This may very well be one of us redditors, but I thought I would post it here because it is very helpful for customization.

***I have been researching permanent outdoor Christmas lights. I can save you a few hours of research in a few minutes of reading.

You can hire companies to install lights for you. Will cost around $3,000 depending on your house. Jellyfish, oelo, trimlight, and several others. Some of them will sell you a kit to install yourself. Will save about $1,000 or so. Most have their own propriety app and many have very poor reviews.

There are a few companies that sell diy light kits. Permatrack and Shawtech lighting. $600-$1000. One has their own app the uses wled. Both kits require a lot of assembly but extremely customizable.

Govee is interesting since it’s the lowest price point. They achieved this since they are a large company, their kit uses less leds than all the others, there’s no channel, and they don’t offer any customization for their kit besides length.

The lack of customization is going to turn a lot of people off. The issue with the Govee kit is most homes will need to jump gaps to illuminate different soffits. Meaning areas you don’t want lights to show up at. The 100’ kit includes one 12’ blank wire. That’s it… This kit will not fit most homes if you care about aesthetics.

On my home I have three gaps to jump. That means cutting and soldering in extensions. I have some soldering experience but not a ton. I have a $25 iron so nothing fancy at all. If you are intimidated by it don’t be. This is very basic soldering and very easy to do.

To test this I hooked up one strand and cut off the end plug. Still worked fine as expected. I then cut off the last led light. Again no issues all the others work fine. Then I added in a 12” extension and also no issues. I bought 3 cord 20 gauge ribbon cable from Amazon and heat-shrunk all connections. Tested and works great.

Right now I have 1/3 or my house done. I plan to finish this up over the next week. Once I do I will update my review once completed. I wanted to get the review out so people were aware you can modify this kit and it works great. I tested what’s there tonight and love the lights. Very bright and lots of different things you can do.

edit

I finished the install yesterday and uploaded a couple videos. Sorry for the yelling toddlers.

I ended up soldering in 5 extensions. One was 12" and the others were at least a few feet. The power supply will do 150' of leds so adding a bunch of extensions to the 100' kit shouldnt be any issue at all. What you have to be mindful of is voltage drop, but if you are not adding more led strands you might be able to theoretically extend the kit quite a bit. Later on down the line I might try to throw in 100' extension to reach my shed in the backyard. Maybe...

As I mentioned earlier use 20 gauge 3 wire ribbon cable. Its flat like what comes with it but will probably 3 color wires. Get a decent soldering iron thats $20-$25 or so. The really cheap ones really suck. Use heat shrink. I would recommend white but if you use black against a white soffit I will tell you the easy way to conceal it better down below.

Consider renting a cherry picker if you are going up 20'+. Im comfortable on a 24' little giant with the piece that mounts to the top to stabilize it more. A cherry picker would have been nice and you can rent them for pretty cheap. Couple hundred bucks maybe.

If your ribbon cable or heat shrink is not white to match your soffits buy a can of white plastidip (sold at home depot and lowes) and spray it once its installed. It sticks to everything and is extremely durable.

The govee kit does not include enough plastic brackets to help hold up wire. Because im customizing I needed more than normal. The screws it comes with the brackets are not self tapping so they are a pain to screw into the soffit. Especially on a ladder. At home depot and lowes you can buy cable clips in different styles. Those are hammered in to your soffit. They make flat ones that will hold up the ribbon cable very well. $8 for a large container.

Each led is addressable in the app. You can control each individual led to do whatever you want which is amazing. But the app is very mediocre. Basic commands are fine, but to fully customize its extremely cumbersome. But at least its doable.

Its super bright and the pattern it leaves on the siding is awesome. Its RGB so no white diode. That means cool white looks fine, but warm white is very meh. I wish it had a white diode in the led but at this price I cant complain.

My main suggestion is to plan before you do your install. Measure soffit lengths where you are installing and then plan accordingly. Direction is important because the lights will flow from one end to the other. I was soldering 20' in the air on a ladder because im a perfectionist. I wanted the jumps in exact locations so I could conceal wiring as much as possible. If you plan better than me you can do it all on the ground. Or rent a cherry picker and make your life so easy.

I cut up the last strand a lot. It was in several pieces because I kept changing things. Be mindful of the direction of the wiring. Its three white wires but one is marked with a gray dashed line. Make sure that line is connected to the same wire all the way down your strand AND its in the same direction. Also anytime you make changes plug in your kit to test to make sure it all illuminates.

I made a mistake and came up short on my 4th strand to finish my house. I cut off two leds from the 5th strand and soldered them in but they would not work. When I refreshed the strand in the app it would light up but would not light up at all besides that. I think there needs to be a minimum of four because in the app a strand is four leds. I didn't test this in depth but be mindful if you come up short and need to add in some leds from an unused strand. I ended up removing the prior 10 leds and repositioning to it fit my soffit correctly. Total time I spent was about 12 hours, but now its done for good. (hopefully)

Sorry its so long, but I know customizing this is going to be popular. Especially at this price point. Nobody else on the market can compete right now. Its a really great kit and looks amazing. After spraying the pieces that were not white its very well concealed. Cant see it from the street at all in broad daylight, you need to be under the soffit to notice them. Even then its not very noticeable.

Hopefully govee gets better stock of these and more people get to enjoy it. Dont be afraid to modify this kit, it works very well. The soldering needed is very basic, anyone can do it. My kids love the lights.

Edit: here is the link for the lights, and reviews… https://a.co/d/3RdZLGw

So I wanted to make a more immersive experience when Im watching TV or just playing games in general. Then I found out about Govee. They seemed pretty good, but I don't really know. Should I get Govee Led Lights strips, if yes what kind of Govee lights should I get? 😁

I was mostly looking for Led lights which can sync with the TV. Kind of like the Philips Gradient Hue Strips. Any tips?