Hello – The Brad Lloyd here and today I posted a new video on my YouTube Channel. My channel is all about building my smart home with Apple Home Kit. Be sure to checkout my videos under episodes and consider subscribing to my channel. If you prefer a written format, I’ve included the details for you below in this blog. I can’t thank you enough for your support helping my channel to grow!
In this post, I’ll help you decide which LED light strip is right for you. Here in Canada HomeKit lights strips can range from $38 to $120 ,and depending on your project you might need more than one or an extension so it’s important to do your research and know what to look for… you’ve found the right place!
Some products have extra features and benefits that you should be aware of and in some cases justify the extra cost.
Today I will be comparing three lights strips at 3 different price points so you can decide which is best for you.
There are many light strips that offer HomeKit support and in this video I’m going over my favourite at each price point – Vocolinc coming in at the lowest cost, the new Nanoleaf essentials coming in mid-range and the higher end Philips Hue. I’ve also chosen these lights strips because they connect using different technology.
Even if you choose a different light strip brand than what I’m showing today, this video will help you know what features to look for and depending on your set up and priorities, which one will work for you best. I really do not think you can go wrong with any of these brands.
Where can you put LED strips? So many options here. Light strips are great at providing diffused accent lights and are commonly used in under cabinet lighting, behind TV’s, headboards and under the couch just to name a few examples.
What are some factors you should consider before purchasing a light strip?
- Supported Platform: You want to make sure that the light strip you buy supports your SmartHome platform. My home is Apple HomeKit, so that is what I will be discussing today. It is important to me to have a light strip that supports Apple HomeKit.
- Length: How long is the light strip and is there an extension available? (What is the max length I can make this light strip?), and what is the minimum I can cut. For example, I have smaller cabinets beside my stove that require a that supports a 10” strip, so I wouldn’t want to choose a light can only be cut to 12” for example.
- Technology: You want to make sure your lights are reliable and responsive. How do they connect? I’ll break this down a little more when looking at each of these light strips.
- Brightness and colour intensity – How bright can they go, this is usually measured in lumens, and how vibrant do the colours look?
Here is what comes in each box
Vocolink – I have an existing vocolinc in my house and find this to be a quality product and only cost $49.99 CAD.
These lights connect using WiFi and they are actually pretty fast as long as you have a solid WiFi connection in the room you are placing these lights. Do keep in mind that having too many accessories connected to your Wifi can place a strain on your network.
500 Lumens is the Max Brightness. This will be better demonstrated once we compare this side by side with the Nanoleaf and Philips Hue.
This is a 2M light strip and can be expanded up to 4M by purchasing the 2M extension for $38.99 CAD. The app allows for some cool, unique effects like Blink/Breath/Flow/Flicker Candle which are not available on the other light strips. You can get 3rd party apps but most cost money to use the features. This is a nice value add for Vocolinc that these features come for free!
Nanoleaf – Part of their essentials line, these are relatively new. They’ve been very hard to find online so I was excited to finally get a set once they came back in stock. These cost me $65.95.
These are are the first lights strips to connect via Thread, meaning you can expect better range, improved latency and better reliability in many cases, To take advantage of thread lights you will need a HomePod mini. These lights will also connect by bluetooth, however, I wouldn’t recommend this unless it’s a a temporary solution until you pick up your HomePod mini which I always recommend is a good idea anyway!
2,200 lumens is the max brightness – this is the advertised highest brightness of these three light strips.
This one is 2M, expandable to 3M with the purchase of the 1M extensions for $34.99
Philips Hue – I love my Philips hue. This was the first light strip I ever owned and it’s always worked so well for me. These one are the most expensive, though I appreciate the value and reliability you get for the price which is $99.98 Canadian.
These lights connect via Zigbee which means you will need a Bridge which costs $70, however, you can connect up to 50 lights with that one bridge. Technically you can also connect with bluetooth, but it doesn’t work with HomeKit, and yeah… just don’t do it.
These light-strips are capable of 1650 lumens so they fall in the middle of the ones I’m testing today. In theory, they are not as bright as the Nanoleaf, but brighter than the Vocolinc. Don’t worry, I will test this out for you today and we will find out soon!
This is a 2M light strip, expandable up to 10 meters by purchasing 1M extensions for $39.97 Canadian per metre. This offers a lot of flexibility when you’re looking to illuminate a longer stretch such as under cabinets.
It important to consider a real-life test case so I installed on my kitchen island so you can see how they stack up as they were intended to be used with diffused lighting.
Diffused lighting on my kitchen island and through the marbled glass pantry door
Conclusion I felt like Philips Hue has the deepest richest colour, but the Nanoleaf was very close, and I also like how bright the Nanoleaf was. Honestly, I was impressed with Vocolinc as well. In terms of value, Vocolinc delivers a great solution for the value and I think would make a great solution for somewhere where you’re looking for accent lighting and you’re not as concerned about very bright lighting. In terms of speed, they all performed well though the Nanoleaf was clearly the fastest taking advantage of the thread technology. One thing to note, If I didn’t have a HomePod mini this would work using bluetooth and would be noticeably slower and less reliable.
Firmware Updates in the Native App – make sure that regardless of the product that you choose, always go into the native app and update firmware to ensure you are up to date and getting the most reliability out of your device. The Nanoleaf essentials products do not include thread support out of the box right now so if you update firmware, you can also take advantage of thread right away!
With iOS 14, adaptive lighting was also released. This feature allows for the light temperature on your lights to adapt based on the time of day. Out of these 3, this feature is available with the Philips Hue and Nanoleaf. As of the time of recording, this is not yet available with Vocolinc.
Which one will I choose for my Island? After lots of tests and considerations of the features and benefits, I’ll be using the Nanoleaf light strip here. It’s in the main part of my open concept home and I want to take advantage of #thread. I look forward to having this addition in my smart home and I know this will be fast and reliable in scenes and automations!
All 3 of these will work with Homekit, Google Home and Alexa with the exception of Nanoleaf which does not work with Lady A. I’m sure most of you are using HomeKit so this is probably not a big deal!
Thanks so much for reading and I’ll talk to you soon!