if they end up drooping into a puddle or a wet gutter. They also have a clean and tight wire, which in our tests made handling, hanging, and storing them easy. And because their electrical requirements are so low, you can connect a whopping 43 strands and run them on a single outlet before worrying about tripping a breaker; this reduces the need for extension cords, which can be a big hidden cost with larger exterior displays.

If our outdoor pick is sold out, we recommend Christmas Lights Etc’s Wide Angle 5mm LED Lights as a runner-up.

Our pick for incandescent lights

If you’re not ready to let go of the distinctive and traditional look of incandescents for indoor use, we recommend both the multicolored and white versions of Christmas Designers’s Incandescent Christmas Lights. These lights offer a great color quality that’s noticeable, particularly with the multicolor strand. In our tests the wires were tight and organized, and once we stretched them out, they lay flat and straight with no issues.

The rich hues of the Christmas Designers multicolor strand, especially the yellow-orange bulb, stood out against the competition. If there is a flaw to these lights, it’s simply that they’re incandescents: They won’t last as long as LED lights and will draw much more power.

This guide may have been updated by The Sweethome. To see the current recommendation, please go here.

Note from The Sweethome: When readers choose to buy our independently chosen editorial picks, we may earn affiliate commissions that support our work.

Computer vision may help the blind see the world

The world is getting better at combining machine learning and computer vision, but it’s not just cars and drones that benefit from that. For instance, the same technology could be used to dramatically improve the lives of people with visual impairments, enabling them to be more independent. One of the startups looking to do just that is Eyra, which is showing off a wearable called Horus that could help the blind “see.”

I got to try out the prototype hardware at TechCrunch Disrupt, and while the design is close to being done, the current device is still rough around the edges. The starting point is a pair of Aftershokz bone-conduction headphones with a camera module attached to the right hand side. The module contains two FHD mobile cameras roughly a centimeter apart which kinda/sorta hangs off the side of your head.

The headset is connected via a microUSB cable to a black plastic box the size of about half a paperback book. Nestled inside is NVIDIA’s Tegra K1 chip and a battery capacious enough to sustain the device for a full day of use. Unlike other visual aids we’ve seen, Horus is designed to all of its processing locally, so you’re not left at the mercy of your wireless connection when out and about.

Horus is currently designed to read pieces of text, identify objects or recognize the faces of the people that you’re speaking to. You need to select which option you’re going to use with three menu buttons on the box (each one a different shape, for ease of use) and then select. If you want to have a book read out to you, select the option and then move the tome up towards the glasses. Audio cues will move from left to right to guide you into the right position for the camera to automatically trigger.

After a short pause, as the system crunches the data, it’ll begin reading out what you’ve just snapped in a synthetic voice. It’s not perfect by any stretch, but it’s certainly smart enough to be able to let you read any book, magazine or newspaper as long as the font is legible. The system will also recognize objects and faces, although both will need to be trained before it’ll reliable enough to launch. In our demo, we were able to get it to read out a new magazine article and it could differentiate between Diet Pepsi and its full-fat equivalent.

The startup was created by a pair of students from the University of Genoa who were looking to develop a computer vision system. While their research was centered around enabling robots to navigate, they found the technology had other applications. In the subsequent two years, they’ve been working on producing a portable version of the gear, and think that they’re getting close to completion. In the future, the device is also expected to offer up scene description that’ll offer users a greater ability to “see.”

Should the pair secure the necessary funding, Horus will be released at some point in the near future, although it’ll be pretty pricey. The creators feel like the device will retail for something between €1,500 and €2,000 Euro, although if it can deliver on its promise, it may be money well spent.

Source: Eyra

BMW remotely locks a thief inside a car

Here’s an unexpected perk of owning a tech-savvy car: it can serve as an impromptu jail. When a Seattle-area BMW 550i owner’s car was stolen from a parking garage, police got BMW to remotely lock the luxury sedan while the thief was sleeping inside with the motor running. The culprit briefly tried to drive away when police woke him up, but it’s not as if he could get very far being trapped in the cabin.

This sort of incident isn’t very likely to happen, as you might have gathered. The thief only got in because a friend borrowing the 550i had left a key fob inside, and it’s not very common that a thief is foolish enough to sleep inside a car shortly after the theft (especially with the engine on). Still, this shows how much riskier it is to swipe a car in the modern era. Even if crooks get past the initial security, they can easily be caught if they’re known to be inside the vehicle. Let’s just hope that hackers and less-than-upstanding authorities don’t abuse this power.

Via: CNET

Source: Seattle.gov

Bay Area Apple Stores Experience String of Robberies

A robbery at an Apple Store in Palo Alto over the weekend has continued a string of Apple Store-related burglaries plaguing the Bay Area over the past few weeks. In Palo Alto, the University Avenue Apple Store was targeted by between eight and ten individuals who drove a rented SUV directly into the store’s floor-to-ceiling glass front, and made away with an unspecified amount of iPhones, iPads, “and other gadgets on display.”

The SUV used to crash into the Apple Store was subsequently disabled due to the purposeful wreck, and the thieves had to escape on foot. Since the event, which occurred early Sunday morning, four suspects have been arrested.

Image via The Mercury News

“This was a pretty brazen act,” said Palo Alto police Sgt. James Reifschneider said, “when somebody breaks their way into a business after hours and uses a vehicle to force their way into a store.”

Elsewhere in and around San Francisco, since October there have been three Apple Store thefts within San Francisco itself, three in Berkeley, three in Burlingame, one in Los Gatos, and one in Corte Madera. These eleven crimes are all believed to be linked, with similar descriptions of the perpetrators connecting each robbery: “a group of young men in their late teens or early 20s wearing hooded sweatshirts.”

The hooded thieves were said to rush into each Apple Store and “in about 45 seconds” stole upwards of $20,000 worth of iPhones and iPads tethered to their display tables. The Apple Store on Chestnut Street in San Francisco was hit on Black Friday and again the following Tuesday, at nearly the same time the Apple Store on Stockton Street was robbed. The frequency and “brazenness” of each robbery has lead to increased security in front of most Apple Stores in each area.

“It just keeps happening,” said Burlingame resident Angelina Bruno. “It’s really strange to feel that unsafe in a town that used to feel so safe.”

The Palo Alto theft is not connected with these other crimes, according to local police. Local news channel KTVU reached out to Apple for a comment, but Apple spokesperson Nick Leahy said “we don’t comment on matters of security.”

It should be mentioned that in any Apple Store robbery, all of the devices that make it out of the store’s Wi-Fi range become useless thanks to Apple’s built-in security measure that bricks each smartphone and tablet.

Tags: San Francisco, Apple Store
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