12 Best Smart LED Strip Lights of 2023

Apr 28, 2024

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Offering bright colors and plenty of amazing lightning effects, the LIFX Lightstrip with Color Zones is the very best smart strip light you can buy. Read More

Govee's RGB LED Strip Light are a value offering plenty of fun lighting features to color your world. Read More

Philips Hue is known for its high-quality luminance and vibrant colors, and these smart strip lights deliver on those fronts. Read More

The Kasa Smart Multicolor Light Strip offers way more than solid colors, letting you customize up to 50 light zones per strand. Read More

The Govee Glide Wall Light is a sleek alternative to a strip light that offers plenty of bright colors and fun lighting settings. Read More

Updated July 21, 2023

Sometimes all it takes to completely transform your home is a fun new gadget. One of the most noticeable (and overlooked) upgrades for your space is adding smart LED light strips. It’s an affordable way to illuminate places like the underside of kitchen cabinets and add mood lighting along hallway baseboards.

The LIFX Lightstrip Color Zones (available at Amazon) is the best smart LED strip lights thanks to the variety of lighting features, easy setup, and integration with Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri for hands-free voice control. For an even more affordable alternative, Govee's LED Strip Lights (available at Amazon) are full of fun lighting features and smarts. There are plenty of other intriguing choices too, each of which has something to offer.

We fell in love with the LIFX Lightstrip with Color Zones for their incredibly simple set up, ease of use, and variety of awesome features.

Easy to install, the LIFX Lightstrip with Color Zones impressed us from the start. In what felt like a blink of an eye, we had these RGBW LED lights connected to Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Apple HomeKit. Each enabled voice control to turn the lights on/off, change the color, and adjust the brightness level.

At 1,400 lumens, these weren't the most radiant lights we tested, but we had no issues illuminating a dark room even at 30% brightness. Uniquely, it offers eight different color zones. Each zone can be set to a different color (from millions of options), allowing you to get creative with your custom lighting setup.

The strip light is available in two lengths: 40 inches and 80 inches. Additional 40-inch extension strips can be added for up to 33 feet, or you can cut the strip down to a smaller size.

The LIFX app is loaded with useful controls like scheduling and grouping, plus a bevy of fun lighting effects and preset color themes. The app can even make the lights dance to the beat of a song or the sound of a movie via your phone’s or tablet's microphone.

Works with Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri

Great lighting effects

Bright, vivid colors

App doesn't offer two-factor authentication

Govee's smart light strip is the perfect blend of affordability and smarts.

Govee’s RGB LED Strip Lights offer a slew of fun and useful lighting features. It uses either a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connection, has a quick and simple setup, and an all-around pleasant user experience at an affordable price. The rolls of LED strip lights are all connected to one power adapter and can be trimmed to size to fit your space.

The lights work well with voice control via Alexa and Google Assistant (there’s no support for Siri), but the Govee Home app is what really makes these lights a pleasure to use, allowing you to adjust the brightness level and create schedules. You can also choose between warm and cool color tones from over 16 million colors, and pick from over 60 preset lighting scenes.

If you prefer, you can control the lights with the included remote. You can even use your device’s microphone to sync to whatever sound is playing—be it from a speaker, TV, or your own voice.

On the downside, these lights have the thinnest strip of any we tested. This makes them easy to install and maneuver around corners. Unfortunately, they’re too flimsy for us to recommend moving them more than once or twice.

Awesome lighting features

Google Assistant and Alexa support

Bright and colorful

No support for Apple HomeKit

Flimsy build quality

Philips Hue makes the best smart bulbs, so we had high hopes for this light strip. TLDR: It’s wonderful, but unless you’re already invested in a Philips Hue ecosystem, we’d recommend skipping this light strip.

If you’re in Bluetooth range, that becomes an option via the Philips Hue Bluetooth app for iOS and Android. Other control options include Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, Apple HomeKit, Microsoft Cortana, SmartThings, and IFTTT.

Offering 1,600 lumens, the Philips Hue Light Strip Plus is one of the brightest on the market. In the app, you can set the lights to one of 16 million colors or opt for one of the many awesome preset light settings.

One feature that impressed us is that cut segments can be reused and reconnected to other portions of the strip using the Philip Hue connector. This is not the case for most smart light strips.

You can sync them with your home entertainment system, which is a really cool feature, but the Philips Hue Play HDMI Sync Box is required to make it work.

This light strip is sleek, easy to use, and full of awesome features, but due to cost, it’s best for people who are already invested in Philips Hue lights or want to start using them for their smart lighting system.

Robust lighting effects and presets

Bright

Works with Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri

Hub required to access best features

The Kasa Smart Multicolor Light Strip makes it easy to create custom eye-catching light displays. Powered by the Kasa app, these lights are incredibly quick and easy to set up, and they have a bubble-like polyurethane coating that helps to protect the diodes.

The lights are easiest to install with two people—one person to hold the strip up and another to peel off the backing and place the strand—but the adhesive is strong and won’t be going anywhere until you remove it.

The strip itself has quite a bit of writing on it that makes it somewhat unattractive when the lights are off, so you may only want to use this option in concealed locations.

The Kasa Smart Multicolor Light Strip offers incredible functionality. The 16-foot strand has 50 customizable color zones that you can set to 16 million colors. Thanks to the strip’s built-in integrated circuit chip, the zones can be controlled separately, creating fun custom patterns.

The Kasa app comes programmed with color effects like rainbow and candy cane, but you can also create your own designs through the color-painting function. The app even includes an energy-tracking tab to show you how much electricity the lights are using.

These Kasa lights are easy to sync up with Alexa, Google Assistant, or Samsung SmartThings—no hub needed. However, one downside of the KL420L5 is that it can’t be connected or spliced to increase the strand’s length, so you have a maximum length of 16.4 feet to work with.

Read our review of the Kasa Smart Mutlicolor Light Strip.

Easy to install

Great lighting features

Works with Alexa and Google Assistant

Can’t be spliced

The Govee Glide RGBIC Wall Light uses adhesive for installation and displays a lovely range of colors, but it's a bit of a different take on a light strip. Made from plastic, the 7-piece gadget snaps together to create a thick bar of light that's ideal for gaming and watching movies.

It uses Govee's RGBIC technology, enabling it to display multiple colors at the same time in a neat "flowing" effect.

While it took some elbow grease to lock the pieces into place, that small frustration was soon forgotten after watching the strip transform into an immersive lighting experience. Music sync mode can use any device with the Govee app or a built-in mic to listen for nearby sound and create a reactive light show

The wall light connects over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. It also responds well to voice control with Alexa and Google Assistant to adjust the colors, brightness levels, scene modes, and power.

The wall light comes with six straight pieces and one angled corner piece. In total, it has 19 lighting segments that can display up to 57 vibrant colors at once.

One downside is the light's limited configuration options. The positioning of the power cord and the fact that you can’t connect multiple wall lights together restrict your options.

Works with Alexa and Google Assistant

Awesome lighting features

Great for gaming and watching movies

Can be hard to assemble

No Apple HomeKit support

Limited options for installation

Get ready to host the living room dance party of your dreams, thanks to the countless bright colors and patterns the Govee M1 LED Strip Light delivers. Its RGBIC technology allows for multiple hues to display simultaneously on a single strip, giving you the opportunity to customize its vivid colors with the touch of a button.

It’s easy to set up and adhere to almost any surface, a simple pair of scissors shortens the length of the strip with ease, and a QR code on the box will lead you straight to the app. The app offers everything from timers and brightness to themed color groupings and flashing patterns.

The Music DreamView feature even syncs your playlist with the lighting effects, giving a nightclub feel when you’re feeling energized or a subdued, dreamy ambiance when it’s time to settle down.

There are a few downsides. Trimming the length renders the remaining portion useless, wasting lights. The exposed tech look when the lights aren’t on is unappealing. And if you remove it someday, it may take some of your paint with it.

Read our full review of the Govee M1 Smart LED Strip Light.

Easy to install

Customizable

Works with Alexa and Google Assistant

May leave residue behind upon removal

Limited trim options

Unattractive when not in use

There's not much we didn't like about the TP-Link Kasa Smart LED Strip Lights. Offering 16 color zones, these multicolor lights were simple to set up with Alexa and Google Assistant. The app offers a slew of fun features to brighten up your home. The lights themselves offer 16 million colors, the ability to trim or extend the lights, and a brightness of up to 1400 Lumens.

The brilliant (excuse the pun) Kasa app offers animated lighting effects, scenes and scheduling features, and the option to group the strip lights with other Kasa smart light bulbs.

These lights are thick and felt like bending a garden hose during installation. Sealing down the corners and edges wasn’t impossible, but required more effort than other lights. While it works best in a straight line, you can cut it to size or extend the strip.

No hub needed

Works with Alexa and Google

Easy to use

Nothing we could find

The Cync LED Light Strip is an improvement over the previous version, which required a smart bridge for features like smart assistant integration or remote access away from home.

Now, you can use hands-free voice control with Alexa or Google Assistant (but not Siri) to adjust the brightness to a certain percentage, change the color or scene, and power the lights on/off without needing additional devices.

The strip works with extenders for additional length. It’s on the lower end of the brightness scale at just 800 lumens, but it does a fine job of illuminating a dark room at full brightness.

We also like that the Cync app sends email account notifications if someone attempts to log into your account, which helps keep your account secure.

In the app, you can choose from a wheel full of colors, as well as white light settings like cool white, warm white, and sunset. Scenes and schedules are available in the app, but there are no preset lighting features, color zones, or home entertainment integrations.

No hub needed

Works with Alexa and Google Assistant

Email account verification for new logins

Limited lighting effects

No support for Siri

The Geeni Prisma Plus didn't give us any trouble during setup or installation. The light strip works with Alexa and Google. They’re also waterproof, and can be used outdoors.

Like others, Geeni’s strip lights can be trimmed to size or combined with extender pieces. You can create schedules, choose colors, or dim the lights. You can also choose one of nine premade lighting scenes.

These lights are attractive, fairly bright, and feel well-made, but the humming noise coming from the power adapter each time we adjusted the color seemed to cheapen the product. Another thing we didn’t like was that the remote control lacks adhesive tape, leaving no easy way to attach it to the wall.

We were also unable to log into the Geeni app on both an iPhone and Android at the same time, which could create a problem for households with multiple users. However, the app does offer two-factor authentication to help secure your account.

Works with Google Assistant, Alexa, Microsoft Cortana

No hub needed

Noticeable "hum" sound when changing between light colors

The Wyze Light Strip doesn't have as many bells and whistles as other light strips in our guide, but, as we’ve come to expect from Wyze, it does have some cool features at a relatively low price point.

The LED strip light works with Alexa and Google Assistant, comes with 16 million color options (including RGB and tuneable whites), and can sync to the beat of a song or a movie playing nearby.

The digital setup and physical installation are painless and should only take a few minutes. With features like a remote control and timers, the Wyze app makes it easy to manage the LED light strip from anywhere.

The app also includes fun, useful extras like Sleep Routines (to simulate sunrise/sunset for an easier wake-up), Vacation Mode (randomly turns lights on/off to give the appearance you’re home), and Sun Match (mimics the natural sunlight).

The RGB colors are vibrant and look great, but the “white” color gives off a noticeable blue hue compared to others. When using voice commands for Alexa or Google Assistant (there’s no Siri support), you can control the power, brightness, and colors.

However, you’ll need the Wyze app to activate any of the preset lighting scenes. Additionally, the Wyze Light Strip can only display one color at a time, instead of multiple colors simultaneously.

The strips are trimmable but cannot be extended. The strip is flexible and easy to work with for outlining your TV or lining baseboards.

Works with Alexa and Google Assistant

Syncs up with sound

Useful features

No true "white" color

No protective coating

At 1,800 lumens, the Eve Light Strip is among the brightest we've tested, offering a wide array of full-spectrum white and colors to choose from. While we had a nice and easy experience with the Eve strip, there are a few shortcomings.

This strip light isn’t as customizable as some others. It doesn't offer any fun lighting effects or presets—you're limited to single colors only.

The only smart home assistant it’s compatible with is Siri, which enables Apple users to change the color, adjust the brightness, and turn it on/off. You can do so remotely with any iOS device that functions as an Apple home hub, including an iPad, Apple TV, or Apple HomePod.

The Eve Energy app is also iOS-exclusive, and the strip supports Apple’s HomeKit Adaptive Lighting. This iOS feature that automatically adjusts the color temperature as the day goes on. All in all, Android users should avoid this light strip.

Like most strip lights, Eve's can be trimmed to a smaller size, or you can add a few of Eve’s extension strips up to 32.8 feet. We had issues with the adhesive backing, which tore off in a few spots during setup and made the lights hard to stick into place.

Supports Apple HomeKit's Adaptive Lighting

Very bright

Reliable connection

Not compatible with Android devices

Limited lighting effects

No Google Assistant or Alexa support

Sengled’s Smart LED Multicolor Light Strip is easy to arrange and was overall pleasant to use. The strip is 6.5 feet long but can be extended using Sengled's Smart LED Multicolor Light Strip Extensions, or trimmed for a smaller space.

The Sengled app offers lots of features like scheduling, group control, color/temperature choice, and brightness. The app also offers email account verification to confirm new logins. These lights feature energy monitoring, which was unique among products we tested. While it’s not a necessary feature for strip lights, it can be useful for tracking consumption.

One thing to know is that these lights do require a hub. While a compatible smart hub is an extra cost, it may be worth the money if you plan on expanding your smart home with other Sengled smart bulbs.

We paired the strip lights with a Sengled Smart Hub and were almost instantly connected. Sometimes hubs can be tricky to get up and running, but we were pleasantly surprised by the ease of the entire process.

All things considered, we’d recommend this LED multicolor light strip to anyone who already uses Sengled smart bulbs.

Works with Alexa, Google Assistant, and Samsung SmartThings

Offers energy monitoring

Hub required

Hi, I’m Rachel Murphy, Reviewed’s home editor. I live in a home full of smart home devices like cameras, plugs, speakers, and an oven. During my tenure at Reviewed, I’ve tested smart plugs, smart water leak detectors, and other gadgets that can be controlled remotely or via smart assistants.

Testing in this guide was also completed by longtime freelance writer and reviewer Camryn Rabideau.

We put each light strip through a series of in-depth, hands-on tests to fully understand each one’s capabilities, features, and downsides. We also looked for important app security features like two-factor authentication and reviewed the amount and types of data the apps collect.

We set the lights up in a variety of indoor locations throughout my home, testing to see which ones work the best in low light, offer the best connectivity, and integrate with smart assistants for easy control. We also tested the companion apps on both iOS and Android devices to get a feel for their connectivity, ease of use, and features.

LED strips are a versatile lighting option that can be added almost anywhere inside your house. They are often seen in home theater setups, but the bendable, sticky lights are a quick and easy way to brighten up the dark spots in your home and add accent lighting. There are a few things to consider before you purchase LED strip lights.

When purchasing smart LED light strips for your home, you should check to see whether the light strip requires a hub. Unless you already have a compatible smart home hub, we’d recommend choosing a smart strip light that doesn’t require you to purchase another device.

It’s also important to select a strip light that easily integrates with your existing smart home environment. We tested models that work with Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant. However, not all of these strip lights are compatible with all three popular smart assistants.

While most of the lights we tested connect over Wi-Fi, some use only Bluetooth, and others can use either. We found Bluetooth connections to be unreliable and slow at times, so we’d recommend selecting a strip light that offers Wi-Fi.

The amount of light you’re getting from a bulb is measured in lumens—the more lumens, the more brightness. Many of the light strips we tested had adjustable brightness to best fit the space you’re using them. However, even one of the sets on the lower end of brightness, the Cync LED Light Strip, with 800 lumens, was capable of lighting a dark room.

The good majority of strip lights we tested can either be cut down or extended with additional light strip sections. However, not all of the lights are as customizable.

Think strategically about where you need extra lighting, then measure the area. During testing, we installed strip lights around TVs and mirrors, along baseboards and door trim, on bookcases and office desks, and under kitchen cabinets.

Camryn Rabideau

Contributor

Camryn Rabideau is a full-time freelance writer and product tester with eight years of experience. She's been lucky enough to test hundreds of products firsthand, and her specialties include bedding and pet products, which often require help from her two dogs, three cats, and flock of rambunctious chickens.

Rachel Murphy

Editor, Home

Rachel Murphy is Reviewed's home editor. She holds a journalism degree from the University of Central Florida. Prior to joining the team, she worked as a freelance writer for publications like Insider and Mashable, and as an associate editorial producer for Good Morning America. Aside from smart home tech, her interests include food, travel, parenting, and home renovation. You can usually find her sipping on coffee at any time of the day.

Jill Schildhouse

Freelance contributor

Jill Schildhouse is a valued contributor to the Reviewed.com family of sites.

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