Review on Twinkly - TWS250GOP Gold Edition 250 Amber And White LED String Lights - App-Controlled LED Christmas Lights With Green Cable (65 by Rachel Riley

Update: 12/05/2020 - Switching to 2D fixed several issues. Unfortunately, the playlist keeps crashing despite 2D mapping. I have to factory reset the gauges almost every day as the playlist gets bugs and then clears itself. Once this happens, it cannot be recovered without restoring the lighting settings to factory defaults. Not very practical, especially for the price. It can be a 5 star product if the app/software works properly. Good - the lights are bright, very colorful and controllable. Everything you would expect from an LED. I bought them for Christmas because I needed lights that I could control. You have the potential to satisfy that desire. Poor - Light controls are patchy and some features are missing. There are several preset effects that you can edit. The problem is that you can only edit parts of some. Some let you edit speed, brightness, and color, while others only allow non-color features. Some of them can be edited and saved while others cannot be saved and if you do they will overwrite your playlist. At Christmas, for example, some basic functions are missing (flicker, fade, slow fade, blink, etc.). Trying to create these effects is cumbersome. Ugliness. Simply put, the app, software, and controls are terrible. The app keeps crashing. Many errors. Twinkly support is actively trying to resolve these issues. As mentioned above, only some of the Color preset effects are editable. Some allow you to choose color combinations but not create your own color. Some let you save a copy, others don't. The problem is that you don't know which ones are editable and which ones aren't. There is a favorites section where you can click on the heart to "save" the effect or your favorites. Unfortunately, you can add items from your favorites to your playlist, but you still have to navigate to a large list of effects and find the effects you want in your playlist. The playlist is terrible. The playlist starts at 100% and decreases as effects are added. Unfortunately, you don't save much. I started with 5 effects, got an error, deleted them and suddenly I could only keep 2 effects. I factory reset the lighting and now I can only save 1 effect which makes the playlist pointless. Mistakes - well, mistakes are endless. Unfortunately, bugs also tend to wipe out your playlists and saved effects, making it a chore every time you want to use light to recreate your effects. The idea behind it is fantastic, the implementation leaves a lot to be desired. For the cost they should work without any issues as now sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. Hope for a quick fix. The main functions are great and the colors are excellent. Despite the problems, this is an update for our Christmas tree.