Well here we are with Christmas less than a week away already, how did that happen? In the spirit of the holidays, I thought it would be fun to take a look at some of the ways folks celebrate the holidays using home automation. A friend of mine who lives in South Florida tipped me off to this insane light display that she saw over the weekend, and I was blown away by the video–so I can only imagine how awesome it is in person!
The “26th Street lights” consists of three homes owned by the Singh’s, the Callahan’s, and the Lentz families. There’s a bit of a sad and odd twist to the reason why Joe Callahan started the tradition in 2005. His father actually got electrocuted and died while putting up Christmas lights, and Callahan says he keeps the elaborate display going every year as a tribute to his father.
Apparently he was also inspired back in 2005 after watching an elaborate light display at Disney World, and decided that he would attempt his own DIY automated holiday extravaganza. He convinced his next-door neighbors that it would be fun. And a third neighbor (The Lentz home) joined the fun in 2006.
Well…the end result may be fun to the viewing audience, but there’s a major amount of work that goes into bringing this to fruition. According to 26th Street Lights:
Mr. Callahan, Mr. Singh, and a crew put up the lights on their properties. For the 2010 display, Mr. Callahan and Mr. Singh started installing lights October 1st and they were turned on November 25. They had a three-man crew working on the homes every day, 7 days a week, 10 to 12 hours a day until they were completed. The two homes have over 250,000 LED lights. The lights are connected by over 10 miles of cable and are controlled by 620 computer-controlled channels. There is a space between the Callahan and the Lentz homes that Mr. Callahan transforms into a magical walkway with blow-up displays and lights. At last count there were close to 100 light, blow-up or static displays on the walkway.
Mr. Lentz installs the majority of lights on his home by himself (with just a little help from Mr. Callahan and his crew). He started November 1st working mostly at night and on weekends. He had the lights up and running December 10. He is running the same light control system as Mr. Callahan running 32 computer-controlled channels. He has about 6000 LED and incandescent lights and is estimated that he has 3/4-mile of extension cords. There is 32 candy canes lining the street and driveway, 62 blow molds including a Nativity scene, 15 Nutcracker soldiers, 7 candles, Santa Claus with his reindeer on the roof (including Rudolph), 2 snowmen on the corner of the driveway and Santa and Mrs. Claus welcoming everyone in the corner of the front yard.
The lights dance to the music via a computer program and light controllers. Each song has a program that turns on/off /shimmer or dim the many channels that are used on each property. Each channel might control one or several strings of lights. Mr. Callahan programs the two homes that he decorates. It takes him 4 to 6 hours for every minute of song that is programmed.
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