Permanent outdoor lights might not seem useful now that we’re headed into summer, but they’re actually great to use year-round. The name suggests exactly what they are: a type of string light designed to stay up all year instead of coming down after the occasion you hung them for, whether it’s the holiday season or a big party that inspired you to deck out your front porch.
Whether these lights are truly “permanent” is up to you, since you can choose to anchor them to your home with either screws or adhesive. Note that they may not be a fit for every home’s architecture—you will need eaves, and preferably flat ones, to hide the thick cords. Our favorite options are from Govee ($440, 100 feet) and Eufy ($300, 100 feet); both are great sets you can cut and splice to customize to your home’s roofline. My favorite affordable set is from Cync ($143, 100 feet)—it’s easy to use and install and has lots of great color options.
No matter which set you choose, these lights are made for year-round enjoyment. It’s not just for your basic holidays like Christmas and Halloween, either: WIRED reviewer Kat Merck uses hers in the post-holiday season to display her husband’s favorite sports team colors, and I’ve got big plans to use the permanent lights affixed to my balcony railing to light up for my next party.
Updated April 2026: We’ve updated the prices and details in this guide for summer, and added new sections on the best time of year to use and buy these types of lights.
What Are Permanent Outdoor Lights?
Permanent outdoor lights are exactly what they sound like: outdoor lights meant to be permanently affixed to your home, so you don’t have to go up and down a ladder every Halloween and Christmas season. They’re similar to smart Christmas lights like those from Twinkly ($120) and Philips Hue ($210), and other smart lighting options like Philips Hue’s smart bulbs ($99), in that they connect to an app and have custom color control.
The lights we recommend below are all DIY-friendly, but you can also hire a professional to affix them to your home. Some higher-end brands, like JellyFish and Gemstone, are for professional installation only. Hiring an installer is recommended either way if you have harder-to-reach eaves or a trickier home design, which may add considerably to the overall cost.
What Your Home Will Need
The most important thing to check is if your home is even compatible with permanent outdoor string lights. If your home has any of these features, installation should work for you:
- Accessible roof eaves, often found on one- or two-story homes
- An outdoor ceiling, like a porch roof
- Flat, smooth materials, including glass, cement, wood, or metal, under the eaves (or other spots on your home’s exterior that would make sense for lights to live permanently, like a porch covering or pergola)
- Access to an outlet, ideally an outdoor one that’s at least partially covered to protect the control box, or the ability to run the cord to one inside a garage or other interior space
Most one- and two-story homes can accommodate permanent outdoor lights, since they typically have roof eaves accessible on both levels. Govee, for example, claims its permanent outdoor lights ($440) will work on everything from cottages and tiny houses to large homes and even mansions. (I’m sad to report that no, I did not have a mansion available for our testing.) Eufy (another set we recommend!) warns that certain paints, including those with texturing, could prevent secure adhesion of its permanent outdoor lights ($300).
Most permanent outdoor lights come with multiple options for attaching them to your home, ranging from sticky tabs to more permanent options with screws, though some brands may require you to buy anchors separately. Some of our testers used sticky options with success, while others chose to use the included screws to ensure the lights wouldn’t move. It depends on your home style and personal comfort as to which style you’d like to use. We’ve tested sticky adhesion for the better part of six months in the Midwestern US with great success, but obviously, tape isn’t as permanent as drilled anchors.
Here are the home styles for which installation of permanent lights will be a struggle or may require a professional for installation:
- Homes and properties with a stucco exterior
- Homes with no roof eaves of any kind
- Homes with cross-style eaves that don’t allow for flat adhesion
- Three-story homes with no eaves on the lower levels
- Townhomes and condominiums that don’t allow for permanent changes, or have roof styles to fit these light styles
I live in a three-story, stucco-covered townhouse, which disqualifies me from installing most permanent outdoor lights. The stucco makes it impossible to stick anything to it, and I have an HOA that forbids “permanent changes” to my exterior, so they frown upon me drilling. And, most important, I don’t have the right eave design with my townhouse to hide the strip of lights when they’re off.
But that doesn’t mean I have zero options (more on what I can do instead below). Still, if you want the full-home look, you’ll need a home with a more standard roof.
What to Look for in Permanent Outdoor Lights
Most permanent outdoor lights look pretty similar, with puck lights on a string. How different can they be, right? Well, we’ve found a couple features that really make a set stand out.
Cut-and-splice abilities. WIRED reviewer Kat Merck has tried two different sets of permanent lights on her home, and she finds the ability to cut and splice the lights to be a key feature. Many homes have varied architectural features like peaks, gables, and sections without eaves, so the ability to cut out pucks and splice the cord ends back together creates a much more customized and professional look. Our favorite sets from Govee ($440, 100 feet) and Eufy ($300, 100 feet) both include this ability.
Weatherproofing. Every model needs an IP (weatherproofing) rating to survive outside, so if you don’t see one, don’t buy those lights. There’s usually a lower rating for the control box compared to the rest of the lights, so be sure you can put that somewhere that’s a little less exposed to the elements. (As mentioned above, make sure you have an outdoor outlet, and check if there’s only one on a certain side of your home in case it limits your installation options.)
A range of installation options. You’ll want a set that comes with plenty of options for your own installation, including adhesive and drilled mounting options. What you need will vary based on your home design and materials; e.g., you’ll want adhesive for homes you can’t drill into. WIRED reviewer Kat Merck, who tested a couple of different permanent lights, liked sets with screw-on holders that the puck-style permanent lights can slide onto.
Controls for individual lights. This should be a no-brainer, but some cheaper lights won’t offer this ability or have more roadblocks to customized control. Make sure you’ll have easy individual controls, or you might find yourself frustrated with the design results of these lights. It’s similar to design controls that you’d see on smart bulbs and smart string lights.
A great app. This goes hand in hand with the need for individual light control—a good app determines whether that and other features are accessible. Govee and Eufy, two of our favorite permanent outdoor lights we’ve tried, both have good apps that are easy to use and come with preloaded light themes. These tech companies make more than just outdoor lights, including other favorite gear of ours, so they’re a good brand to trust to make a usable product and app. We also like Lepro’s more affordable lights, though the app had some extra hoops to jump through to get to controls, while Lumary’s app was a brutal experience for our tester.
What Time of Year Should You Use Permanent Outdoor Lights?
Most people are interested in this style of lights for the fall and winter. That’s a great time to set them up and use them, since you’ve got Halloween and Christmas decor that the permanent outdoor lights could complement with colorful holiday scenes. The days are also shorter, so you’ve got more nighttime hours to take advantage of these lights.
They’re a fun way to deck out your home for a sports game, especially for major games like the Super Bowl (WIRED reviewer Kat Merck, a resident of Washington state, was surprised to discover just how many people in her neighborhood had permanent lights this past February) and the World Cup, or for smaller holidays like St. Patrick’s Day or the Fourth of July. They’re a fun way to jazz up your home’s curb appeal in the evening year-round (though if you have an HOA, you might have to check your rules about displaying lights regularly) or add a little pizzazz for your next outdoor party. No matter what you use it for, there’s no wrong way or wrong time of year to use these lights.
Our Favorite Permanent Outdoor Lights
We’ve tested a handful of permanent lights on different homes, and have a few clear favorites. These are all options we recommend, provided your home’s exterior meets the constraints mentioned above.
This model from Govee has been one of our top picks in our smart Christmas lights story for a reason, and it’s still one of our favorite models at this price point for everything you’ll get with it. WIRED reviewer Simon Hill tested the 100-foot string that came with six sections, plus an extension code. He used adhesive and screw clips to secure the light pucks and cables, and found installation easy. This is a set that you can cut and splice, but he says that isn’t a task for the faint of heart. It has an IP67 rating, and an IP65 rating for the control box. The busy companion app has everything you could want: color controls, tons of Scenes (Govee’s lighting effects), scheduling, and even a music sync option (though that felt a little gimmicky). There’s Matter support, and Govee can connect to Alexa and Google’s ecosystems for voice control. Simon says he’d like these lights to be closer together and the design a little more subtle, since you can see the cords pretty easily.
WIRED reviewer Kat Merck has tested two sets of permanent outdoor lights on her home, and Eufy’s S4, which incorporates RGB with both warm and cool whites, is by far her favorite. She’s found the app incredibly easy to navigate and find the features she wants, from preset holiday scenes (120!) and colors to schedules and brightness adjustments. There’s even an AI feature that lets you create customized light shows based on moods and scenarios. They were relatively easy to install on her home, which has nonstandard architectural features, as this set has extensions and can be cut and spliced. She says the lights aren’t quite as bright as the Lumary Max set below, but the brightness is adjustable. There’s also a radar motion sensor included, though she was never able to get it to work. The Eufy S4 set also works with the Matter protocol, so it will work with Apple, Google, and Alexa’s smart home ecosystems. It’s got a waterproof rating of IP67 like the Govee set above. They’ve been on Kat’s house for the better part of six months, and have still been working well with no issues.
Cync, from appliance maker GE, makes affordable smart bulbs and other smart lights I like, so it’s not a huge surprise that I also liked the brand’s Smart Eave Lights. They were easy to install with 3M sticky strips already on the individual lights, and since my eaves are out of safe reach on my townhouse, I used the lights on my balcony railing with great success. One piece of the 100-foot set (it comes with four strings, plus an extension) was the perfect length to loop around my 9-foot-long railing. The set quickly connected to the Cync app, and the power cord is nice and long to make it easy to reach wherever your power outlet is. It has a waterproof rating of IP65. They’ve been on my balcony for the better part of six months and have held up nicely so far.
If You Can’t Install Permanent Outdoor Lights
Not every home is a good fit for these types of lights. I haven’t yet found a permanent light set that works with my home, so here’s what I’ve used instead for a similar result.
Twinkly’s smart string lights have a weatherproof rating of IP44 for both the lights and the power supply. This means they’re splash-proof but not waterproof, so you can use them outside, but make sure they’re somewhat protected. I love how much you can customize these lights. You’ll use the app to take a photo of however you’ve set up your lights, whether that’s around a Christmas tree, around your balcony’s railing, or along the front of your house, and then you’ll be able to customize the lights and pattern based on how you arranged it. There are tons of fun light designs already in the app, and you can make your own. It’s a good option if you can only do string lights but want smart capabilities. These lights are also compatible with Amazon’s, Google’s, and Apple’s ecosystems. Twinkly also makes an icicle-style smart light string ($110), which I love using outside too; they hung over my garage door for the holiday season.
More Outdoor Lights We’ve Tested
Cync Outdoor Light Strip for $154: I was really hoping this would be a good solution for outdoor lights for my balcony, but this light strip is heavy and tall and is better designed to line a yard versus sticking onto the side of a railing. It comes with grass stakes.
Lepro’s EE1 AI for $113 (50 feet): These permanent outdoor lights are sold out right now, but they are another more affordable option. They aren’t as cheap as Cync, however, and you will have to get around the app’s AI to really get the most out of it.
Lumary Outdoor Permanent Lights Max ($450 for 105 feet): Lumary’s lights were frustrating and limiting for our tester. The app wasn’t intuitive or easy to use, and our tester actually had to have the power box replaced after she tried to connect the lights to a different phone. She liked how bright the lights were and that there’s a physical remote, but the app, power box shutdown, and installation limitations compared with other sets (no splicing ability, installation recommended from the left) make this one we’d skip. Lumary has since released an updated version, the Permanent Outdoor Lights 2 ($260, 100 feet), which includes a completely redesigned app, including the addition of custom-scene saving, but we haven’t tested them.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: wired.com
