You just had permanent lighting installed on your home. The roofline looks incredible. The landscape fixtures are highlighting every feature you wanted. And then someone asks you to change the color for a party this weekend, and you think — wait, how do I actually do that?
Good news: if you have a Haven lighting system installed by Middle Tennessee Christmas Lights, you already own one of the most connected outdoor lighting platforms on the market. Haven integrates directly with Alexa, Google Home, and Apple HomeKit, which means your lights respond to your voice just like any other smart device in your house.
Here’s how to set it all up — and a few ideas for what to do once it’s running.
The Haven App: Your Starting Point
Everything in the Haven ecosystem runs through their smartphone app, available on both iOS and Android. The app connects to Haven’s cloud-based system through your home’s WiFi network, which means your lighting settings, schedules, and scenes are stored securely in the cloud — not on the transformer itself. Even during a power outage, your preferences are saved and ready to go when the power comes back.
From the app, you can control individual zones, adjust colors across millions of options, set schedules that run automatically, and build custom scenes for any occasion. It’s straightforward to use, and our team walks every client through it during installation.
But the real magic happens when you connect the Haven app to the voice assistant you’re already using at home.
Connecting Haven to Amazon Alexa
Alexa is by far the most common voice assistant we see in homes across Nashville, Franklin, and Brentwood. Setting it up with Haven takes about five minutes.
First, open the Alexa app on your phone. Make sure the location set in your Haven app matches the default location in your Alexa settings — this is the step most people skip, and it’s the one that causes the most headaches. Once that’s squared away, search for the Haven Lighting skill in the Alexa app, enable it, and link your Haven account. Alexa will discover your lighting zones automatically.
After that, you can say things like “Alexa, turn on the front lights” or “Alexa, set the patio to blue.” You can control individual zones, activate saved scenes, and turn the whole system on or off without ever picking up your phone.
Connecting Haven to Google Home
If your household runs on Google, the process is similar. Open the Google Home app, go to your device settings, and add the Haven Lighting integration. Link your Haven account, and Google will pull in your zones and scenes.
Google Home gives you the same voice control — “Hey Google, set the roofline to red” or “Hey Google, turn off the backyard lights.” If you’ve built routines in Google Home (like a “Good Night” routine that locks the doors and turns off the interior lights), you can add your Haven outdoor lighting to those routines so everything happens in one command.
Connecting Haven to Apple HomeKit
For Apple households, Haven is compatible with HomeKit through the broader smart home ecosystem. This means you can use Siri to control your lighting, include Haven fixtures in your Apple Home app scenes, and even set up automations based on time of day, location, or other triggers.
If you’ve got an Apple TV or HomePod acting as a home hub, your Haven lights become part of the same system that controls your thermostat, locks, and cameras. One app, one voice, everything working together.
Voice-Controlled Holiday Scenes
This is where it gets fun. With Haven’s scene builder, you can create custom color combinations for any holiday or event, save them in the app, and then activate them with a single voice command.
Imagine telling Alexa to switch to your Christmas scene — warm white along the roofline with red and green accents on the landscape lights — while you’re cooking dinner on Thanksgiving night. Or asking Google to fire up your Halloween setup as trick-or-treaters start showing up. Red and pink for Valentine’s Day. Red, white, and blue for the Fourth of July. Tennessee orange for a Saturday in October.
Haven’s Game Day feature takes this even further. Connect your favorite teams in the app, and your lights automatically shift to team colors before, during, and after the game. Titans navy and Columbia blue on a Sunday afternoon. Predators gold on a playoff night. You don’t have to do a thing — the system knows the schedule and handles it.
Scheduling and Automation
Beyond voice commands, the real time-saver is scheduling. Set your landscape lights to turn on at sunset and off at midnight every night. Program your roofline to switch from warm white on weeknights to team colors on game days. Build a holiday calendar that changes your entire setup automatically throughout the year.
All of this runs in Haven’s cloud, so it works whether you’re home or traveling. And because the smart transformer connects to your WiFi, there’s no extra hub or bridge to buy — just the system we install and the app on your phone.
A Few Tips from Our Install Team
We’ve installed Haven systems across Middle Tennessee for long enough to know where people hit snags with the smart home side of things. Here are a few tips that save our clients time:
- Make sure your WiFi signal reaches your transformer location. If it’s mounted on the back of the house and your router is upstairs in the front, you may need a WiFi extender. We’ll check signal strength during installation.
- Name your zones clearly in the Haven app before linking to Alexa or Google. “Front Roofline” and “Back Patio” are a lot easier to work with by voice than “Zone 1” and “Zone 2.”
- If you share the home with family members, everyone can download the Haven app and control the lights from their own phone. One system, multiple users.
- Haven stores your settings in the cloud, so a power flicker won’t erase your schedules or scenes. Everything picks back up automatically.
We Handle the Hard Part
At Middle Tennessee Christmas Lights, we don’t just mount fixtures and leave. We make sure your Haven system is connected, your app is set up, your zones are named, and your first few scenes are built before we pack up the truck. If you want Alexa or Google connected that same day, we’ll walk you through it on-site.
We’re a local company serving Nashville, Brentwood, Franklin, La Vergne, Murfreesboro, and communities across Middle Tennessee. When you have a question about your system six months from now, you call us — not an 800 number.
Ready to make your outdoor lighting as smart as the rest of your home? Get your free quote at middletnchristmaslights.com
Middle Tennessee Christmas Lights installs Haven permanent lighting systems with full smart home integration for homeowners across Nashville, Brentwood, Franklin, La Vergne, Murfreesboro, and surrounding communities.