These things are awesome!! I have the LifX Z strip behind my tv (13ft) and also behind recessed crown molding. I also have two LifX BR30 floodlights over my bar area. I can literally turn my man cave into a night club. The app connects everything flawlessly.
I've been looking forward to trying these ever since I heard about them, but was deterred by the reviews ever since... After overhauling the recessed lighting in my living room with new 5" housings and LIFX A19 bulbs, I decided to take the change and redo the LED strips in the living room as well, and started with a purchase of 2 Starter Kits, and 8 meters of additional strips, for a total of 12m LED strips.
At first before the 2.74 firmware that hit a few days ago, I definitely noticed the difference between the color temperatures of the light vs. the A19 recessed LIFX bulbs, however setting the LED strips 500k higher than the A19 bulbs seem to mitigate this. And as other reviewers mentioned, below 3500k the light became extremely green. BUT, the 2.74 firmware fixed the green light below 3500k issue, and has balanced the colors much better with the A19s.
WiFi connectivity. This is like the #1 issue people complain about, however I had 0 issues even before 2.74 firmware. I do have a wireless access point within 1 wall from the controllers, which when I check the app, shows 4 out of 4 connectivity bubbles. That AP is connected to 9 A19 bulbs as well without any issues, and I didn't have to do anything stupid like make a dedicated LIFX SSID. The LIFX developer app also has had 0 issues connecting to, and controlling the lights, and the stuff you can do is pretty awesome.
Overall, as a LIFX customer of several years now, I can say that this is as great a product as their standard bulbs, its just new. And as we have seen over the years, they make good on their promises to improve and fix things, and can and have just with the firmware.
This is the 3rd try I've given these lights. Any other brand I would've given up on, but LIFX has the best colors, hands down. The two previous tries with the Z were endlessly frustrating and I had to return them because I could not get them to connect. I decided to try this new version that supports homekit/assistant, on the off chance they ship with an updated firmware that wouldn't cause me the same headaches. Sure enough, they connected flawlessly, and even went through the firmware upgrade without a hiccup. FINALLY! It looks like we're on the right track now. Worth the wait for these colors. Do it.
I did a lot of research on these LED strips. I was deciding between these and the Philips Hue Lighting Strip. These are slightly brighter and allow you to have different colors on the same strip. I'm really happy with them. The reason why I'm not rating them 5 stars: the effects in the app are not optimized for the LED strip (aside from Move). One of the main reasons why I bought this was because you can have many different colors on one strip--but when you select the Animate theme, the whole strip becomes one color. Some of the light transitions are abrupt in the strip (when they're very smooth in the normal Lifx bulbs). These are small things that I'm sure will work better in the future with app updates. Overall, I recommend.
I got these in the mail today, and while they aren’t great at sticking to bumpy surfaces, they’ve stuck pretty well to my ceiling so far, and the amount of light they put out can be pretty blinding if you aren’t used to like these😅 As usual, it seems Lifx dominates in brightness and range of colors, but I love the ability to “paint” each quadrant a certain color(or shade of white) and have the colors move(left to right or vice versa) as well. If you want the backstory to why I chose this particular light strip, read on:
My introduction to using strip lights was with Kasa, but when that app failed to be updated on a regular basis and the lights were acting funky I decided to search for a new light strip to light my stairway.
I’ve found that Hue bulbs seem to stay online as long as the router is, but not a fan of all of their apps(and god forbid you should have an older model), while Lifx seems to offer the most amount of brightness and colors, and I heard about a new brand which lets you turn your traditional light switch into a smart switch(without spending the extra money for a new switch and electrician). Since the most important thing for me was brightness and the amount of colors(not to mention how long a company can stay in business so I don’t feel like I’m rolling the dice), in the end I went with the Lifx Z, and I’m incredibly glad I did(though if that changes, I’ll update my review)
Feature Product
- Works with Amazon Alexa to support dimming, shades of white, and color settings through voice control (Alexa device sold separately)
- 1 meter extension to LIFX Z Starter Kit (LIFX Z Starter Kit required and sold separately)
- 16 million colors and warm to cool whites
- Easy to set up, built in wifi - no hub required
- 8 user-defined Color/white zones per meter, bright - 700 lumens/meter
- Works with Alexa, Apple HomeKit and Google Assistant
Description
LIFX Z (extension) Wi-Fi smart LED light strip (1 meter), adjustable, multicolor, dimmable, no hub required, works with Alexa. With LIFX, how your strip connects is important, so all of our WiFi technology is built right into each base - no hub required. Works with Nest.
Took me a while to decide whether I wanted to go Lifx Z or Hue strips for my under cabinets. Decided on these since I didn't need the hub and most people where saying they were brighter. I never used hue for myself, so I don't know if it's true or not, all I can say is these work, are easy to install, work with homekit and are super bright. Other thing I really like about these, but never got to compare it to the hue is the app. I really dig all the settings and though its only been one day I can't wait to really get involved with it and create my own settings. I also paired it with a logitech pop which pairs up great. Going to be picking up another two kits today to finish our kitchen. Only purchased one at first to make sure its the route I wanted to go.
I bought these even though they are pricey because they integrate with both Alexa and Smart Things. What I love about these lights are that the lights are very vibrant and you can make different sections of each light strip different colors.
The only thing I do not like is the adhesive tape. It’s horrible. Within 24 hours they had fallen off despite following the instructions on how to properly prep and attach the lights. I luckily had double sided tape that I was able to use to reattach them.
What I didn’t know when I bought them was that they came in two separate strips that you can attach together. I really like this as I put the lights on the back of my tv. Rounding corners with strip lighting can be difficult, so having them in two separate strips which worked well for my setup. I put one on top of the back of the tv and one at the bottom. I did have to buy an entension cord for another $5 with the proper pin connections, but the result was worth it.
I own Phillips Hue light strips and a no name cheap brand. The LIFX are my favorite. The hue aren’t as bright and you can’t change the lights in different sections of the light strip. The cheap ones broke within a year. I plan on buying more.
I have 5 of these strips attached to the back of my tv. They are easy to install, setup and operate. I had to use spots of glue to keep them in place which was expected. Tacky adhesives soften when warmed up. Very pleased with the end result and addition to the rest of my Lifx lights.
For starters i use these unconventionally, im using them for freshwater fish tank lights and they are phenomanI! BRIGHT COMPARED TO MOST LED STRIPS!!!! I bought this Z Strip Starter kit and ended up buying the kit from Best Buy after getting this because you get one more 1M strip vs just two. So i used one 1M strip over a 30 gal fish tank in my pets room and the other 4M of strip inside the canopy of a 125 gal tank in the living room (this light is layed out, imagine a paper clip, left and right across the 6’ tank about 3 times).
So the customization of having 13’ of this amazing strip is great but because of the snake layout, the colors wash eachother out, which i dont mind because i rarely use anything other than whites and blues which mix well.
The 1M strip is a great option in my pets room over the fish tank. I have dogs that i keep in the so i monitor them with my security system. So being able to control the light on my phone even away from home i can light the room enough for the nightvision mode to kick off the cameras.
The app does EVERYTHING.
FOR ANYONE HAVING ISSUES WITH ONLY THE FIRST HALF OF THE STRIP LIGHTING UP:
-There is a small reset button on the rectangle block next to the power adapter, press and hold it till it hard resets. Was driving me crazy forever! They need to fix this issue or clearly tell people how to solve it.
Other than that, these things are amazing. I'm in love with all kinds of LED stuff and these take the cake for light strips. Philips hue suck in comparison IMO. I still love hue for other stuff tho
Definitely worth your money
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