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Introduction

The Apollo H-3 snowman ornament lit in red and green beside holiday gifts, with the Works with Home Assistant and Made for ESPHome badges

Can be powered by USB-C or two AA batteries. We suggest non-rechargeable AAs.

The Apollo H-3 is the third edition of our annual holiday ornament! It's our way of saying thank you for your support and giving back to our community. 100% of the profit from this ornament goes to charity. This year we are supporting St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Learn about our year and the charities.

How to use

Your H-3 plays songs right out of the box, with no Wi-Fi or app needed.

  1. Put in the two AA batteries, or connect the ornament to a USB-C wall plug.
  2. Slide the switch on the back to On.
  3. Press any of the three buttons on the front of the snowman to play a song. Double press or hold a button to play its alternate song.

Each button has two songs, and each song comes with its own LED effect:

Button Single press Double press or hold
Button 1 (top) Frosty the Snowman Blue Christmas
Button 2 (middle) Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Do You Want to Build a Snowman
Button 3 (bottom) Jingle Bells Barbie Girl

Hold the button when the ornament is asleep

The ornament sleeps between songs to save its batteries. A double press only works while it's awake, so if it's asleep, hold a button for about a second to play the alternate song.

Battery safety

Please use all battery safety precautions. We suggest removing the batteries from the H-3 if you store it for long periods of time.

Add it to Home Assistant

You can also integrate it with Home Assistant to unlock more features, such as changing the songs and LED effects, Bluetooth proxy, and Bluetooth tracking. You will need to reflash it to the smart firmware first!

New for 2026: The H-3 has 37 RGB LEDs split into five zones you can control separately (body, hat, eyes, nose, and mouth), six songs across three buttons, and runs on two AA batteries.

Who are we?

Apollo is run by a couple of friends in Versailles, KY. We build IoT solutions for various applications like motion, air quality, environment monitoring, and more. We can design custom solutions for your needs.

If you have a project you think we might be a good fit for, reach out to us at support@apolloautomation.com.

Next step: set up your H-3

Walk through power, songs, and the optional Home Assistant setup.

H-3 getting started