Twinkly Strings 600 LED RGB+White, LED Light String, in- and Outdoor Smart Multicolor LED Lights, Mappable LEDs, Compatible with Alexa, and Google Home, IP44, Black Wire, 157.5ft

I have been buying cheap, basically disposable, colored and white light strings for years. But when I saw these on my stepson's Xmas tree, I had to have them! His cost a small fortune just a few years ago, but these were on sale, just a bit above the cost of buying enough multiple sets to try to achieve the same effects. I bought the 400-led set (still on sale at the time of this review posting), which I found quite sufficient to light up my 7 1/2 ft. tree. I read some older negative reviews before buying - but seeing these in action (on my stepson's tree) sold me anyway...The lighted lenth is 105 ft., divided onto two strings connected by the power cord/transformer, This worked out great for me - I just put the transformer near the center of the tree and took one strand toward the top, and the other toward the bottom. You connect the lights to the app via Bluetooth first, but then switch to wifi. I found the app easy to use - and addicting to play with! The app enables you to control blink rate, led color and intensity, even lets you set up wave-like patterns which oscillate side to side or top to bottom (assuming you want that). You can also pick from a fairly bewildering assortment of pattern options, including recognizable flags and faces; to do that, you need to use your phone's camera in the app, so that it knows how you arranged the lights on the tree.For our tree, I picked a random color, slow-blinking option, which we customized for blink speed and light intensity - the slow blink setting with random color / random on-off lights results in a twinkling effect, something I was looking for.... And these are very bright - our current setup has the power level at 17%. Once you've settled on a custom lighting set-up, you can save it in the app - we saved two, one for me and one for my wife. After the lights were on the tree, the app setup and customizing our respective programs took less than 30 min. (and that included the argument about whose looked better)...I can't personally speak to reliability yet, but my stepson's have been working well for several years. These are indoor/outdoor lights, so I'm thinking of buying additional sets for some of my outdoor installations. In my opinion, these are well worth the money...

Someone asked if these lights are still worth getting, if you don't buy the curtain lights version: Yes! I hung my string, not curtain lights, across a balcony railing, 2 purposely uneven, crossing, swag designs; horizontal, only 1/3 the way down and while you won't get say, a Halloween pumpkin face or Christmas presents design with the string lights, you will get, even with the preset or download designs, many amazing patterns and sophsticated combinations of colors, besides being able to widely choose your own.So far, as I bought mine not long ago-except for the initial trying them out for different multicolor combinations, I have only used these for the month leading up to Halloween yet, and with just choosing 2 colors for October; orange and purple or just all orange or all purple, I did 2 weeks of changing the patterns each night, before I repeated any of them. One night I used the "Scanner" pattern on a dimmer light level of purple and with the lights just 1/3 the way down the railing, it gave the unintended but wonderful, abstract look of small misty purple ghosts going back and forth and fading out at the tail end as they go across the railing.As another review noted, the "fire" preset pattern, while it only shows flame shapes on the curtain lights version, on the string lights version, it shows a delightful and unexpected combination of colors that look very autumn-like.There is a wide choice of brightness or dimming levels, speed or slowness levels, along with the choice of manypatterns. There's a very wide choice of colors, including actual orange for Halloween, not just gold, and shades of purple, not just blue, but of course, shades blue and gold colors are available on this set, too.When you first start, you "map" the lights, by hanging them in any direction or pattern or way that you choose, then point and also scan-move your camera through the app, along your string, to get the entire string "mapped," until all lights turn a certain color, which may take a few times; no big deal, considering the results you get, after you're done and then can start choosing your colors and patterns.Once set, you can also change individual lights to the colors you want or choose from many presets or download colors and patterns made by other people. I tried out many color shades, tints and patterns, when my set arrived; even mapping them while they were still bundled and was amazed with the results, even then. The bundles come gathered with velcro straps; a nice touch.What could be improved?:Only 16 patterns at a time can be saved; a lot more would help.These lights, as coming with 2 strings attached to the works at the center instead at one end, is just plain weird. As they are long, I put that center at one end of my railing at the outlet, & then placed each string up on the railing going to the other end, one at a time along the railing to avoid tangling them.There are a few patterns included that don't let you change the colors for them; most give you many color options.I have not yet tried the timer, as it's fun to just point my phone at them outside while I'm inside as a remote, as they are close enough.I wish the setting where you can choose individual light colors had as the image of your lights configuration, one that could be enlarged on your phone to make it easier to hone in.These aren't major concerns and these dazzling lights are the best lights on the market, as of now-late 2022. I also have bought the current longest string version; 600 lights, for my Christmas tree later, and expect to be further amazed.This is an investment; costs more than other strings; worth it if they last. I changed from my previous light set, as that one, though it had many-not as many-very nice colors and patterns, quit after having them up, off and on, for not quite 2 fall-spring holiday seasons, so I wasn't going to get the same again and hope these ones are longer lived. I also wanted to be able to have my own choices with color combinations and dimmer levels.