What the numbers mean
150 bulbs at 8 in over 99 ft. C9 is the big-bulb look: each one is an opaque retro bulb about the size of a thumb, and eight inches is the classic C9 pitch. 99 ft covers a front eave and both rakes of a gable in one strand, with a 16 ft lead before the first bulb.
RGB in every bulb, from a Bluetooth app. The Hello Fairy app gives 58 scenes, 16 single colours, music sync and a DIY mode. Warm white here is an RGB mix, not a dedicated white chip, so it reads a little pinker than the icicle or a permanent kit’s 2700K.
Bluetooth, not Wi-Fi. No Alexa, no Google, no schedule from the office. You stand within range of the strand and change it from the phone.
Links to 300 bulbs. Two strands end to end. The controller is at the plug end of the first.
No IP rating on the listing. It says waterproof and stops there, so we print nothing. Treat it as rain-only, like every other seasonal string here.
Who it is for
- The big-bulb roofline in any colour, for the season.
- A house that does Halloween and Christmas from one strand: orange and purple in October, red and green in December, warm white for New Year.
- Anyone who wants colour without the price of a permanent kit.
Who should buy something else
- You want it up all year: a permanent kit. The Prism has the biggest point of light on the permanent shelf, which is the nearest thing to a C9 that stays up.
- You want voice control or a schedule: nothing seasonal here has it. The permanent kits all do.
- You want a true warm white: the icicle is warm white only and looks it.
What we could not check
We have not hung this strand. The count and pitch come from the listing, and the renders on this page place the bulbs by them. The listing’s colour photographs are what we have to go on for how the RGB mix reads on a house.
On a large body of owner reports the complaints cluster on the app losing the strand and needing a re-pair, and on individual bulbs going dark while the rest run. Neither is the whole strand dying, and we found no pattern of that.
The rest of christmas lights
| Product | Cost tier | Size | Lights | Pitch | Weather |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Icicle 39 | Budget | 39 ft | 80 | 6 in | IP44 |
| C9 99 | Budget | 99 ft | 150 | 8 in | No IP rating stated |
| Net 6x5 | Budget | 6 ft | 120 | 6 in | IP44 |
Price tiers are our own rough budget bands, not live prices. Check the listing for today’s price. The price itself stays on the listing, where it is current, rather than here, where it would go stale. The same catalogue drives the calculator, so a number here and a number there are the same number.