Red and white outdoor Christmas lights are perfect for this time of year. With their classic candy cane colors, they add a subtle Christmassy vibe without being too ‘in-your-face’ (although we do love bold, bright holiday lighting too).
As you can see in the above example, red and white lights cast a warm glow on your home, and they look fantastic in the run-up to Christmas. Here’s how to achieve them using our Gemstone Lights app, as well as some more ideas for traditional Christmas lighting.
How to Create Red and White Outdoor Christmas Lights
To create a classic red and white lighting pattern for Christmas, you can download one of our pre-made patterns or create a custom pattern. It’s super easy to do!
- Tap the folder in which you’d like to keep the pattern. This might be a specific ‘Holiday’ folder, for example.
- Tap ‘Create a Pattern’ – this will open the pattern builder screen.
- Select an animation for your lights. Would you like them to flash, flicker, or be still? We’d recommend the animation Sway. It creates a gentle flickering and works well with two-color patterns.
- Choose the direction you want your pattern to move in.
- Choose your colors! Using the Gemstone Lights app, choose a hex color – this allows you to get very specific. We’d recommend #ff0000 for a classic red, or #d31313 for a darker, richer shade. For white, you can’t go wrong with #ffffff.
- Adjust the brightness using the slider. It’s easy to always change this later if you dislike the brightness levels.
- Tap ‘Play’ – this will give you a preview of how the lights will look.
- Click ‘Save,’ and then your pattern is good to go!
We’d recommend playing around with animations, shades, and brightness until you find the combination you love. Just head into your saved patterns and adjust them at any time.
If you prefer a bolder animation, you could try something like ‘Chase,’ which makes your lights chase each other around the building; you can experiment with your track lights to figure out which one works best for you;
Other Classic Holiday Lighting Ideas
While we love candy cane red and white – it definitely evokes the feeling of a classic, nostalgic Christmas – there are other options if you like the feeling of a traditional Christmas.
Twinkling Warm White
A classic! You can’t go wrong with gently twinkling, warm white lights. At Gemstone Lights, we pride ourselves on our true warm white. It creates a soft, comfortable glow that feels lovely to come home to.
Pair a warm white with the animation ‘Sway’ for a gentle, soft flickering that feels magical and welcoming.
Whether you’re using it alone or you’re using it in a pattern with festive red lights, warm white makes your home look extra cozy for the holidays.
Red, White, and Green
Simply adding some green to your red and white pattern can create a bit of variety and make a nice change! We’d recommend using this classic color combo with the animation ‘Chase.’ It’s a fun pattern in which the colors chase each other around your home. This still looks traditional but adds a fun vibe that is great for welcoming guests to your Christmas parties.
Starry Winter Night
While we love warm white, cool white is perfect for creating some Christmas magic on a cold winter night. To recreate this look, simply pair three cool, slightly dimmer white lights with one brighter one. This creates a bold, twinkling look that will remind you of a starry Christmas night. This is another look that suits the animation Sway for a soft twinkle, or pick Motionless for still lights that look stunning.
This is a beautiful lighting pattern to use when you have guests coming; it makes your home super easy to spot, and it looks lovely from afar as well as up close. If you’re missing the festive vibe that comes from red, you can use a red light in place of the dimmer white ones, like the example above.
Blue and Red
This is a modern twist on a Christmas classic. While blue and white reminds us of a snowy landscape, blue and red is an interesting twist – the deep wine red and icy blue create a stunning look that you can’t help but notice from afar. The contrast is beautiful, and it’s a good option if you’re bored of the classic options.
Go for a blue like #739BD0, a lovely cool color, and contrast it with a rich red or cool white. We’d recommend a pattern like Chase or Pulse, which ‘breathes’ in and out your chosen colors.
Frequently Asked Questions
Question: Can I put Christmas lights on a timer?
Answer: Yes, it’s easy to do this. In fact, if you’d like to switch between different lighting patterns for specific events (or you just fancy changing things up a little), just pick a different lighting pattern for each day, and have them switch on automatically.
This is great if you want flashier lights for the weekend, for example, but a warm twinkling white for weekdays so your family can come home to warmth and comfort.
Question: Can I switch my lights on while I’m not home?
Answer: Yes. It’s simple to use the app to switch on your lights before you even get home or even if you’re away visiting friends or relatives. As long as you’re connected to the internet, our cloud-based app allows you to adjust your lights from afar. Multiple members of the same household can control the lights if they install the app on their phone, too.
Question: How much does it cost to run permanent outdoor lights?
Answer: According to our calculations, our smart lights cost around $4.43 per month. This is based on an average-sized home running the lights for 6 hours a day (you can read this post to find out how we worked this out).
Our LED bulbs are energy-efficient – they don’t lose a ton of energy via heat loss, so they’re economical to run and better for the planet.
To Sum Up…
Permanent outdoor lights are fantastic because it’s easy to switch them up at any time without having to manually swap them out. We love seeing our customers’ creative Christmas lighting; it’s the perfect time of year to play around and have fun! Whether you’re going for classic red and white or something unusual like ice blue and wine red, you can play around until you find something you love.
If you want to find out more, contact one of our Authorized Dealers for a quote, and we can get the ball rolling.