How A Man Is Allowing Complete Strangers To Control His Christmas Lights

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- What a bright idea! Or is it?

An Ohio man has come up with a way to let complete strangers program his home's light show from anywhere around the world.

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Tom Hammond, who works for the University of Akron, has been working on the programming and hardware for several years. A friend in Australia helped him brainstorm the idea.

It uses simple hardware that Hammond says is easily affordable. It can be programmed by anyone from anywhere and viewed online.

"The website actually shows where everybody is coming from and I have had people from France and Denver, Colorado, and China and Russia, the Netherlands. The first day I tried this I put one little message on Facebook and I had 800 people changing the lights in one evening which is a little bit crazy but it was a lot of fun," said Hammond.

The light show can be programmed between 5:00 p.m. and midnight everyday until January 7.