New App Includes Burlington County's Best Light Displays

BURLINGTON COUNTY, NJ — Burlington County residents looking for a dazzling lights display can find one on Saxony Drive in Mount Laurel. Or Linden Avenue in Riverton. Or even Bergan Court in Marlton.

You can find these lights displays — or add your own — using the ChristmasPrism app, which was developed by Mike Kane of Delaware County, Pennsylvania.

"It was a need of necessity," Kane, 36,told Patch. The necessity was driving his two sons — 2-and-a-half year old Mikey and 1-year-old Kyle — around to see lights in the Broomall area.

He and his wife, Stephanie, were scouring social media for resources on how to scout out the area's best holiday lights.

But in what could be considered a Christmas miracle, Kane woke up the next morning with the ChristmasPrism app idea.

"Rarely do we see any part of society that doesn't have an app," he said. "It kind of formulated in my dream."

So Kane, a professional coder who taught himself several coding languages while battling a rare and debilitating nerve disease, started working on the app.

About two weeks later, the app was polished up for users to join. And since then, more than 24,300 people have downloaded it, and they are just in the Philadelphia region. As of Thursday, the app is ranked No. 30 on the Apple Store's entertainment section with a 4.9 rating out of 280 reviews.

Kane said the app is in 15 states, including New Jersey. Ten displays in Burlington County had been downloaded to the app as of Thursday afternoon. The app is totally free and does not include advertisements.

Additionally, Kane said it does not collect user data and doesn't require your location to use. Users are given anonymous login information to preserve their privacy, which is very important to Kane, who works for Philadelphia-based Connectify and helped develop a virtual private network feature.

When users open the app, they see a Marple-Newtown logo and the map opens on the Broomall area. However, Kane is adding a feature that lets users provide their location details so the map will open on their location, making finding nearby light displays a bit simpler for those outside of the Philadelphia region.

At the moment, he's working on adding a few special features to the app. One idea he's working on is making a separate version for those who dress up as Santa Claus and make donations.
Another is an "Easter egg" feature.

ChristmasPrism is only available on iOS, so use is limited to iPhone users. However, Kane said he plans to work on establishing a website and develop an Android version of the app to have a bigger impact for Christmas 2021.

Download ChristmasPrism for free from the Apple Store here.

Story by Max Bennett, Patch Staff