Another BTF fanboy here. Their 24volt COB strips are worth a bit extra money, and the color quality is very good. Not sure what you mean by 'color range', and scared to ask. More on reddit.com

rephrased: "I want quality LED components from an established brand, and I'm going to let the kind folks of Reddit spend valuable time guessing the specs I need.. oh yeah!.. it's got to be impossibly cheap, and I want it from Amazon so I can exploit their liberal return policy" More on reddit.com

LED strip lights are one of those things where there are a ton of different and varying qualities, outputs, and lifespans. I have done a lot of research and have favorites. The question for you is really, what is the intended use and lifespan you are looking for vs budget.

If you are looking for something that will last 10-15 years, have amazing color rendering, use the best LEDs with the best phosphors, 3-4oz copper strip for heat dissipation, and a really bright output, you probably want to avoid aliexpress and most amazon sellers. I am sure there are great ones on amazon. I couldnt find it. Also here in this page I have seen people link to amazon with referral links. Check the link before you take someones advice.

5050s are the older LED type and pretty inefficient compared to the new LEDs out there. If you are looking for color changing RGB, yeah the 5050s are good. But if you are looking for cove lighting with a nice warm white... I would recommend 3014, 2835, 2216, and 2110 LEDs (in high density).

You're probably going to need something 300-500 lumen per foot + on a dimmer if you need some good output.

I recommend going with a 24V light, as you can make longer runs without doltage drop or uses of amplifiers.

Amazon is a crapshoot. I have had great results for small behind the TV projects but when purchased again from same seller, the product changed and was junk. Others I got from amazon got too hot. I think they are overdriving the LEDs to achieve brightness.

Option 1 - Flexfire LEDs - Great super-bright product. I ordered years ago and the lights are still extremely bright, run cool, and they had a design service for free where I took my photos of my project and they built it all out and quoted it. A little more than I wanted to spend but for a 30-day guarantee, I said go for it. They have like 1500+ 5-star reviews that I assume are real. I love these.

Option 2 - Elemental LEDs I also tried these guys but I cannot find where you can buy online anymore. They had a good selection of dimmers and remotes and I used their lower output lights on my kickboards. They are still running well!

Option 3 - Environmental Lights - Great for DMX and controlls. I havent tried their lights honestly but the specs look good.

Just make sure you compare apples to apples and compare:

1. Lumen output per foot

2. How many oz of copper in PCB

3. Watts/foot

4. Maximum run length

5. warranty

6. compatibility with dimming systems

7. for me... customer support and warranty

8. Price. I tend to go higher quality = higher price. I think I paid like $115 for the Flex fire stuff per reel but it was 3x as bright as the other stuff and has lasted forever.

9. Color temperature and CRI (will each reel you get match the other reels color?) You do not want 5 reels with different shades of white, even a slight variation sucks.

I love strips and have them everywhere... Good luck

edited for missing info

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I've used several roles of LED strip lights around the house, in the kitchen, in the bathroom and in the bedroom. So far I've done undercounter and valence lighting, with a maximum length of about 10 feet. I've experimented with a different types of lights, including the three color ones. I've given a lot of thought to do complete lighting for a room which seems to be what you're interested in, here are my thoughts. The lights are very bright, so you need to diffuse or shade them, or use some sort of bounce lighting. Undercounter/cabinet is trivial, it's also easy to hide them on top of window crown molding, but running around the full perimeter of a room is a bit more challenging. What I've evolved to is to buy anodized aluminum "U" channel from the local hardware store, stick the strips inside and screw them to the mounting surface. This gives you heat sinking (improves lifetime), removability, some glare shading, and a place to mount wire clamps/switches/etc. U channel is cheap, light, and easy to cut and looks finished. Here's an example of one I did hanging from the ceiling over a table: http://imgur.com/gG89KLa http://imgur.com/Mv8sjbc If you have a crown molding around the ceiling you could use that for a shelf to hold both the strips and maybe the wiring. I'd say the top of the molding would need to be several inches below the ceiling for this to work well as this would be bouncing the light upward off the ceiling. The reason I include wiring is that the voltage drops around such a long loop might be too much using just the internal strip wiring. One trick to cut the drop in half is to make 2 circuits, each running half the room circumference and starting from the same place. A 10x16' room would therefore have a max run of 26', which would probably work. I would use a separate power supply and 12v strips. If you want maximum light, I'd use a high density (300 LED) 5050 strip. That's nominally ~70W/16', which is pretty bright. You can always use double strips for more light, too. Modern switching supplies (like laptop supplies) are very cheap, and efficient. Since you're running low voltage wiring you get relief from most electrical codes and needn't worry about shock hazard in kitchens and baths. I've used the RGB tricolor strips and I like them for mood lighting, but that's only with the 3-dial controllers as getting an attractive hue/brightness makes the button controllers impossible in my experience. If I were doing full room perimeter lighting and I didn't have a suitable crown molding, I might join sections of u-channel suspended from the ceiling spaced out from the wall. You could add crown molding, but even the foam stuff is pretty pricey. More on reddit.com