I won a free set of LED strip lights from Govee a few weeks back, after entering a contest on this subreddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/razer/comments/wg04i3/giveaway_from_govee/); I was asked to post a review of them in return, so here we go.

The back of the box, for reference, is here:

https://imgur.com/VrhRQQB

The kit came with 10 meters/33 feet of light strip attached to a dongle, a detachable power cord, some mounting hardware and alcohol wipes I didn't use, and some written instructions I ignored.

The dongle has three big buttons: one for power, one for cycling through a selection of solid default colours, and one for cycling through colours with audio activation (which I personally found super distracting, but it's there for those who want it).

https://imgur.com/nwWKaFf

The idea was to just wrap it around the inside of my desk hutch (got the desk second hand over 20 years ago, and it was old then) to create enough ambient light that I could use my system at night with the lights off (so as to not disturb the family's tortoise with whom my desk now shares space with) and not be straining my eyes in pitch darkness.

https://imgur.com/ep8pOQE

The power plug was too wide to go into my UPS and still keep it flush to the side of the hutch, so I zip tied up a cheap extension cord to plug the power plug into, and crammed it next to my subwoofer. (I don't see any of it with the monitor in place.)

https://imgur.com/NHV8VOR

I cleaned the hutch area with hand sanitizer and a face cloth - the provided alcohol wipes were small and my hutch was dusty. With the area cleaned, and using just the adhesive backing on the LED strip, I ran it up one side of the hutch, across the bottom of the shelves at the back, down the other side, and 80% of the way across the bottom. I was reluctant to cut it at all, so I just left the excess on the roll and crammed it behind my subwoofer.

https://imgur.com/l1GwPic https://imgur.com/zEpQvbt

I installed the app on my phone, and was at first very dismayed by the size (~400MB!) and some of the User Agreement language, but after installing it, I only had to give it my email address to create an account, and for some reason I can't figure, it required location permissions to actually connect to the LEDs.

https://imgur.com/DCy58jo https://imgur.com/FDUvN9I https://imgur.com/2XVP1dR

The app states it only uses the 2.4GHz band, but still sees my 5GHz band, and it's the first choice to log in to alphabetically, so... eh. Once running the app had quite a few customization options for the LEDs, including dozens of mixed colour and movement patterns, as well as some ambient settings with accompanying sound effects (think 'rainfall' sounds with twinkling blue/white LEDs, or 'forest' sounds with green/yellow patterns). I ultimately settled on the 'Night' preset, which was subtle and didn't blink/flash, but had a two-toned colour pattern I liked.

The app also has an in-build store to purchase more of the company's products, but in my case I can safely ignore it since I just had to pick my pattern once and forget about it, turning the LEDs on and off from the physical power button.

https://imgur.com/ziNt9b0

I think it looks pretty good, and hits the sweet spot between straining my eyes in the dark and having the full force of the room lights on at 3AM. I am concerned about how well the adhesive in the strip will hold, but it's been a few days now, and it seems to be fine - if need be, there's always that mounting hardware it came with that I didn't use. A little more diffusion of the LEDs themselves would be nice; I might in the future look for some frosted plastic diffusion strips or some kind of translucent tape to cover it with to smooth out the light a bit.

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Addendum: Razer Chroma compatibility? Well finding how to activate that wasn't obvious from the app interface, but there was a Razer logo in the settings, so clicked that, and it gave me a long set of instructions and hoops to jump through to connect the app to my PCs Synapse 3 installation. It looked like a headache, and I was happy with the Night colour preset, so I honestly didn't bother.

Addendum 2: I have Kraken 7.1 V2s (turns out Synapse 3 ignores these), a Tartarus V2 and I temporarily stole back my Blackwidow Chroma V2 from my wife's rig. Have to download more software, this time the Govee Desktop suite. Yay, more EULA reading! Wait. No EULA was presented by the installer. And suddenly (dons tinfoil hat) I am more concerned that the LEDs have a microphone. Not that I'm harbouring any international secret-worthy information, but still, it's a little creepy. At least it let me choose where it installs and didn't just unceremoniously dump itself on the C drive - I hate when software does that.

And I was right. The software is less than helpful. It didn't find my LEDs automatically, and there are no options for settings or anything to figure out why. The instructions said something about enabling LAN Control in the app on my phone, to make the desktop software see the LEDs so that the Synapse software on my desktop can see them (yikes), but my phone app lacks that option for some reason, and yes it's fully updated as far as I can tell. My desktop is wired, and the lights are obviously wi-fi, so since I'm not going to go out and buy a wi-fi nic/dongle for my desktop just for these lights, I guess that's where my review ends.

If they're going to use Chroma compatibility as a selling point, they're going to have to make sure it actually works. Guess it's back to the 'Night' preset for me.

Addendum 3: I am stubborn and have free time to waste today, so I dug up an old D-Link USB Wi-fi dongle for the sake of completion. Connected to the same wi-fi, the desktop software still can't see the LEDs, and I still have no LAN Control option in the phone app, even after deleting/re-adding the LEDs to it. Both the desktop software and the phone app appear to be in need up some updating.

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TLDR: I taped some lights to my desk. Thanks Govee for the free swag, Thanks r/Razer for the contest, and thanks to u/Zhaopow for (randomly) picking me. :D

https://www.costco.com/govee-492ft-rgbic-pro-led-strip-lights.product.4000343068.html

I saw this deal in a Costco recently and was thinking about snagging one, or maybe more. How difficult is it to get these into my Apple Home? I have Homebridge if needed too. These do say Matter on the box, and from what I have read, my first generation HomePod should be Matter compatible, but if not, I can try to find a cheap Matter controller. When searching online for the part number H619DAD3 from the description, nothing comes up, so I am assuming it's one of those store specific part numbers that only they get to sell. But if these work well and I can get them into HomeKit or Homebridge, I might have to buy a few.