Tag Archives: RGB Light

Govee Floor Lamp Pro Review: Elevate Your Space with Lights and Sounds

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PROS:


  • Handsome minimalist design with a fabric-covered base

  • Built-in speaker in the RGB-lit base

  • Bright and colorful lights that can sync to music

  • Includes a magnetic remote control

CONS:


  • Speaker output quality is average

  • Matter support still unavailable

RATINGS:

AESTHETICS
ERGONOMICS
PERFORMANCE
SUSTAINABILITY / REPAIRABILITY
VALUE FOR MONEY

EDITOR'S QUOTE:

The Govee Floor Lamp Pro delivers a breathtaking audiovisual experience that syncs to the music while also standing proudly as a design object when the lights are off.

Most of us probably presume that lamps either hang from ceilings, stick to walls, or stand on tables. While elevated lighting is indeed necessary to provide illumination in the darkness, every inch of your room or house definitely deserves a bit of light, especially when it adds a splash of color as well. As far as ambient lighting products go, the tall, stick-like figures known as RGB floor lamps are probably the least known or appreciated. Govee might very well be changing that perception with its new Floor Lamp Pro which not only brings pro-level features deserving of its name but also looks quite sleek and elegant standing anywhere in the room, even when all its lights are turned off.

Designer: Govee

Click Here to Buy Now: $219.99.

Aesthetics

Govee has dozens of designs for different kinds of lighting solutions, but if there’s one trait they share it’s that they shine best when the lights are on, figuratively and literally. When they’re off, they tend to look unimpressive, at least for those that aren’t hidden behind TVs or stuck to wall corners. Floor lamps, however, are always visible and are, therefore, designed to be seen. Fortunately, the Govee Floor Lamp Pro is something that you’ll love seeing even if there’s no light show taking place.

Available in black and gray color options, the Govee Floor Lamp Pro’s dark silhouette cuts a rather striking figure whether it’s standing in a corner or placed somewhere in the middle of the room. The floor lamp’s shape is pretty simple: a tall, thin rod standing on top of a cylindrical base. On closer inspection, you will realize that the rod is made of sturdy aluminum that slightly wraps around a white silicone LED light strip. You’ll hardly see this color contrast unless you intentionally turn the light strip into view, which is actually easy to do since you can rotate the rod 360 degrees.

The can-shaped base is covered with a fabric-like material reminiscent of those found wrapped around smart speakers. That association isn’t by accident as the Floor Lamp Pro, unlike Govee’s other lights, actually comes with a built-in Bluetooth speaker. This makes the product an all-in-one light and sound system, one of the extremely few floor lamps with such a feature. The bottom of the base itself isn’t covered by this soft material as it exposes the base’s own RGB lights, yet another defining feature of this new Govee Floor Lamp Pro.

Although you can expect the Govee Floor Lamp Pro to be a dazzling sight once the psychedelic lights start to dance, what sets this design apart is how it still catches your eyes once the show is over. Unless you’re familiar with these kinds of RGB floor lamps, you might actually mistake it as some modern design object meant to add some minimalist elegance to your room. This pretty much means that the Floor Lamp Pro provides value all the time, even when you’re not actively using its bright lights.

Ergonomics

Just like any Govee product, setting up the Floor Lamp Pro is practically a breeze. Given the rod’s 67-inch height, you shouldn’t be surprised that it comes in four pieces that you can quickly join and screw together in a snap. You slip in the silicone light strip and install the rod into the base, easily connecting the wires to finally finish the process. It can be done in around 10 minutes, depending on how well-versed you are at assembling things.

You won’t be handling the Govee Floor Lamp Pro most of the time, at least not directly, which is probably for the best. After all, it’s meant to stand in a corner of the room and stay there until the next time you redecorate. And even when you do need to control it, you won’t be able to do it on the lamp itself anyway because it lacks any form of physical control. Instead, you will be operating the lamp remotely, mostly through your smartphone.

Surprisingly, Govee ships a Bluetooth-enabled remote control with the Floor Lamp Pro, which gives you quick and instant access to some of the most basic and important functions. Instead of fiddling with the app to turn down the volume, you can simply press down the button on the remote to save you the trouble and the stress. And to make sure you don’t lose that small remote, you can magnetically stick it to the lamp’s metal rod until you next need its services.

The Govee Floor Lamp Pro isn’t exactly lightweight at 7.3lbs (3.3kg), but that’s fine since you’re unlikely to move it around anyway. One trick that it does have is that you can turn the rod around, making it trivial to customize the lighting experience from bouncing off walls to directly shining the light in your direction. All in all, this Govee product is just as easy to set up just like its siblings, though there is definitely some assembly required. Operating it is also straightforward, though the Govee Home app can admittedly be a bit daunting and overwhelming for first-time users, but that is mostly because of the plethora of features available for such a simple-looking product.

Performance

When you first turn on the Govee Floor Lamp Pro, you might actually be blinded by how bright the LED lights are. It is to be expected from a flagship Govee product, but this one definitely takes it up a notch with a 2,100 ANSI lumens brightness. Govee didn’t skimp on the LED beads either. The light strip, for example, has 162 RGB units and 162 white units, while the base has 30 RGB beads and 30 white beads.

What all these numbers mean in practice is that you have a bright and unbroken beam of light wherever the Floor Lamp Pro shines. You won’t see any distinct cuts or patterns on the projected light thanks to the high density of LED beads distributed along the length of the light strip. And thanks to Govee’s RGBICWW technology, your eyes are treated to the widest range of colors, turning every moment a psychedelic experience.

The Govee Floor Lamp Pro, however, doesn’t stop there. As mentioned earlier, this is one of the extremely few floor lamps to bear a speaker inside. And not just any speaker, mind you, but a Bluetooth speaker system with two full-range and one low-frequency speaker inside. What would normally be a captivating light show becomes an immersive multimedia experience that dances to the beat of your music or even your film. That speaker, though loud, won’t exactly blow your mind with its quality. It’s decent enough for small parties and enhancing the mood of a film or soundtrack, but it isn’t going to win any awards, especially against actual speakers from audio brands.

The Floor Lamp Pro has the ability to sync its lights to music like a magical light and sound show. It can use either the built-in mic to listen to the sounds around it or, better yet, the built-in Bluetooth speaker playing your own tunes streaming from your phone. With Govee DreamView, you can even sync other Govee lights so they all dance to the same beat, whether they’re in the same room or scattered throughout the house. This Music Mode is just one of the many features you can access from the Govee Home app, of course, and there are literally a dozen others you can pick out to set the right mood at the right time, from scheduled activation to scenes for different holidays. You can even enjoy 29 preset white noise sounds to calm you down and help you focus, though not everyone might like the available selection. Fortunately, you can always use your own relaxing notes thanks to the lamp’s speaker.

As a smart lamp, you have a variety of ways you can control the lamp, though what you’ve heard so far requires your fingers to tap your way through menus and options. You can also use your voice thanks to integration with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. Unfortunately, the Govee Floor Lamp Pro doesn’t yet support the new Matter standard that would open up compatibility with other smart home platforms and devices. That will eventually come, but there’s no timeline yet for its arrival.

Sustainability

The Govee Floor Lamp Pro is an exceptional smart lighting product, but it isn’t that too different from other brands when it comes to the materials it uses. There’s plenty of plastic to go around, especially with the silicone light strip. That said, the Floor Lamp Pro is a little unique in its use of slightly more sustainable materials like the aluminum rod and fabric-like cover for the base.

Any damage, however, would require sending the product back for repairs, which is thankfully a straightforward and painless process. It’d be impossible to repair the light strip on your own, at least not without extensive electronics experience, though you might get by with a few dents and knicks on the metal rod. Hopefully, as Govee’s business grows, so will its efforts in sustainability in order to secure a brighter future for its customers.

Value

Truth be told, a floor lamp is a harder sell compared to products like string or strip lights. The latter are more general-purpose and more flexible as they can be used in almost any situation or design. That said, they also don’t have a big effect when it comes to coloring an entire space, at least not without investing in longer strips. Not only is that not economical, it’s not very efficient either.

The Govee Floor Lamp Pro has the power to really change the atmosphere inside a space. Whether it’s bouncing off walls or shining directly, the bright and colorful lights can easily reach across the room. The magic, however, really happens when you start pairing those lights with sounds coming from the lamp’s own speaker. Best of all, it remains just as captivating as a decorative design when it’s not in use. For a floor lamp that costs $219.99, that’s quite a steal.

Verdict

Smart floor lamps are still a pretty niche market, and it might be difficult to justify one or two if you’re not a gamer or a die-hard room modder. Of course, these aren’t the only audiences that these lights serve, but most people probably can’t imagine what they’d want a vertical stick of light for. With the Floor Lamp Pro, however, Govee is pushing the envelope of what floor lamps are capable of and trying to break the mold with a smart lighting solution that can instantly change the ambiance of a room in a cost-efficient and space-saving manner.

The configurable and bright RGB lights are already impressive, but their ability to sync with the music playing from the lamp’s built-in speakers really takes the immersion up a notch. The wide variety of modes and features enables you to almost literally paint a different picture of your room every time, whether you’re having a lively party or trying to focus on work. The Govee Floor Lamp Pro’s value, however, doesn’t end when the lights go off and the music stops. With a sleek minimalist design and quality materials, it becomes a design object that adds a different kind of aesthetic, one that can speak loudly with fewer words and without the dazzling lights.

Click Here to Buy Now: $219.99.

The post Govee Floor Lamp Pro Review: Elevate Your Space with Lights and Sounds first appeared on Yanko Design.

Retro Mechanical Keyboard has a tiny TV for information and entertainment

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Mechanical keyboards are a dime a dozen these days, all of them promising a better typing experience thanks to more tactile switches. They cover a wide variety of designs, those most seem to swing either towards gamer RGB aesthetics or old-school retro styles. This particular keyboard leans more toward the latter, but that’s not exactly what’s noteworthy about it. What makes it special is that 2.9-inch TV-like mini display in the corner, adding a bit of whimsical flavor to the keyboard. That said, that screen is more than just some fanciful embellishment, as it can add a bit of value to your computing experience even while delivering some fun distractions when you need it.

Designer: Epomaker

Keyboards with screens aren’t exactly unheard of by now, especially on laptops. Almost all of these designs, however, use the additional display for productivity purposes, often by providing extra touch controls, a drawing space, or even a small second monitor. Given how small the “mini TV” of the Epomaker RT100 is, it can hardly do those functions, but it still manages to bring a smile to users’ faces, especially with how much they can customize the experience.

The small 2.9-inch screen, embedded in a detachable trapezoidal prism, sits on the upper left edge of the keyboard. Using Epomaker’s software, that tiny TV can display anything from the time, the weather, an animated image, or even a game of Tetris. It offers a combination of distraction and information that will keep you on your toes while you work. As a bonus, that “TV” is actually removable, which reveals the hidden 2.4GHz wireless receiver for a cable-free connection.

On the more serious side, the Epomaker RT100 has a rather distinctive faceted knob that sits like a black gem on the upper right corner of the keyboard. By default, the physical dial can be used to control media playback, but it can also be programmed for other functions as well. Unfortunately, you can’t change the play icon on the knob’s top to match the function you assign to it.

In all other aspects, this 96-key keyboard is pretty much what you’d expect from mechanical keyboards of its class, including hot-swappable switches and programmable south-facing RGB lighting. The keyboard embraces a chunky aesthetic that calls forth memories or images of decades gone by, making the design feel a little anachronistic in a visually interesting way.

The post Retro Mechanical Keyboard has a tiny TV for information and entertainment first appeared on Yanko Design.

Govee RGBIC Neon Rope Light 2 Review: Helping Your Creativity Really Shine

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PROS:


  • Highly flexible material for creating any shape or pattern

  • Minimalist design with black or white options to match your decor

  • Impressive lighting options and AI-generated effects

  • Easy customization with new Shape Mapping function

CONS:


  • Very difficult to reposition or modify after it's installed

  • Wi-Fi connection only supports 2.4GHz network band

RATINGS:

AESTHETICS
ERGONOMICS
PERFORMANCE
SUSTAINABILITY / REPAIRABILITY
VALUE FOR MONEY

EDITOR'S QUOTE:

With a more flexible design and powerful customization options, the Govee RGBIC Neon Rope Light 2 offers a powerful tool for everyone to express their designs in dazzling colorful lights.

Smart lighting is one of the easiest ways to get into smart homes. Often you simply have to screw bulbs or plug lamps in, connect them to your phone, and you’re instantly able to control them remotely or through automated schedules. That kind of smart light is practical and convenient but not exactly impressive, nor does it let you easily create the lighting atmosphere that you want without investing heavily in multiple expensive products. If you really want to jazz up your space and dazzle your guests or viewers, you’ll want something like programmable string or rope lights to leave a lasting positive impression. Govee just launched its latest product in that category, the RGBIC Neon Rope Light 2, promising better build quality, more extensive customization, and more intelligent smart features, so we put this second-gen smart rope light to the test if it can really become our kaleidoscopic paintbrush to brighten up the room with our creativity.

Designer: Govee

Click here to Buy Now: $99.99

Aesthetics

Right out of the box, you can already tell that the Govee RGBIC Neon Rope Light 2 is a class above your typical string light. You don’t see any braided cords or LED “bulbs.” Instead, you have a roll of tubing that looks clean, simple, and very bendable. It has a minimalist aesthetic that looks appealing even when the lights are turned off. Even better, Govee now offers black and white color options so that the rope can match whatever motif you have going. Of course, the actual area where light shines through is a translucent white surface, so you’ll still have to take that into account when designing around walls and furniture.

When the lights do turn on, the Govee Neon Rope Light 2 becomes a dazzling array of colors. With an astounding 420 of these RGBIC LEDs split into 42 zones, there is not a single inch that can’t be painted in a hue of your choosing. The lights are bright, not bright enough for being the main light source but perfect for setting the mood or adding accents to a room. And the sheer amount of effects you can use will never grow old.

The most impressive part about the RGBIC Neon Rope Light 2’s appearance, however, is not the product itself but what you can make out of it. Thanks to an even more flexible material, you can easily design almost anything you want with the rope, from seemingly random patterns to carefully planned outlines of objects. This kind of flexibility, literally and figuratively, can inspire the artist in you, turning your wall into a canvas and the rope light into a brush paint of hundreds of colors.

Ergonomics

You won’t be holding the Govee RGBIC Neon Rope Light 2 whenever you use it, but you will naturally need to handle it when you’re installing it in the first place. It’s important for that process to be as easy and painless as possible, and Govee has thankfully ensured that it will be the case. Compared to its predecessor, this second-gen rope light is 14% more flexible and 14% lighter, key traits for something you’ll be bending a lot to your desired shape.

What all these mean is that you have more freedom to let your creativity loose in turning the rope light where you want it to go. Yes, you still have to mind the proper way to bend the rope light, but it’s pretty much common sense: you only bend it so the light is actually facing outward. The included bend clips that help the rope retain its shape have the same “outward bending” design, though neither the clips nor the rope actually stop you from bending it the wrong way, much to your own peril.

Despite its flexibility, the rope light won’t stay in that curved shape for long, so you’ll need to stick it with the built-in adhesives on its back. The good news is that these adhesives are extremely strong so you won’t have to worry about the rope going out of shape. The bad news is that they’re so strong that you won’t be able to easily remove them if you need to make changes. This means you have to be extra sure and careful that you have the final design you really want before you start sticking it to a surface. Hopefully, Govee will be able to come up with a more flexible solution someday that will let you reposition and reshape the light more easily.

Performance

Govee’s RGBIC LED technology has been impressive from what we’ve seen in previous reviews, and the Neon Rope Light 2 is thankfully no different. There are two variants of the rope, one in 10ft/3m length and another in 16.4ft/5m, which is our review unit, with 42 and 70 segments of light, respectively. For the 5-meter rope, there are an impressive 420 LEDs running its length, with as many as 84 LEDs per meter. As with any Govee RGBIC product, you can control each of those segments separately, though you’ll most likely be doing it through lighting effects and scenes anyway.

If you want to do things a bit more manually, Govee also has a nifty feature that makes the process a lot easier. With the app’s Shape Mapping mode, you can take a picture of your rope light design with your phone’s camera and then select which color goes to which segment, giving you full control of the composition without having to guess which part of the rope corresponds to which part of your design. Whether you’re going the full automated route with AI or exercising complete control over every LED, the Govee RGBIC Neon Rope Light 2 gives you the tools you need to express your design in a burst of color.

As mentioned earlier, the lights are pretty bright, though not blindingly so. The gamut of colors each LED supports is more than enough to cover every hue your eyes can detect, although it does lack the ability to display pure white without a dedicated white LED. Govee has a newer RGBICW that solves that problem, but that’s not available here on the RGBIC Neon Rope Light 2. You’ll have to make do with off-white blended from the combination of red, blue, and green, though that probably won’t be a problem for most use cases anyway.

The rope light’s real strength, aside from its flexibility, can be found in the Govee Home App which is home (pun intended) to all the settings and customization options you can ever want. Connecting the rope light to your phone is easy peasy and is done over Bluetooth, after which you can remotely control the lights without breaking a sweat. If you do want to connect it to smart home platforms, particularly through the new Matter support, you’ll have to do it over Wi-Fi. It should be noted that, like many smart home devices so far, it requires a 2.5GHz Wi-Fi network so 5GHz-only routers will have difficulty making that connection.

Govee provides a huge library of effects for the Neon Rope Light 2, including 12 Music Modes that can sync to the beat of music, and 64 Scene Modes with preset settings to cover a wide variety of occasions, seasons, and moods. Things get really interesting with the arrival of the AI Lighting Bot this March, which will let you harness the power of generative AI to create new effects not included in Govee’s catalog. Simply give it a prompt with specific elements, situations, and even brands and it will scour the Internet and its database to come up with the (hopefully) perfect combination that delivers what you asked for.

Sustainability

Like with string lights, the Neon Rope Light 2 suffers from the problem of becoming significantly less usable once LEDs start failing. Yes, you can probably live with one or two blank spots, but they’re there forever with no option to replace them individually. In fact, one of the Neon Rope Light 2’s greatest strengths, its clean and simple tubing, is also its greatest weakness in this regard. You can’t easily access the LED’s inside anyway, let alone repair or replace them. Your only recourse, in the final analysis, is to ship them for repairs or, worse, buy a new rope. Either way, that involves removing the rope light from its installation, which can be a laborious process.

As for the materials used for the RGBIC Neon Rope Light 2, we can perhaps presume that Govee is using standard synthetic materials like silicone. Yes, the material is lighter and more flexible now, but it’s not more sustainable. As Govee grows, we hope to see more efforts from the brand toward this aspect, especially since its products will be filling the market and homes.

Value

String lights try to offer a way to illuminate a path or shape, but they can only do so much in actually forming that shape. Worse, because of their inherent design, they’re often better off hidden from view so that their presence only becomes known once the lights turn on. While there will always be uses for string lights, the Govee RGBIC Neon Rope Light 2 delivers something new, different, and mind-blowing. It gives you the creative freedom to design your own lighting masterpiece without too much effort.

The more flexible and lighter material of this 2nd-gen rope light enables owners to really bend the light to the shape they want, and the impressive performance of Govee’s RGBIC LED technology really outshines the competition. Best of all, the Neon Rope Light 2 has a mind-blowing assortment of effects, from the upcoming AI-generated Lighting Bot to the easy-to-use Shape Mapping feature. All of these for an equally impressive price tag that makes the experience accessible to everyone.

Verdict

RGB lighting was once considered the domain of gamers who prefer dark corners just to show off their neon-lit equipment, but everyone has now grown to appreciate what a splash of color can do not just to brighten up a space but also to create a mood, amaze, and entertain. Many RGB lamps exist for that purpose, but the majority of them force owners to design around the lamps instead of having the products cater to their needs. Fortunately, Govee has the perfect solution to fix that problem.

The Govee RGBIC Neon Rope Light 2’s upgraded flexibility allows you to “draw” on a wall or around furniture, giving you complete freedom to create the design that you want. An impressive library of effects from the Govee Home app lets you create the light show of your dreams, whether with the upcoming AI Lighting Bot’s assistance or with full control using the Shape Mapping tool. We wished it was just as easy to remove the rope light and create a different design as it was to install it the first time, but it’s a minor consideration that could happen in future versions of the product. All in all, the Govee RGBIC Neon Rope Light 2 delivers a very powerful tool for letting your creativity shine, literally.

Click here to Buy Now: $99.99

The post Govee RGBIC Neon Rope Light 2 Review: Helping Your Creativity Really Shine first appeared on Yanko Design.

Gothic Wooden Box Lamp adds a mystical touch to your desk or shelf

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Not all lamps are made to shine brightly and quite a number are designed to be more decorative than utilitarian, enhancing a space’s aesthetic while giving a bit of illumination. Some emit a gentle glow that tries to set a certain mood, while others paint a kaleidoscopic display that liven up a room. Some might be luxurious and elegant, while others are fun and whimsical. This DIY project somewhat straddles those two worlds, bringing an unconventional box lamp with gothic-inspired patterns on every face. The end result is a stunning yet subtle light display that seems to bridge the worlds of the magical and the technological right on your very desk.

Designer: Kostiantyn Andriiuk

Programmable RGB lights are quite common these days and they come in different forms, ranging from finished lamps to LED strips you can add to any project. Of course, simply displaying lights is hardly exciting and fails to take advantage of the flexibility that these lights can offer. So why not put these seemingly magical colored lights inside a design that’s exactly meant to convey a sense of mysticism and awe?

This Gothic-inspired lamp does exactly that, not just through the lights alone but from every inch and face of the box. The walnut veneer material, polished with flaxseed oil, gives it a vintage aesthetic as if the lamp was hidden from mortal eyes for decades or even centuries. All but the bottom faces have intricate cutout patterns that not only let the light shine through from the inside but also give it an otherworldly character.

The illusion of the mystical, however, comes from mundane technology. RGB light strips line the insides of the box and can be controlled remotely through software, almost like magic. The box also has hidden touch sensors that allow you to simply tap on a surface to produce the same results, at least for the most basic controls like turning it on or off and adjusting the brightness. With light shining through the extremely thin cutouts of the gothic-inspired patterns, the Box Lamp emits an almost eerie glow that can be appreciated whether outdoors under the sun or, better yet, inside the darkness of your room.

The Gothic Wooden Desk Lamp is something you might be able to create on your own, provided you have the necessary tools available. The hardest part is actually cutting out those complex patterns, which requires a decent laser engraver that can work with thin wooden boards. Fortunately, all that information, as well as the process, is available for free so anyone can design their own magical light box and fancy themselves as a master of the mystical arts.

The post Gothic Wooden Box Lamp adds a mystical touch to your desk or shelf first appeared on Yanko Design.