A geeky way to control those Christmas lights


This weekend I horrified anybody with any electrical knowledge by plugging the Christmas lights into an extension, which was then plugged into an extension … plugged into an extension.

I won’t go into the finer details, but there was a minor explosion and I blew three fuses.

I was using the extension leads because, put simply, I didn’t want to walk too far to turn the festive lights on each day. However, after a bit of a brainwave, I decided to make use of these remote control sockets. We took a look at them back in April. They’re £27.99 now but you get 5 sockets. Just plug each one into a socket, then plug in the lights or anything else that you want to remotely control.

You get two remote controls in the box and, although it’s not smartphone controlled, it means that I can turn the Christmas tree lights on and off, the outside lights and even a lamp or two. All controlled from one point, so no scrambling around on the floor.

If you’re interested, take a look at our earlier review.