What is Twinkly?

Twinkly is an Italian company that has packaged programmable (color changing) holiday lights into a consumer-friendly format combined with their app that allows you to control everything from your smartphone. Consumer grade Twinkly light sets generally include the lights, controller (based on ESP32 chipset) and 24 volt power supply — so you don’t need to think about what components to buy like you would with Pixels. They come in many formats, including string lights, icicles, curtains, light trees, and more. They also come in a “Twinkly Pro” version aimed at the commercial market (I have not tried these). Probably the coolest trick they can do is you can put the strings on any tree/bush/whatever and use your phone camera to map the lights in 3D space. The resulting model can be used to create effects on the object such as candy cane stripes or whatever you want, regardless of how you strung the lights. Luckily, these models can be imported into xLights for use in light shows. Twinkly lights are smaller and lighter weight than traditional pixels, so are much more compact and friendly to store. There are some limitations, but you can create amazing light shows just using Twinkly lights in combination with xLights and FPP.

Twinkly provides professional tech and warranty support for the parts they sell you — although they do not support xLights / FPP issues.

There’s a short sample video at the bottom of the page of a 100% Twinkly light show from a couple of years ago (before I started adding Pixels). That show was created and played using the same setup as the diagram.

https://twinkly.com