My backyard made me a color-changing smart lighting convert

I’ll admit it. I was wrong. Wildly colorful lighting is delightful for your smart location — well, outdoors, astatine least.

Smart lighting is 1 of my favourite features of the smart location — it combines convenience pinch ambiance, letting you alteration the entire look of your room pinch conscionable a property of a button. But, different than the occasional popular of color, mostly successful my kids’ rooms and outdoors astir the holidays, I’ve ne'er recovered overmuch usage for color-changing lights. I for illustration the subtler effects of tunable achromatic ray mixed pinch dimming to group the segment indoors, and that penchant besides extended to outdoor lighting. Until this summer.

With an influx of caller outdoor lighting products complete the past twelvemonth aliases so, I decided to spot really acold outdoor smart lighting has come: Are products pinch color-changing and gradient lighting, on pinch RGBICW (where you get colors and whites and tin power LEDs individually), worthy the other investment, aliases are they still much garish than gorgeous?

To find out, I tested various drawstring lights, “permanent” exterior lighting, a elephantine lamppost, and a wall of ray successful my yard. Overall, smart outdoor lighting has travel a agelong way, and while there’s still imaginable to spell complete the top, today’s options connection a amazingly effective blend of nosy and style — if you instrumentality pinch 1 brand. I focused connected Govee for this article because it offers 1 of the broadest lineups and has a fewer genuinely chaotic options, including that 8-foot wall of light.

Strategically placed architectural lighting has ever had the imaginable to elevate a home’s curb entreaty aliases your backyard statement vibe, but connected, color-changing outdoor lighting offers respective advantages. First, 1 setup useful year-round. Instead of changing retired your lights for different seasons, you tin conscionable usage an app to alteration the look. And if you’re investing successful smart lighting, having the action to adhd colour gives you much flexibility.

I person Govee imperishable outdoor Prism lights installed connected my home, and while astir of the clip I instrumentality pinch an elegant achromatic light, successful the past fewer months I’ve dressed up my eaves pinch a assortment of colors. These see shades of pinkish for Valentine’s Day, greenish and golden for St. Patrick’s Day, beautiful pastels for Easter, red, white, and bluish for Memorial Day, orangish and purple for erstwhile my boy sewage accepted to Clemson University, and past his schoolhouse colors — orangish and bluish — for his graduation this month. (I conscionable can’t look to flight orange.)

Second, there’s the use of connectivity; app power lets you group your lights connected a schedule, group sunrise and sunset routines, and easy power them pinch sound commands. Paired pinch mobility sensors, outdoor lights tin beryllium an fantabulous information feature, illuminating a way arsenic you locomotion on it aliases lighting up acheronian areas of your yard. I group up Govee’s outdoor lamppost successful my backyard, and erstwhile I spell retired astatine nighttime to cheque connected the chickens, it lights up arsenic I approach. This is wherever I’ve recovered outdoor lighting to beryllium the biggest use successful my yard, extending my garden’s usability past twilight.

Today, colored outdoor lighting still useful champion if you instrumentality to 1 brand. That’s because galore of the astir awesome features — specified arsenic move lighting — trust connected proprietary apps. Dynamic lighting is the catch-all word for colorful, synchronized, and animated lighting effects. These effects tin besides sync pinch music, TVs, aliases computers to create a much immersive experience. Outdoors, euphony sync is the astir useful, helping create an instant statement atmosphere.

There are plentifulness of bully outdoor lighting options pinch beardown move lighting features, including Nanoleaf, Philips Hue, Lifx, GE Cync, and Home Depot’s Hampton Bay, but for sheer assortment and a wide value range, it’s difficult to hit Govee. Its ecosystem has grown exponentially complete the past fewer years, pinch entries successful each class and immoderate wholly caller ones, and it’s importantly little costly than Hue’s outdoor range, which is the closest successful position of number of options.

Nearly each Govee’s newer products support the Matter interoperability standard, and each of them activity pinch Alexa and Google Home for sound power and pairing pinch different lights. I person an Amazon Alexa regular wherever I say, “Alexa, glow up the garden,” and each the lights travel on. (Matter doesn’t support move lighting yet, but it tin grip color-changing, scheduling, and on/off controls).

Govee uses Bluetooth and Wi-Fi for setup and control. I’ve recovered its Wi-Fi connectivity tin beryllium temperamental — that’s 1 logic I for illustration Philips Hue for my indoor lights, pinch its rock-solid Zigbee connectivity. But pinch Bluetooth arsenic a fallback, you tin power Govee lights pinch your telephone arsenic agelong arsenic you’re adjacent them, which is mostly erstwhile you want to alteration colors aliases move connected scenes. Govee’s app is little polished than immoderate competitors, but it offers a immense magnitude of elasticity erstwhile you study your measurement around.

I’ve recovered Govee’s AI Lighting Bot useful erstwhile nary of the preset scenes fit, and I didn’t want to walk clip creating my own. For my son’s graduation, I asked it to create a “playful segment utilizing orangish and blue” connected the Govee imperishable outdoor lights I installed astatine the beforehand of my house, and it produced a beautiful rippling effect that undulated crossed the eaves.

The astir nosy we’ve had pinch the AI Lighting Bot, though, has been pinch Govee’s Lightwall. At almost 8 feet wide, this curtain-style ray comes pinch its ain frame, truthful you tin put it anyplace successful your gait for a superior ray show — deliberation outdoor movie screen.

During the Kentucky Derby, my hubby asked Govee to conjure up a suitable scene, and it did a decent occupation of simulating horses and jockeys racing. Its 35fps wasn’t adjacent movie quality, but entertaining each the same. For my son’s paper crippled evening, he and his friends played Spades, illuminated by a colorful manus of cards connected the Lightwall. It’s besides portable, truthful we took it to his graduation party, and it made a awesome backdrop for the band. But astatine $450, it’s decidedly much novelty than utility.

My favourite outdoor lights are still the drawstring lights. These harvester task lighting, decor, and ambiance, letting you spell from agleam whites while prepping meal connected the grill to softer, much colorful vibes pinch the property of a button. I precocious swapped retired a group of Nanoleaf outdoor bulbs hanging astir my patio for the caller Govee Chromatic String Lights. Here, each bulb tin show aggregate colors simultaneously, which adds magnitude without being overpowering. They’re akin to Lifx’s outdoor drawstring lights, but the cardinal quality is that Govee’s are much diffuse, which lends a softer look.

Overall, I for illustration the look of the Nanoleaf bulbs erstwhile off; they person a beautiful cut-glass design, but Govee’s ray shows are much impressive, and I tin sync them pinch the different Govee lights utilizing Govee’s DreamView system, which syncs lighting effects complete your Wi-Fi web truthful aggregate products tin show the aforesaid effect. The action to instantly displacement the temper from meal al fresco to a teen hangout this summertime has been much nosy than I expected.

Of course, a large situation pinch outdoor lighting is powerfulness cords, and this is wherever star is simply a awesome option. Govee’s caller Outdoor Solar String Lights characteristic a 6-watt sheet pinch a built-in artillery and fto maine widen my lighting beyond wherever I person powerfulness sources to astir my rootlike garden. They aren’t arsenic agleam arsenic the powered drawstring lights, but the shapely filament is attractive, and the lights look for illustration small jewels hanging disconnected my plot fence.

I whitethorn ne'er afloat clasp a elephantine wall of animated LEDs successful my backyard, but my summertime plot research showed maine that RGB outdoor lighting tin beryllium much than a novelty. It’s becoming much useful indoors, too. I precocious tested immoderate of Philips Hue’s caller lighting features that usage colour successful subtler ways to create elegant lighting scenes that heighten a room alternatively than predominate it.

Overall, I still for illustration the much blase attack that companies for illustration Hue connection indoors, but Govee’s bolder outdoor lighting proved maine incorrect erstwhile it comes to my garden. Flashy, RGB lighting has made it a much welcoming, usable, and genuinely nosy spot to beryllium aft acheronian this summer.

Photos and video by Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge