My backyard has turned me into a clever converter of color-changing lighting

I’ll admit it. I was wrong. Highly colorful lighting is a delight for your smart home – at least outdoors.

Smart lighting It’s one of my favorite features in a smart home – it combines convenience with ambiance, allowing you to transform your smart home The entire look of your room With just one click of a button. But, unlike Sometimes the color popsmostly in my country Children’s rooms Outdoors during the holidays, I’ve never found much use for color-changing lights. I prefer the subtle effects of adjustable white light combined with dimming to set the scene indoors, and this preference also extends to outdoor lighting. Until this summer.

With the influx of new outdoor lighting products over the past year or so, I decided to see how far smart outdoor lighting has come: Are products with color-changing and gradient lighting, as well as… RGBICW (You get colors and whites and you can control the LEDs individually), is it worth the extra investment, or is it still more flashy than cool?

To find out, I tested a string of lights, outdoor “permanent” lighting, a giant lamppost, and a wall of light in my yard. Overall, smart outdoor lighting has come a long way, and while there’s still potential to go over the top, today’s options offer a surprisingly effective mix of fun and style — if you stick to one brand. I’ve focused on Govee in this article because they offer one of the widest lineups and have a few really wild options, including the 8-foot wall of light.

Strategically placed architectural lighting always has the power to elevate a home’s curb appeal or backyard party ambiance, but connected, color-changing outdoor lighting offers many more benefits. First, one setting works year-round. Instead of changing the lights for different seasons, you can just use an app to change the look. And if you’re investing in smart lighting, having the option to add color gives you more flexibility.

I hope Govee Permanent Outdoor Prism Lights Installed in my home, and while I stick most of the time to elegant white light, in the past few months I have been decorating my home’s eaves in a variety of colors. These colors include pink for Valentine’s Day, green and gold for St. Patrick’s Day, beautiful pastel colors for Easter, red, white and blue for Memorial Day, orange and purple when my son is accepted to Clemson University, and then his school colors – orange and blue – for his graduation this month. (I can’t seem to escape the color orange.)

Second, there is the benefit of communication; App control allows you to set the lights on a schedule, set sunrise and sunset routines, and control them easily with voice commands. External lights, coupled with motion sensors, can be an excellent safety feature, illuminating the path as you walk along it or illuminating dark areas in your garden. You’ve set up Govee’s External lighting pole In my backyard, when I go out at night to check on the chickens, it lights up when I approach. This is where I’ve found outdoor lighting to be the biggest benefit in my garden, increasing the usability of my garden after twilight.

Today, colored outdoor lighting still works best if you stick to one brand. That’s because many of the most impressive features — like dynamic lighting — rely on proprietary apps. Dynamic lighting is the umbrella term for colorful, synchronized and moving lighting effects. These effects can also be synced with music, TVs, or computers to create a more immersive experience. Outdoors, synchronizing music is most useful, helping to create an instant festive atmosphere.

There are plenty of good outdoor lighting options with powerful dynamic lighting features, including Nanoleaf, Phillips Hugh, Livex, General Electric SyncAnd Home Depot hampton baybut for the sheer variety and wide price range, it’s hard to beat Goofy. Its ecosystem has grown significantly over the past few years, with entries in every category and some entirely new ones, and it’s much less expensive than Hue’s third-party suite, which is closest in terms of number of options.

Almost all of Govee’s newest products support the Matter interoperability standard, and they all work with Alexa and Google Home for voice control and pairing with other lights. I have an Amazon Alexa routine where I say, “Alexa, light the garden,” and all the lights come on. (Matter doesn’t support dynamic lighting yet, but it can handle color-changing, scheduling, and on/off controls.)

Govee uses Bluetooth and Wi-Fi for setup and control. I found that its Wi-Fi connection can be temperamental — which is one reason I prefer the Philips Hue for my indoor lights, with its strong Zigbee connection. But with Bluetooth as an alternative, you can control Govee lights with your phone as long as you’re near them, which is generally when you want to change colors or trigger scenes. The Govee app is less polished than some competitors, but it offers a lot of flexibility once you learn your way around.

I found Govee’s AI Lighting Bot useful when none of the preset scenes were suitable, and I didn’t want to spend the time creating my own. For my son’s graduation, I asked him to create a “funny orange and blue scene” on… Govee permanent outdoor lights I installed it at the front of my house, and it produced a beautiful wavy effect rippling across the eaves.

However, the most fun we had with the AI ​​Lighting Bot was with Govee’s Lightwall. At approximately 8 feet wide, this curtain-style light comes with its own frame, so you can place it anywhere in your yard for a serious light show — think an outdoor movie screen.

During the Kentucky Derby, my husband asked Govee to conjure a suitable scene, and he did a good job of simulating the racing horses and jockeys. 35fps wasn’t anywhere near as good as the movie, but it’s entertaining nonetheless. At my son’s card night, he and his friends played the game of spades, illuminated by a colorful hand of cards on the Lightwall. It’s also portable, so we took it to his graduation concert, and it served as a great backdrop for the band. But at $450, it’s definitely more of a novelty than a utility.

My favorite outdoor lights are still the string lights. These combine task, decorative and ambiance lighting, allowing you to go from bright white while preparing dinner on the grill to a softer, more colorful atmosphere with the push of a button. I recently replaced a set of Nanoleaf outdoor lights hanging around my yard with new ones Govee chromatic string lights. Here, each bulb can display multiple colors at once, adding dimension without being overpowering. They are similar to Lifx outdoor string lightsbut the main difference is that Govee is more diffused, giving a softer look.

In general, I prefer The appearance of Nanoleaf lights when they are turned off; They have a nice glass design, but Govee’s light shows are even more impressive, and I can sync them with other Govee lights using Govee’s DreamView system, which syncs the lighting effects over your Wi-Fi network so multiple products can display the same effect. The option to instantly shift the mood from al fresco dinner to a teen hangout this summer has been more fun than I expected.

Of course, the big challenge with outdoor lighting is the power cords, and that’s where solar power is a great option. My new goofy Outdoor solar string lights It features a 6-watt panel with a built-in battery and allows me to extend my lighting beyond where I have power supplies to my vegetable garden. They’re not as bright as powered string lights, but the beautiful wick is attractive, and the lights look like little jewels hanging from my garden fence.

I may never embrace a giant wall of moving LED lights in my backyard, but my summer garden experience has shown me that RGB outdoor lighting can be more than just a novelty. It has become more useful indoors as well. I recently tested some New Philips Hue lighting features Which uses colors in more subtle ways to create elegant lighting scenes that enhance the room rather than dominate it.

In general, I still prefer the more sophisticated approach offered by companies like Hue indoors, but Govee’s bolder outdoor lighting has proven me wrong when it comes to my garden. The bright RGB lighting has made it a more welcoming, usable and really fun place to be after dark this summer.

Photos and video by Jennifer Pattison Toohey/The Verge