To hate this about Christmas tree lights?

[GardenAnarchist]

Picture the scene: You've spent ages trimming your Christmas tree with strings of fairy lights, sparkly baubles, shiny tinsel. Gorgeous! Then you switch on the plug socket... and your tree turns into a flashing strobe beacon visible from space. After rescuing any epileptic family members in the vicinity, you grope around the light plug for the control button and it takes 8 (eight) presses through a series of barely distinguishable but eye-watering flickery-flashy-blinky settings, to achieve the steady state of... ON.

Just why??

Why isn't ON the first default setting?
And while we're on that, why is there a setting of "pretend I'm ON, then just as the user withdraws their finger from the button, fade everything to black"?

I have multiple sets of tree lights bought over the last 10 years and they all do this. Some need 8 presses, some 7, some 9 😫 If I put my tree lights on a timer to save electricity, I come downstairs in the morning to a scene like a Star Wars laser battle and have to crawl on the floor to press all the buttons the requisite number of times.

YABU - Only a boring stick in the mud wants a steady glow on the tree. Clearly, at least 8 times more consumers prefer all the other blinky-flashy settings giving the electric storm-cum-Laserquest-kids-birthday-party vibe!

YANBU - Surely there must be a market for tree lights that just have OFF and ON? And maybe a third setting of gentle twinkling?

My tree lights are battery operated and have a timer, but they come on in the mode I set them when the tree went up (Number 7: constant on, no flashing), and three AA batteries will last until new year.
The outside lights are plugged in and DH (who is very tech-y) made a little electronic gadget to do the ‘pressing through the modes’ when the timer turns the lights on, maybe he ought to patent and market it and make our fortune…

Bought b&m ones last week and.....they just go to ON straight away.V Impressed.

I miss the the pink and orange lights of christmas at my grandmas. I hate cool white or bright coloured ones

The lights should either be on or off. The mode where it tricks you its on and then fades out once you've sat down is the most annoying thing ever.

Oh goodness I SO agree. And for All lights nit just the tree ones. Just stop - and have a simple on/off switch. If yoy want to be fancy, have a timer for those of us who stumble off to bed forgetting to turn them off! I HATE the effects with a passion and dislike having to scroll through them.

Sounds perfect but I'm being dim, what's b&m?

Could your techie dh design a gentle twinkling set of battery operated fairy lights ( preferably cluster lights rather than string lights ) @FadedRed ?
The only other option they could offer (NB as Option 1 )!
I think we’re on to something here.
Next stop Dragons Den 😂

Same here with our 50 year old lights ! Tradition, not five minute gaudy fashions !

Oh my cul de sac is ridiculous right now, 4:houses down here have the cold bright white lights all over the frontage of their houses and 2 have them on permanent fast strobe setting! The cul de sac doesn't look Christmassy, it looks like a bloody rave! My bedroom was like a disco until 11.30pm last night.

I do! There was something about the gentle yet glowing colours of my 80's childhood! Even if the spiky plastic bits on the lights used to fall off abs hurt like hell to accidentally stand on 😁

I'm having nightmares with two of my neighbours and their bright white cold strobing lights outside, they manually turn them on and then the time run it's course every day but depending on what time they manually turn them on, the strobing can go on into the early hours.

I'm so glad it's not just me that's wondering where the soft, gentle twinkling lights have gone and why sets now are like a harsh nightclub!

I purchased some new warm white lights this year, when did warm white become bright enough to blind you? Warm white used to be a soft gentle light, now they burn my retinas, can’t imagine what the proper white ones are like nowadays.

Oh yes, I agree @GardenAnarchist Another bugbear is when you are pressing through the settings, miscount and what starts out to be static turns into a veritable medley of migraine inducing flashing 🌟🌟🌟

Vall of mine are in a line not a loop.

What?! Ours definitely don't remember jack shit. Eight presses every time. Or six or some other random number to get to Always On mode.

Our outside and inside lights are multifunction. We have them on a timer and they definitely come on steady burn once initially set correctly.

The plug on my outdoor ones won’t fit in the outdoor socket so last year I invested in a special box that allowed me to put a connector in all waterproof and nice. This year the box filled half full of water surprised we haven’t all been electrocuted. Anyway fiddled with it and added a timer so I didn’t have to grope outside at midnight. Box fills with water again and lights rotate through crazy cycles. Have resorted to a large plastic bag over the kit carefully reset the timer and flashy button and it seems to be working… except it’s resorted to wild flashing fading etc etc. Fortunately my neighbours can’t see them from their bedroom. Last night my little granddaughter wanted to go outside and there was a bright torch where there is NEVEr anyone about and eventually someone shouts out“are you ok” yes of course just admiring my crazy lights and wondering what you were doing down in the woods in pitch darkness???

Oh god, yes. That ‘pretend to be on’ drives me insane.

You need warm white. These are much less bright

There must have been a period of madness, somewhere between 50 years ago and within the past couple of years, when the gimmicky "the more 'functions' the better" sodding migraine-inducing flashing strobing rave Christmas lights were in the ascendency... which happens to be the exact time window that I've bought all my strings of lights in 😭

So far nobody on this thread has owned up to preferring the hyperactive mad flashing settings or the fading-house-into-pitch-darkness-every-10-seconds settings. Because I would really appreciate an explanation of why!

We have a number of sets of lights, but all of them - battery or mains operated remember their settings. Yes we have to cycle through when we first set the lights up or put in new batteries, but not every night. Weird.

Agree!!! Was thinking this tonight! Every set of lights I've bought this year are exactly like that! Seems to be a thing!

So, why not just remove the plug (that has the sequence changer in) and rewire them to a standard plug?

My lights have an automatic timer to be on for 8 hours and off for 16, so when they turn back on they’re already on the ON setting. If only I’d actually remember to turn them on at 4pm so this would work 🤦‍♀️