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Christmas Light Timers


Indoor and Outdoor Christmas Light Timers

Automate your holiday lights by pairing your display with outdoor Christmas light timers designed to turn your lights on and off automatically at preset times. Outdoor Christmas light timers are ideal for homes, business, parks, and other holiday lighting displays.

Having your lights controlled by a Christmas light timer reduces the amount of time your lights are on, helping your light strings last longer and reducing the need to replace bulbs and strings. This also helps to lower energy costs for larger displays at parks and businesses. Outdoor timers for lights also eliminate the risk that you may accidently forget to turn your lights off. You'll get the most out of your lights by setting them to come on at dusk for a few hours before turning off again.

Where to Use Christmas Light Timers

Christmas light timers have a safety rating to identify where they can be safely used. Christmas light timers rated for outdoor use can be used both indoors and outdoors. While outdoor timers can withstand general weather, they should not be used in a location where they can become submerged in water. Timers rated for indoor locations are for indoor use only and are not designed to be used outside. They are better suited to operate Christmas trees and other indoor displays. Indoor Christmas light timers should be placed in dry areas where no water or moisture is present.

Types of Indoor and Outdoor Christmas Light Timers

Christmas light timers are easy to use and do not require hardwire installation. Just plug the timer into your outlet, set your schedule, then plug your lights into the timer. There are three different types of Christmas light timers:

  • Mechanical Christmas light timers, also called analog timers, operate by using clockwork to keep track of the time on a 24 hour cycle. Featuring multiple on and off points, most mechanical timers can be set in 15 minute or one hour intervals.
  • Digital Christmas light timers are similar to mechanical timers but use a digital interface to program schedules down to the minute. These timers can also have a battery backup to keep your programed schedules from being erased if there is a loss of power.
  • Astronomic Christmas light timers have built-in programing that tells when the sun rises and sets for your area. Available in mechanical and digital versions, these timers can handle multiple events.

Most timers have one or two outlets; outdoor mechanical timers for larger displays can have up to 8 outlets. Lights can be daisy chained together as long as the total amperage and wattage does not exceed what the timer and Christmas string lights are rated to handle. Before connecting sets together, check to see how many string lights can be connected together safely. At 1000Bulbs.com, each set of Christmas lights has the maximum number of connections listed on the product page. When not being used for holiday lighting, outdoor Christmas light timers can be used to manage landscape lighting, security lights, and other indoor and outdoor applications.

Do you need help deciding which Christmas light timer is best for your holiday display? Call 1-800-624-4488 today to speak to one of our Christmas light experts.