Need help inventing a wireless set of Smart Ornaments...

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Cindylouwho

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I know we have some serious Christmas Light pros on this board. Can someone help me with this? I have googled and YouTubed and can't seem to find what I'm looking for. I can't believe it does not exist. This idea MUST be out there.

I'd like to make a set of approximately 10" "WIRELESS" LED ornament lights that I can jam like little beach balls into the center of my extremely thick pre-lit christmas tree to give the tree more depth? The wireless is the imporant part. I want to be able to either USB charge them or put them on a battery pack so they each are their own little creatures -- not something on a wire strand that I have to wrangle.

Right now our pre-lit tree has the lights on the "outside" and we have to work very hard to wrestle additional lights to the center of the trunk because of all the built-in wires and "stickiness" of the branches. We've had this battle a few years now and I have this vision of what I want - just can't figure out the tools I need.

Thinking maybe Smart Bulbs could come into this so I could change their colors? (That might be getting pricey so not sure).

Has anyone on this board already invented this?

(This is coming from a person who spent years decorating Nobles -- wrapping them from trunk to tip with twinklers. Only reason I'm not still doing that is because of the blight that took out the Nobles in our area. That and we were constantly worrying about burning the house down with the tree's proximity to our wood stove).

Hope I'm putting this in the right forum. :-S. :)
 
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sweetpumkinpye

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I am the least tech savvy person I know.
Not sure what tech stores you have near you. My hardware warehouse (Lowes etc) have an area of wireless "smart" devices. Maybe give them a try.
 
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Cindylouwho

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I have a couple Smart Bulbs already in the house. We gave them as gifts to the teens last year. Have not had a lot of luck finding knowledgable sales people this season but yes, maybe one of them could help. Was thinking there had to be a good Christmas Pyrotechnic in our midst!
 
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Myron's Mom

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I am not your tech person for sure lol. Could you take the battery operated fairy lights and put them in a clear ornament (like they sell at $tree, hobby lobby etc)? I’ve not seen USB lights but I wonder if they sell them on qvc or hsn.
The place where we bought our pre-lit trees also fixes them. I wonder if a place like that could add lights to your tree. I’m thinking that could be expensive though.
 

sweetpumkinpye

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Our tree needed more lights in the Center as well. What i did was add a string of lights to each section. By doing each section separately all I have to do is plug them in/or unplug them at each section. This way they can simply stay on the tree.
This is a brilliant idea!!!!
 
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MinnieCo

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Our tree needed more lights in the Center as well. What i did was add a string of lights to each section. By doing each section separately all I have to do is plug them in/or unplug them at each section. This way they can simply stay on the tree.
Yeah, all my trees have additional lights strung in the middle. It makes all the difference in giving the tree depth.
 

Cindylouwho

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Yeah, all my trees have additional lights strung in the middle. It makes all the difference in giving the tree depth.
Our tree needed more lights in the Center as well. What i did was add a string of lights to each section. By doing each section separately all I have to do is plug them in/or unplug them at each section. This way they can simply stay on the tree.
 

Cindylouwho

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Nov 4, 2007
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Our tree needed more lights in the Center as well. What i did was add a string of lights to each section. By doing each section separately all I have to do is plug them in/or unplug them at each section. This way they can simply stay on the tree.
This is was I ended up doing last year. It worked but was quite the project due to the sticky nature of our specific fake tree. Lights don't slide in and out of the branches easily like they do on real trees. Lots of wrestling involved! We left our lights on as well but I'm trying to recreate these wonderful "ornament lights" that I had years ago that were on a string. Mine died and they are no longer in production. They really made the tree pop and I miss them. Was thinking I could invent something wireless to toss into the dark sections. I'll check out that USB that Myron's Mom mentioned and see if there is an idea there. (Glad I'm seeing this thread now to remind me so I have time to track it down!) :)
 

Lori K

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Another option might be to hang some plain shiny silver, gold, or red ornaments on the inside, as they will reflect the lights on the outside of the tree, adding light and looking like there are more lights on the tree than there actually are.
 

Cindylouwho

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I
Another option might be to hang some plain shiny silver, gold, or red ornaments on the inside, as they will reflect the lights on the outside of the tree, adding light and looking like there are more lights on the tree than there actually are.
I FORGOT about this part. Just went back and looked at my photos. Last year when all the ornaments went on sale right before Black Friday I stocked up on the large ones.. Honestly I bought a ridiculous number of huge ornaments. and crammed them into the center of the tree. It helped reflect light, but still didn't nail the depth I'm looking for. Reminds of something that I did pull off though that turned out to be pretty cool. Still working on it.... But since I couldn't find cluster lights I bought a spool of wire and strung 4-5 different color of ornaments (size of a man's fist maybe) and stung them together. Just twisted the ends so I could maneuver them easily. Then I shoved them into various spots on the tree and rearranged them based on the colors I wanted to see in each spot. It turned out pretty cool. It became a whole family convo as to what color them we were going with. Included some chestnut browns which was neat.

Still working on the lighting part. I'm looking at these rechargeable LED candles/votiives I bought on Amazon to replace my sets that sucks up all my AAA batteries and am thinking I might be able to pop these little guys into ornaments and light them up. It has a remote that comes with it. Technology is marching along. More pondering.
 
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