Hey everyone,

I’m trying to light a living room scene but don’t want to spend thousands on Aputure 300d/600d or Nanlite Forza kits (way out of my budget right now).

What I’m aiming for:

Daylight look (like natural sunlight coming through a window)

OR a cinematic moody vibe (soft key on subject, motivated by a lamp or window)

Needs to light a small–medium living room

RGB flexibility for creative mood lighting (so I can go natural or stylized without buying multiple lights)

My current thoughts:

Maybe a Godox Litemons LA150R (RGB COB) or a Neewer CB300C/FS300C

A softbox with grid or even DIY diffusion (shower curtain / sheer fabric)

Using practicals (lamps in the room) with smart RGB bulbs for extra motivation

Budget: Ideally £200–£400 total (UK based), but I’m open to second-hand or DIY solutions.

Questions:

1. Is a single RGB COB + softbox enough to light a living room scene, or do I need to add a cheaper panel/fill?

2. For those who’ve used Neewer/Godox RGB COBs, how reliable are they compared to Aputure/Amaran?

3. Any RGB hacks with smart bulbs/strips you recommend to boost mood lighting without breaking the bank?

4. Would you prioritise a stronger daylight-only COB (Godox LA200Bi etc.) or a slightly weaker but RGB flexible option?

Would love to hear what setups you’ve built for living rooms on a budget, and how you make them look cinematic 🙏

I recently renovated my whole room and I want new lights for it but Im having trouble finding something that I can control with google home, that can change colour per LED and hopefully not too expensive lol.
The length I would need to cover the length of my room is about 7~8 meters
Any suggestions or tips on how to look for that would be awesome!

Here's my detail. I want to get better led lights for my room since my current ones are lacking. I would like for them to rgbic so I can do cool and pretty lighting effects in my room. I also have blackout curtains for the best effect. I would like the strips to also be smooth so diffusers or diy diffusing techniques would be great. The budget for this project however is undisclosed since this would be a Christmas gift.

I would like the cheapest option for the best quality possible, since I don't know the budget. It's fine if a better option is more expensive but I'd possible I'd like to be able to compare the two. I know this is a lot to ask for a stranger but I am a complete noob to this and I am pretty overwhelmed with all the different things that comes with it. That why I decided asking people who are more experienced would be better than screwing myself over.

By the way, 16.4 ft is good enough for a pretty decent amount of a corner in my room. So two of those would be enough for me. The power supply would just be a normal power outlet. Thanks for taking the time to read this. :)

Does anybody actually do RGB lighting inside their house or is that just something that looks good in advertisements? The last couple of days I have been looking at the Govee site and they have some amazing lighting effects. I’m just not sure if they really look that good in reality.

One thing I thought about is the backlighting for our TV or the floor lamps that face the walls and light the room without creating glare when we watch TV at night. Our wall behind the TV is a darker gray color so I don’t know if the lights will reflect off enough to be effective. However, I would prefer something facing the wall to the bright LED lights in our ceiling (I need to install a dimmer switch sometime). Many times we turn off the living room lights and only have the kitchen light behind us.

I love RGB strip lights but they are seen as childish. Thoughts on “mature” replacements which have a similar affect?

Since a lot of people ask about this, thought I'll make a guide to write down my experiences with RGB lighting. This past month I've purchased and return a lot of RGB products from Amazon already and only a few of them have been worth keeping.

The best way to obtain RGB lighting is via Amazon. It's also hit or miss. Some products aren't worth it, some are totally worth it.

Here's things I recommend to juice up your lighting:

• Strip lights behind your desk. It's ubiquitious, it's battlestation starterpack, but it just works well.

  • Govee 16.4ft strip light $14 tape this behind your desk. One caveat though, it does come with corner wires which interrupt the flow of the strip but you can remove them and solder the strips back together. Very easy.

• Lights behind your monitor. It actually makes a huge huge difference in the overall lighting of your setup.

  • Govee 16.4 strip light $14 again the same product - except you stick this behind your monitor and plug the usb of that strip into the USB of your monitor.

  • If your monitor is a recent model and comes with RGB lighting - that's great :D (like mine) - you can skip the strip and use your monitor's lights.

• RGB bulb. Govee again makes a good one. Stick this on a random lamp you own and point it upwards. Boom - nice ambient RGB light.

  • Govee RGB bulb $14

  • I recommend sticking to one brand - Govee, because 1. they make good products and 2. they're all controllable with the app - you can group them together and turn them on/off in unison.

• Practical lights - I personally don't like them because I hate having light sources in my peripheral vision. It's too distracting for me personally. But if you don't mind - they can add a lot of ambience to your setup and makes for really good decor while adding a tangible light source to your setup.

  • Aukey RGB Lamp $32

  • And of course Nanoleafs - I personally have no experience with this but they're ubiquitous in r/battlestations

• RGB Flood Lights - Recommend for those who want a bright room. If you can place them high up and pointed down towards your desk they look REALLY great example. However, I can't say I recommend them if you plan to place them on the floor and pointed upwards. Just doesn't look as ambient as the Govee strips.

  • Novostella 2 pack flood lights $70

• Task lamps - these are for people who need bright bright lights for non-PC stuff - like painting models, soldering keyboards, drawing, etc.

  • PHIVE LED Desk Lamp $72 - Super bright and illuminates your whole desk with nice bright light. Can change temperatures.

  • NeatFI Lamp - $90 - Even brighter but the temperature is fixed to cool white

  • Globe Electric Architect Lamp - $22 - cheap, not as bright as the ones above, but still very usable. Provide your own LED bulb

tl;dr get a bunch of govee rgb strips. they're cheap and great

I don’t want to spend $100 for 100ft roll of RGB lights just for the adhesive to be bad so if anyone can recommend me anything that would be great! I was looking at Grove but idk if they're going to stick

my bedroom is a 4m by 2.75m and it doesnt need to be the brightest just something intermediate, also need to support WiFi and Alexa. any recommendations?

EDIT: forgot to mention it has to be an addressable and thank you

I really want to put some Rgb lights are my room. But I don’t want them falling so if anyone out there has done this and hasn’t ran into any issues with having them fall down would be nice. I was looking at Grove but not sure.

Spent the last 6 or 7 months getting lots of my current devices set up in Home Assistant. For lighting, that’s pretty much just Hue and Deako. I like Hue and the Hue app looking to see what else is out there. I’ve got both Zigbee and Zwave set up, and I guess now the new Matter integration but I haven’t played with lights for any of these.

I don’t have any specific use cases right now other than they would be used indoors, but would love to hear about your favorite light strips that you use with HA!

EDIT: holy crap! what incredible responses and suggestions. Thanks for all this. Got some Govee lights on a Black Friday special while looking into WLED. Thanks all.

Preferably lights that work with Alexa or one app.

Hey guys, the current Amazon market is flooded with various smart enabled light strips. It is utterly dizzying and I have no idea what to look for, so I would appreciate suggestions. I need about 120ft total worth of lights for the space I have in mind. Ideally they would work with Google home, and have rgb lighting options. Thank you!

I got a few RGB strips 2 or 3 years ago, and now you can see pixels failing. Wondering if there are good quality options for 5M strips the like of Philips Hue (but just the bare bones strip with no controls)?

EDIT: To be clear, I don’t want or need any way to control the strip - I already have a solution for that and I don’t want to change it. I’m just looking for higher quality strips themselves, hence the comment above about bare bones strips.

What is the best way to actually light up the room with multiple colours from 1 source (or as few as possible) like advertised here: https://ibb.co/jTxSXh4 instead of just a thin strip of light on the wall like what those lights actually do: https://ibb.co/Ct0tZQj

I'd rather not hang strips everywhere but if I have to then I'll settle for that. Just figured a decent RGB light would exist somewhere on the planet. There are millions of bulbs that literally show multiple colours on the bulb at once, which they can't even do: https://ibb.co/0tFFvRd So I don't know why they show it like that. But I need something that can do that

I plan to use a 32 inch monitor

Want to get RGB lighting all around my room but with my disability I can’t hang strips all over my room.

Are there any standing lamps or light poles that would dish out the same effect?

I've tested one set of 2838 LEDs from Amazon for crown molding project and will likely add these to all bedrooms. I'll likely go with brighter 5050s on a dimmer.

Anyone care to share their fav source for LEDs at AliExpress, Amazon, etc?

What’s the best LED Strip to run around an entire room? Wife wants to do her office with them. I know of the different brands, need some practical advice.