I dig this floating LED accent lighting, but wow, it's a pain to install

Price When Reviewed

$119.99 for the 4-meter package reviewed right here; 6-meter package obtainable for $149.99

Best Prices Today: Govee Skyline Kit

I preserve questioning when the sensible lighting class will grow to be tapped out. Bulbs, lamps, strings, and strips. We’re certainly approaching peak sensible lighting about now.

But we’re not there but, thanks partially to the Govee Strip Light with Skyline Kit, conveniently abbreviated as simply the Skyline Kit. Govee is already one in every of my favourite sensible lighting producers—I’ve 5 of its merchandise put in in my residence proper now—and the Hong Kong-based operation continues to innovate.

As Govee places it, the Skyline Kit is “more than a lighting accessory,” it’s a “refined design element that uses light to shape and elevate interior spaces.” That aim is achieved by attaching an ordinary adhesive strip mild to a strip of flattened metal wire, permitting you to droop the strip mild in open house as an alternative of sticking it to a wall.

If that doesn’t make sense, that is a kind of circumstances the place an image tells the story finest. But in different phrases, the Skyline Kit is accent lighting that emanates from mid-air, throwing mild right into a darkish nook, onto the ceiling, or from beneath an alcove.

Specifications

There is nothing particular in regards to the underlying lighting tech right here: This is merely an LED strip mild, outfitted with a elaborate backing system on which to hold it. The LEDs within the strip use RGBWWIC know-how (there are discrete crimson, inexperienced, blue, white, and heat white ICs) with a most cumulative energy draw of 36 watts. The strip contains eight addressable zones, with every zone containing six lamps.

Installation and setup

From the leap I’ll say this is likely one of the most tough and wearisome sensible lighting installations I’ve undertaken. I might categorically not advocate you try to put in it until you’re utterly snug with the fundamentals of residence enchancment, you don’t thoughts drilling plenty of holes in your partitions (eight), and also you’re rock regular whereas working excessive on a ladder.

In broad strokes, you’ll have to stretch the aforementioned wire between two reverse partitions, maintaining it taut so the strip mild hooked up to it doesn’t sag within the center; in any other case, the LEDs received’t ship the specified impact on the ceiling. All that requires some fancy footwork on Govee’s finish—and plenty of trial and error on yours.

Christopher Null/Foundry

I received’t stroll via your entire set up course of, however I’ll hit the key steps to provide you a taste for it. My first problem was merely discovering a spot in my residence the place the Skyline Kit would even work. The package will probably be obtainable in two variations, relying on size: 4 meters ($120) or 6 meters ($150). Govee despatched the shorter model upfront of the product’s May 11 launch, however discovering two partitions lower than about 13 ft aside—with entry to a close-by energy supply—proved tough.

Almost each location the place I assumed the Skyline Kit would possibly look good was simply too vast, and in contrast to customary strip lights, there’s no strategy to lengthen the Skyline Kit with extra items. (It can, nevertheless, be minimize shorter utilizing common scissors: snip the wire after which the sunshine strip at common intervals denoted on the tape.)

Ultimately, I discovered a spot that may work in my storage, basically illuminating a prolonged work bench about 10 ft lengthy. This might be not what Govee had in thoughts for a “refined design element,” nevertheless it turned out to be an excellent match for testing.

Christopher Null/Foundry

The first step is to put in two mounting bases on reverse partitions, every of which will get hooked up with 4 screws. Govee contains wall anchors within the field if you happen to’re mounting to drywall; sadly, these will not be the perfect wall anchors for the job, and so they pushed via on one aspect of the wall throughout my set up course of. This brought about the mounting base to drag away from it.

So, I’d advocate utilizing higher-quality anchors, as you will have these mounting bases to look as clear—and as safe—as doable on the wall.

Next, you’re tasked with unspooling the wire strip and flattening it out (plan to have plenty of flat house for this, like a hardwood ground), then adhering the lighting strip to the wire strip. I didn’t actually perceive why Govee didn’t present the 2 already linked—particularly because the mild strip have to be put in with a spot of precisely 7.5 centimeters at one finish of the wire strip. That’s a tedious and considerably delicate course of.

The wire then attaches to the mounting base through what Govee calls “fixing bars,” pairs of units that allow you to pull the wire tight by screwing the 2 halves of the fixing bar collectively, slowly elevating the strain on the wire till it’s taut. After one fixing bar is put in, you then minimize each the steel wire and the strip mild to suit earlier than connecting them each to the second fixing bar.

Christopher Null/Foundry

This is the place I bumped into essentially the most bother of the day, as my wire turned out to be too lengthy, requiring me to disassemble issues, minimize it, and check out once more. On the second attempt it was once more too lengthy, and solely on my third try did it daybreak on me that the trick was to aim to maximize the size of the fixing bars, not reduce it. Screwing the fixing bars collectively is tough work, and it can save you your self an enormous headache by reducing the quantity of rotating it’s important to do to drag the wire in good and tight.

Pro tip: Pay shut consideration to each element within the full printed handbook (simply ignore the quick-start information) at every step of the method. Hopefully, movies may even be obtainable when the product ships to retail that can make clear a few of the trickier elements.

At final, with the wire taut throughout the room, the Skyline Kit may be powered up. This is completed through a pigtail that snakes out from one of many fixing bars. There’s sadly no nice resolution for mitigating this eyesore. As with most strip mild merchandise, you’re by yourself in relation to hiding the uncovered wiring. You’ll most likely need to make sure you go away entry to the inline management field, which offers entry to on-demand energy, a color-changing function, and a brightness adjuster.

Using the Govee Skyline package

Christopher Null/Foundry

After greater than two hours of labor, I had the package put in and operational. Even earlier than I configured it, the Gove Skyline’s impact was spectacular, casting a vigorous, aesthetically pleasing backlight right into a previously darkish nook. And whereas probably not the purpose of the product, it additionally offers some useful working mild to the house once I wanted it. The colours are vibrant—very similar to Govee’s strip lights—and the whites vivid.

You’ll use the Govee app to handle the lights, and also you’ll virtually actually want it regardless of the gadget’s Matter help, as a result of that’s the one strategy to handle its coloration options. The Govee app found the Skyline Kit mechanically after it was powered up—though the app recognized it as an ordinary strip mild—and I used to be capable of instantly begin working with it.

As far because the Govee app is anxious, the Skyline is an everyday strip mild, and it could actually do all the identical issues, together with selecting from dozens of scenes, setting an ordinary white coloration temperature (a heat 2700 Kelvin to very cool 6500Okay), and pulsating in time with music both through a microphone hooked up to the facility wire of the gadget or via your cellphone’s mic.

Christopher Null/Foundry

Govee’s AI assistant may create customized scenes based mostly on verbal or typed prompts—or perhaps a picture you’ve snapped. That mentioned, none of those options are any completely different than you’ll discover on customary Govee strip lights.

This evaluate is a part of TechHive’s in-depth protection of the best smart lighting.

I did encounter one drawback when calibrating the size of the lights. An ostensibly useful device helps you to inform the Govee app precisely the place you chop the strip of lights, which helps you to recalibrate scenes and reset the beginning and finish factors of lighting results.

I adopted the instructions within the app however this merely didn’t work proper: After calibration, the final foot or extra of lights remained white throughout most coloration operations, as if these lights didn’t exist. I ended up recalibrating the lights to inform the app that the strip was 5 steps longer than it truly was with a purpose to get these final segments to mild up correctly. I presume that is only a bug that can finally be resolved through a firmware replace.

Should you purchase a Govee Skyline Kit?

Christopher Null/Foundry

As with all sensible residence tech, I need to now determine whether or not to depart these lights in place or dismantle them now that my testing is full. For now, I’m planning to depart them put in, partially as a result of I do know elimination will probably be a headache and partially as a result of I need to see how helpful they’re over the long run. The mild appears nice. The chunky mounting brackets on both wall and the dangling cable, not a lot, and I’m hoping that model 2.0 of this know-how cleans up the {hardware} a bit.

If yow will discover a spot in your house the place this resolution is sensible—and each its brackets and cabling may be no less than considerably hidden—it’s value contemplating as a probably highly effective assertion piece.