Apollo H-3 Holiday Ornament

The H-3 is Apollo Automation's 2026 holiday ornament, the third in our annual charity series. It is a snowman with 37 RGB LEDs, a buzzer and six holiday songs. Press a button and it plays a song with its own light show, with no setup. The H-3 is Made for ESPHome and certified Works with Home Assistant, so you can also install the Smart firmware and control it from Home Assistant.

100% of the profits from the H-3 go to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital this year (2026).

Key features

• 37 RGB LEDs in five zones you can control separately: body (24), hat (5), mouth (5), eyes (2) and nose (1)
• Six holiday songs on three buttons, played on the buzzer, each with its own light effect
• Two AA batteries or USB-C, with deep sleep between songs to save the batteries
• Ready to play out of the box with the Basic firmware. No Wi-Fi or app needed.
• Smart firmware for Home Assistant: change the songs, light effects and volume, run automations, use it as a Bluetooth proxy and get firmware updates over the air
• Works with Home Assistant: certified by the Open Home Foundation
• Made for ESPHome: the configuration is public, and you can take control of it in the ESPHome Device Builder
• ESP32-C6 with 8 MB flash

Songs and buttons

The three buttons on the front of the snowman play the songs. Press a button for its first song, or hold it for about a second for its second song. While the ornament is awake, a double-click also plays the second song, and pressing a button during a song switches to the new song.

Button	Press	Hold (or double-click)
1	Frosty the Snowman, with a rainbow wave	Blue Christmas, with twinkling blues
2	Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, twinkling white with a red nose	Do You Want to Build a Snowman, with falling snow
3	Jingle Bells, in red and green	Barbie Girl, in pink

On the Smart firmware each song is a Song Text entity in Home Assistant that holds an RTTTL string, so you can swap in any tune (see the holiday songs list). Volume sets how loud the buzzer plays. A factory reset brings back the original six songs.

LED zones

Zone	LEDs	Home Assistant entity
Body	24	Body Light
Hat	5	Hat Light
Mouth	5	Mouth Light
Eyes	2	Eyes Light
Nose	1	Nose Light
Whole ornament	37	All Lights

On the Smart firmware each zone has its own color, brightness and effect. There are 11 effects, including Slow Pulse, Fast Pulse and the effect from each song. All Lights drives all 37 LEDs as one strip, so it paints over whatever the zones are showing.

Brightness limit: by default the LEDs never go above 40% brightness, the same limit as the H-2. Every light's brightness, including 100% in Home Assistant, is scaled to that limit, and colors stay the same. The Basic firmware always uses 40%. On the Smart firmware the LED Brightness slider moves the limit anywhere from 25% to 100%.

Power and sleep

The H-3 runs on two AA batteries or from its USB-C port. We suggest non-rechargeable AAs.

• Basic firmware: the ornament sleeps whenever it is not playing a song. Press a song button to wake it. It plays that song and goes back to sleep when the song ends. After you put the batteries in or plug in USB-C, it stays awake for about 15 seconds, then sleeps.
• Smart firmware: it stays awake by default so Home Assistant can reach it. To make the batteries last, turn off Prevent Sleep in Home Assistant (see Use it with Home Assistant) or press the boot button three times quickly (see Boot button).

First start: after a fresh install or a factory reset, all 37 LEDs light green for about 5 seconds, then turn off on their own. That green means the firmware started and every LED works. You don't need to press anything. A button press during those 5 seconds ends the green early and does not play a song. On the Smart firmware the hat then blinks blue until the ornament is connected to Wi-Fi.

Firmware

The H-3 has two ESPHome firmwares. Install either one at any time from the browser installer at apolloautomation.github.io/H-3 (Chrome or Edge on a computer).

	Basic (No Wi-Fi)	Smart (Wi-Fi)
Installed at the factory	Yes	No, install it from the browser installer
Songs and lights from the buttons	Yes	Yes
Home Assistant	No	Yes, over Wi-Fi
Change songs, light effects and volume	No	Yes
LED brightness limit	40%	40% by default, 25% to 100% with the LED Brightness slider
Bluetooth proxy	No	Yes, off by default
Firmware updates	Reinstall from the browser installer	Over the air, Stable or Beta channel
Sleep	Sleeps between songs	Stays awake until you turn off Prevent Sleep
ESPHome configuration	H-3D.yaml	H-3.yaml

Install the Smart firmware

1. Take the batteries out. Hold the boot button on the back of the ornament, plug in a USB-C data cable, then let go of the button (boot mode guide).
2. In the installer, click Connect under H-3 Smart (Wi-Fi) Firmware, pick the ornament's serial port and install it.
3. When the install finishes, unplug the cable and plug it back in so the ornament restarts normally. After a fresh install, all the LEDs light green for about 5 seconds, then turn off.
4. Connect the ornament to Wi-Fi. Until it is connected, the hat blinks blue to show it is ready to set up. Use one of these ways:
   • Click Connect in the installer again and enter your Wi-Fi details.
   • Join the Apollo H3 Hotspot Wi-Fi network from a phone and choose your network.
   • Set it up from Home Assistant over Bluetooth with Improv via BLE.
5. Home Assistant discovers the ornament. Add it under Settings > Devices & services.

Use it with Home Assistant

The Smart firmware is certified Works with Home Assistant. It talks to Home Assistant locally through the ESPHome integration; the only thing it fetches from the internet is the firmware update check.

• Controls: the five zone lights and All Lights, Play Song 1 to Play Song 6, Song Text 1 to Song Text 6, Volume, LED Brightness, Prevent Sleep, Sleep Duration and Bluetooth Proxy. Automations can also call the ornament's ESPHome actions: play_song_1 to play_song_6, and play_buzzer, which plays any RTTTL string you pass it. Song Button 1 to Song Button 3 show button presses, and Wake-up Button Pressed shows which button last woke it.
• Updates: the ornament checks for new firmware soon after it starts and every 6 hours after that, and offers it through its Firmware Update entity. With Prevent Sleep off, it only checks for and installs updates while it is awake, so keep it awake for an update (see Battery). Firmware Channel switches between Stable and Beta.
• Battery: the Smart firmware stays awake by default. Turn off Prevent Sleep to let it sleep between button presses; press a song button to wake it. Three quick presses of the boot button also switch Prevent Sleep on or off (see Boot button). It also wakes on its own every Sleep Duration hours (24 by default) to check in with Home Assistant. To keep it awake for an update, create a toggle helper with the entity ID input_boolean.apollo_ota_mode, turn it on, then press a song button. The ornament sees the helper once it wakes and connects to Home Assistant. Turn the helper off after the update so it can sleep again.
• New Wi-Fi network: with Prevent Sleep off, the ornament goes back to sleep before its hotspot starts. Wake it with a song button, then hold the boot button for 3 to 10 seconds and let go before the song ends. That turns Prevent Sleep on, and about 90 seconds after the wake the Apollo H3 Hotspot network and Improv via BLE become available. Turn Prevent Sleep off again once it is back online.
• Remove it: delete the device under Settings > Devices & services > ESPHome while the ornament is awake. Factory reset it before you add it to a different Home Assistant.

Boot button

The boot button is on the back of the ornament. It does not wake the ornament. If it is asleep, wake it with a song button, then use the boot button before the song ends. Short presses in the first 2 seconds after a wake are ignored.

• Short press: the body LEDs show the connection status for 5 seconds. Blue means connected to Home Assistant, green means Wi-Fi only and yellow means no Wi-Fi. On the Basic firmware they always show green. Then all 37 LEDs light green for 5 seconds as a light test. On the Smart firmware this starts about a second after you let go, in case more presses follow.

• Three quick presses (Smart firmware only): switches Prevent Sleep on or off, without Home Assistant. The whole ornament shows the new setting:

  • White for 3 seconds: Prevent Sleep is on, so the ornament stays awake.
  • Purple, fading out: Prevent Sleep is off, so the ornament can sleep. It goes to sleep about 90 seconds later, or as soon as a song ends.

  Any song that is playing stops. On the Basic firmware three presses run the status and light test, as one press does.

• Hold for 3 to 10 seconds: turns on Prevent Sleep, so the ornament stays awake.

• Hold for 10 seconds or more, then release: factory reset. This erases the Wi-Fi details and every saved setting (custom songs, volume, sleep and channel settings), then restarts. The Factory Reset button in Home Assistant does the same; it is in the Diagnostic section and disabled by default.

ESPHome configuration

The H-3 is Made for ESPHome. It runs ESPHome, its configuration is public, and you can take control of it and build your own firmware. The configuration lives in Integrations/ESPHome and is yours to modify:

• H-3.yaml is the Smart (Wi-Fi) firmware.
• H-3D.yaml is the Basic (No Wi-Fi) firmware.
• Core.yaml is shared by both: lights, songs, buttons and sleep.

To build your own firmware, use Take Control on the discovered ornament in the ESPHome Device Builder. It imports H-3.yaml automatically.

Links

Discord (Support/feedback/discussion/future products): https://link.apolloautomation.com/discord
Shop: https://apolloautomation.com/products/apollo-h-3-annual-holiday-ornament-for-charity
Wiki: https://wiki.apolloautomation.com/products/h3/introduction/
Firmware installer: https://apolloautomation.github.io/H-3/
ESPHome device page: https://devices.esphome.io/devices/Apollo_Automation_H-3/
Works with Home Assistant: https://works-with.home-assistant.io/
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital: https://www.stjude.org/