Govee, based in 2017 and a part of the Shenzhen Intellirocks Tech umbrella, has been making an enormous push up to now few years to get its related tech into the fingers of customers within the Western World.
The Govee shops on each UK and US Amazon are overflowing with a variety of related gadgets – predominantly smart lights – and the Govee Retailer itself can also be fairly straightforward to make use of as properly, with free specific transport service provided within the UK and the US.
Govee, as with rival Chinese language startups comparable to Meross and Sonoff, is a model that provides ‘inexpensive’ smart lights and gadgets.
For instance, a Wi-Fi-enabled, colour, smart mild bulb from Govee prices lower than $10 / £10 when purchased as a part of a multi-pack; a comparable mannequin from market-leader Philips Hue prices almost 5x that at $49.99 / £49.99
This evaluate is definitely an replace on the one I first revealed a few years in the past. Govee has massively developed in that point and has change into one of many go-to manufacturers for folks wanting outdoors the Hue bubble for his or her related lights.
So I’ve spent the previous few years residing with a variety of Govee smart lights in my home; learn on to seek out out what’s good, what’s not and whether or not it is a model you’ll be able to depend on when constructing your smart home.
Govee smart lights: The vary
(Picture credit score: The Ambient)
Govee’s smart mild line-up is large… so large. It has so, so many various kinds of lights on provide – to make use of indoors and outdoor.
Initially it was lightstrips that the corporate specialised in – Govee claims to have an 80% market share on Amazon for lightstrips and who’re we to argue with that eh?
Price range platform choice: Smart Life app evaluate
The massive factor with Govee’s lightstrips is that loads of the fashions provide RGBIC+ lighting. Not like conventional RGB lightstrips, which have all of the LEDs set to the identical colour, Govee’s RGBIC+ strip lights are outfitted with smart IC chips and may show a number of colours concurrently; opening up much more lighting scenes so that you can use in your home.
Take the Matter-enabled Govee Govee LED Strip Mild M1, for instance. It has an industry-leading 60 mild beads per meter, ensuing within the highest luminosity of any 2m lightstrip in the marketplace and you’ll be able to management as much as 20 completely different segments of sunshine, with 64 completely different mild modes on provide.
(Picture credit score: The Ambient)
Govee additionally makes use of this RGBIC tech in a few of its lamps too, that means you’ll be able to create cool results whereby completely different elements of the lamps use completely different colours, comparable to this ‘fish tank’ setting on the Govee Aura Desk Lamp:
Not all of the lights have this selection although, so be sure you examine whether or not the outline of the sunshine you’re contemplating when looking for Govee stuff states whether or not it is RGB or RGBIC+. (Govee additionally shares RGBWW lights, which provides a white choice to the common RGB choice.)
Additionally, just remember to examine whether or not the lights are Wi-Fi enabled, or are merely Bluetooth gadgets. If it is the previous, you then’ll get Amazon and Google Assistant integrations, the latter will imply you will want your telephone to manage them – the bins and descriptions may even have the Works with Alexa / Google Assistant badges too, so do not be too frightened about selecting the fallacious one.
Prior to now 12 months or so, Govee has just about used Wi-Fi throughout the board with all of its new launches, so it isn’t as a lot of a problem because it as soon as was.
Govee has an enormous vary of lightstrips on provide, starting from 2m, proper as much as 30m in size. The most recent fashions all have Wi-Fi as customary and, as talked about, Govee additionally has Matter-compatible smart lights on sale too.
(Picture credit score: The Ambient)
A pleasant contact with the lightstrips is that they arrive with a bodily controller – just like the Nanoleaf Necessities mannequin. This lets you energy on and management the lights with out getting out your telephone, or bothering your digital assistant.
Barely extra superior than the lightstrips is the Govee RGBIC Neon Rope Mild.
(Picture credit score: The Ambient)
Because of the comfortable, bendable exterior, this mild strip may be bent in tight angles, letting you create just about any form that you really want. It’s much more versatile than mild panels are.
That is to not say that Govee would not do mild panels. It is truly extra prolific than the OG in that area – Nanoleaf – now, with the newest entrant being the superior wanting Glide Hexagon Mild Panels Extremely (which we have but to check however might be reviewing quickly):
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In addition to these slick wanting multicolor hexagon panels, Govee additionally has an array of strains, triangles and different formed wall panels on provide.
For out of doors lights, Govee has actually upped its recreation up to now couple of years.
There are a plethora of string lights, together with the flagship Govee Out of doors String Lights H1, which have RGBIC+ tech on board and the RGBIC Heat White Wi-Fi & Bluetooth Smart Out of doors String Lights, which work out at lower than a buck per foot of size – as much as 96 toes.
(Picture credit score: The Ambient)
Additionally together with your yard in thoughts, there are lightstrips which might be supposed for everlasting set up and may cowl your complete home, RGBIC floodlights, lights that push into your grass and driveway pathway lights too.
Again inside, and there are a variety of good desk lamps on sale – our favourite being the Aura Desk Lamp, which is in that video above and the wonderful Govee Lyra Flooring Lamp, which we reviewed right here.
Govee: TV and gaming lights
In addition to the huge array of smart lighting choices on your home talked about above, Govee additionally allows you to beef up film or gaming nights with a variety of smart lighting choices that sync with the visuals in your show.
The present flagship, the Govee DreamView T1 Professional TV Backlight comes with a lightstrip and two ‘move’ bars and are the Chinese language model’s various to Hue’s Sync platform.
However, as you in all probability guessed, at a a lot cheaper price level – the system prices round half of what you’d pay for Hue’s providing.
And that is the highest canine, there are additionally cheaper choices too, ranging from simply $45.
Whereas rival, costlier TV lighting programs, use HDMI passthrough field to investigate an image and show acceptable lighting results, Govee’s programs makes use of a small digicam that it’s important to connect to the highest of your TV or monitor.
In my testing I truly discovered this beautiful annoying. I wasn’t capable of cease taking a look at it.
(Picture credit score: The Ambient)
To get the very best outcomes you will additionally have to calibrate that digicam within the Govee app. This implies sticking seven orange squares to your display screen after which utilizing the app to align the digicam’s sight with them.
Typically, the digicam cannot course of the pictures on display screen quick sufficient to maintain up with the motion. So, whereas you’re going to get some good lighting results behind your TV, it will not be as ‘real-time’ and superior as you get with Hue Sync and its Gradient Lightstrip.
However, for a lot much less cash, it’s a little bit of enjoyable and can add some colour and life to a gaming setup.
Govee smart lights: The app expertise and voice assistants
When utilizing these rising smart home manufacturers from China there’s at all times a danger that the app would be the massive sticking level.
Even established Chinese language manufacturers comparable to Xiaomi, Huawei and Roborock have suffered up to now with their apps being a bit complicated for western customers.
The excellent news is that Govee app is sweet. Positive, you may come throughout the odd complicated time period (and we have no thought in any respect how the ‘Smarts’ part works) and a few of the descriptions are unintentionally hilarious (‘Lady Energy Lighting Results’) however, on the entire, it is simple to get your lights up and working.
Often, we might say that due to Alexa and Google Assistant integrations, you’ll be able to ditch the native app and use these platforms as a substitute (or skip them solely in the event you’re residing in a Matter smart home).
And whereas that is positively true for organising automations, routines, scenes and the like (and, in fact, voice controls) you can be lacking out on quite a bit in the event you completely dismiss Govee’s app.
There are tremendous area of interest choices in there on your lights, in addition to good options like music syncing (video above), which is a good choice for creating a celebration scene in your own home with minimal effort.
You may see Siri listed amongst the accessible voice assistants however, beware, this does not imply HomeKit compatibility. It merely signifies that, on an iPhone, you may be capable to arrange some Siri shortcuts on your Govee lights.
Is Govee secure and safe?
As talked about, a few of Govee’s smart lights work after connecting to your home’s Wi-Fi community; they do not use native mesh networks comparable to Zigbee, Z-Wave or Thread to speak to a hub – though some use Bluetooth to attach immediately together with your telephone.
As with every gadgets that you just add to your home Wi-Fi community, there are safety implications. Govee is eager to emphasize that, with its vary: “Our merchandise are FCC, CCC, CE, GS, KC, PSE, SAA, & ETL licensed. We developed a complete certification and high quality administration system.”
Clearly you’ll be able to get rid of any main danger or issues you might have by simply utilizing Bluetooth (you do not truly must pair to your Wi-Fi) however you’ll miss out on a bunch of options, and also you clearly will not then be capable to use both Google Assistant or Alexa.