As a teenager, Mike Walczak worked as a DJ for a local company — a job that included setting up different types of lighting displays for clients. That experience, he said, opened up the door to his interest in different types of lighting.

As an adult, he's taken that love of lighting displays to a new level by giving anyone with access to the internet the ability to control his Christmas lighting display at his Wauwatosa home. During the Christmas season, anyone around the world can turn on and off his lighting display of about 10,000 lights. Users get access to controls between 5 and 10 p.m., now until the end of the year.

To make that possible, Walczak developed a software program that has users triggering lighting switches on Walczak's website.

Some of the classics from when he started this in 2017 are still around: the deer duo, a big Frosty the Snowman and the icicle lights. Newer ones include a Christmas tree, little snowman, as well as lights on the front bushes, door garland and many more. There are 16 different elements that users can control.

"The originals ... are probably always going to be my favorites," he said.

Walczak's website features feeds from webcams that show the lights changing as users adjust the settings. This is the first year that Walczak has put out a second camera, and he's hoping that'll expand the sight range and give him the ability show even more decorations.



A camera set up in the front yard of Mike Walczak's home sends a live feed to mkelights.com, where people can watch as they change the lights. Photo courtesy of Mike Walczak

Sign up for daily news! Stay informed with WPR's email newsletter.

"There's a lot of different types of cams that you can access with the internet, but there's not a whole lot that you can be interactive with," he said.

"The neighbors that I know all think that I'm crazy, but not necessarily in a bad way," he said. "They enjoy it, too."

When Walczak first started his lighting project, he would come home from work and see that maybe a light had been turned on or off while he was away. Last year, he would occasionally see some changing lights while outside or while looking out his window.

This year, the maximum number of people using the website at once was 200. Admittedly, Walczak said although the server that receives the requests to turn the lights on and off can handle the number of users, that many users isn't necessarily ideal.

"When you have a finite amount of lights to turn on, there's only so much you can do with 200 people on at once," he said.

The best experience is when there are about 10 users at a time, Walczak said, noting that people do definitely get into "light fights" by immediately responding opposite to the lights going on and off.

"The people that I know from work or other friends, they will often tell me that they'll compete with people elsewhere," Walczak said. "Even myself, sometimes I play with it. I'll turn something on and I'll see somebody immediately turn it back off."

If you give it a try and you're not seeing your actions take effect, Walczak said just try again in 15 minutes.