Ah, the holiday season—time to drag out last year’s tangled mess of twinkly lights, only to discover that half of them have mysteriously stopped working and require an obscure bulb that's no longer sold. But with our pick of Matter-compatible festive lighting, you can brighten these dark days and have the neighborhood's most impressive, sparkly, and multicolored house.
What to look for in smart holiday lighting
Mounting and effect
First and foremost, what effect are you looking to achieve, and where do you want to mount them? String lights are great for trees and other temporary installations where you need that traditional twinkly holiday light feel. Govee even offers smart icicle lights if you want something a little more impactful. Neither of these can be left out year round, but they can be used inside and outside temporarily, and offer the greatest flexibility with how to mount them.
For year-round use, permanent outdoor lights can illuminate your entire home and be used for all kinds of events, but may not fit the traditional idea of holiday lighting. They look more architectural in design with a distinctive triangular lighting profile — and require significantly more effort to fix to your home structure; you may need to hire a professional to fit them. Permanent outdoor lights look best if they can be mounted around 6-12 inches away from the wall, which may not always be possible.
Matter-compatibility: Nice to have, but you'll still need an app
While everything on our list is Matter-compatible, it's worth noting that the Matter protocol restricts you to only a subset of what these lights are capable of. You will still need to use the manufacturer’s app to access any dynamic scenes, as Matter only allows for single color control and brightness across the entire fixture. Matter does offer a very useful way to power on or off remotely, as well as automate without the use of a mechanical power switch, but other functionality is limited.
Thankfully, you don’t need to choose one or the other: you can use both Matter and the manufacturer's app. Just don't try to control the colors through Matter, and your scene selections in the manufacturer’s app will be saved when you power off.
Nanoleaf Essentials Matter Smart Multicolor Outdoor String Lights
Nanoleaf Essentials Matter Smart Multicolor Outdoor String Lights Smarter Kit with Addressable RGBICW LED Bulbs
Govee Christmas Sparkle Lights (66ft)
Customizable RGBWIC string lights that create starlike illumination with individually mapped LEDs, dynamic scenes, and AI-generated effects.
Your existing ecosystem
Although the whole point of Matter is to provide compatibility between devices from different manufacturers and ecosystems, as mentioned, the features exposed through Matter are very limited. If you’ve already bought into one system, you should stick with it to create coherent displays across multiple products. Having five different apps to control your lights is not fun (believe me, I have an entire folder on my phone just for lighting!)
For instance, both Govee and Philips Hue offer ways to use string lights as a bias light for your TV, but you'll need compatible hardware like TV with the Hue app, or the Govee AI Sync Box.
The best holiday string lights
Govee Christmas Sparkle String Lights
It's hard not to call the Sparkle lights a spiritual successor to the Christmas String Lights 2, retaining all the brilliant features like Matter-compatiblity and shape recognition support for your Christmas tree, which enables pattern mapping regardless of how you laid the lights on the tree. Read our review of the Govee Sparkle string lights.
The "Sparkle" is all about the way the LEDs are mounted on the string. On the Christmas String Lights 2, they were just embedded on the cable, and looked dimmer from the other side. It was far from a traditional Christmas twinkle. For the Sparkle lights, Govee has adopted a diffused white LED housing that protrudes out from the cable — just as you'd imagine Christmas tree fairy lights to be!
Nanoleaf Smart Holiday String Lights
Currently on sale if you buy direct from Nanoleaf, we think $75 for 300 smart fairy lights (78ft) is a great deal, though the regular price is $150. We think the Nanoleaf app is easier to use than Govee's, and you can still do screen mirroring via the Nanoleaf desktop app (though of course, that requires a computer), and well as share and download other user's scene creations.
The best permanent holiday lighting
Govee Permanent Lights Prism
Launched in September 2025, the Prism switches up the now ubiquitous permanent outdoor light style by breaking each LED module into three, each angled slightly differently and with individual pixel control. Not only does it allow for more dynamic scenes, it can also be used to create a kind of false motion effect that looks similar to a moving head club lighting. If you thought the Permanent Outdoor Lights looked a little too static, these might be of interest.
For the time being, the Prism design is unique on the market, though just as with the original Permanent Outdoor Lights, we expect by this time next year competitors will have launched their own versions. As a new and more complex product, it's priced a litte premium over the standard Permanent Outdoor Lights ($400 for 100ft), and if you want the absolute brightest output, stick with the Permanent Outdoor Lights Pro.
The only downside is that as Govee’s product selection has grown in complexity, so has their app. It can be quite daunting for a beginner who just wants some pretty Christmas lights!
Govee Permanent Outdoor Lights 2
Not bothered about that unique three-LED module design? Then you can't beat the value of these Permanent Outdoor Lights 2, at $200 for 100ft of lighting (with each 50ft section containing 36 modules). You get all the incredible Govee features, music-reactive scenes, and even DreamView compatibility if you want your house to change color according to what you were watching on TV. I'm not saying you should, by the way, just that you can.
Govee Permanent Outdoor Lights Prism
Best Price
Also available at
Govee Permanent Outdoor Lights 2 (30.48M)
Best Price
Govee RGBWWIC Permanent Outdoor Lights Pro
Best Price
Nanoleaf Permanent Outdoor Lights
At $330 for a similar 100ft with 60 LED modules, Nanoleaf is a fair chunk more expensive than Govee, but the app is easier to use, and they have an elegant mounting system that slides over to hide the screws, as well as a cable track. At 50 lumens maximum brightness per module, they're functionally very similar to Govee, so it may ultimately come down to which you're already invested in.
Maybe avoid (and why)
Philips Hue Festavia String Lights
If you’re already invested in a full Hue home, the Festavia string lights are an obvious choice, and can even be synced to your entertainment zones. But for anyone else, the limited scene selection and lack of customization options mean there are better options available.
Technically, the Festavia lights run over Zigbee and are not compatible with Matter out of the box. However, with the addition of a Hue hub (which you almost certainly have if you're already using Hue), all your Hue lighting can be bridged to Matter. If you don’t already have a hub, the Festavia string lights are a bad choice for Matter compatibility—as well as coming in at a premium price, costing $120 for a mere 100 LED string (twice the price per LED of Govee’s offering).
Hue Festavia Permanent
Philips have also recently their own variety of permanent outdoor lights in the Festavia holiday line. However, it's not available in the UK, sold out in the US, and only just launched in Europe — so as yet there aren't any reliable reviews of the product, and this isn't a recommendation! Again, they are Matter compatible, but only with the use of the Hue bridge. It's priced at $430 for 150ft, though that has only 80 LED modules. There's little reason to buy this over the equivalent Govee or Nanoleaf offering.
LIFX Permanent Outdoor Lights
With a superb total output of 2700 lumens across 30 LED modules (90 lumens each for pure white mode), the standard pack covers 50ft for $200, but can be extended up to 200ft.
Unfortunately, they appear to be exclusive to Home Depot, and there's little in the way of hands-on reviews yet, so it's difficult to actually recommend them unless you're already keen on LIFX elsewhere.
What about Eufy?
Eufy offers a range of smart outdoor holiday lighting, but for some reason, has decided not to support the Matter standard. Instead, they’re all in on their “WonderLink” system, which allows your lighting to connect to your Eufy security camera with facial recognition, and change color based on who is at the door. I’m sure that's a feature consumers will value much more than cross-compatible smart home standards.
Which holiday lights to buy?
For one-off purchases, the products across manufacturers are broadly similar, all offering a variety of holiday scenes, such that your deciding factor might ultimately be which you can find a deal on. Govee is consistently the best value overall, though its newest products are creeping higher.
For creating music shows and coherent lighting scenes that can sync across products and throughout your home lighting fixtures, Govee is also our pick, shining above the rest with its range of integrations—despite the complexity of their app. But again, they all offer broadly the same features, so it's best to stick with the brand you already have if you're happy with those.
Consider also if you really need Matter support — there's a much bigger range of non-Matter compatible but still "smart" holiday lighting out there. Twinkly are the largest holiday lighting brand, with a far simpler app than either Govee or Nanoleaf, though roughly the same price. They support HomeKit, Alexa, and Google Home directly — just not Matter, for some reason.
