Amazon.com: Customer reviews: SYLVANIA Smart ZigBee Flex Strip, RGBW Full Color and Tunable White Starter Kit, Works with SmartThings, Wink, and Amazon Echo Plus, Hub Needed for Alexa and Google Assistant

Reviewed in the United States on February 10, 2021

I used this for under cabinet lighting. The led strips are sealed but I wanted a bit more protection. These fit nicely in the metal track / cover with EAN 0606157911208.

Pairing with my (well known brand) ZigBee enabled smart hub was easy / no issues. There is a motion sensor with triggers set up in the hub so that when movement is detected, the lighting is automatically triggered and stays on for 15 minutes. I also have it linked to an Echo / Alexa so they can be turned on / off / change color with voice commands. Again, it was easy to do that - just telling Alexa to discover new devices once the strip was paired with my hub.

I'm only running a pair of 6' strips so brightness is uniform the entire length of the strips. They've been up for 2 months with no problems so far.

Last but certainly not least - I bought these during a sale. At the price I paid, they were well worth the cost. Right now though, there seems to be limited availability and the prices have skyrocketed.

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PapaTech

Lightify Strips work well with all my home automation.

Reviewed in the United States on September 19, 2016

Verified Purchase

When I was looking to get some lights for my living area, I had looked at the Hue LED strips. Their cost as far as I am concerned is ridiculously high. I had heard of the Lightify product and though I was trying to stay away from having a Hub I thought this might be the right time to try it (I also bought some of the Lightify Color Bulbs at the same time - Will do a review on them soon).

These LED Light strips were extremely simple to put together and install. I used 3 of the strips together under my Shelf that is above my TV to give a nice background color while watching movies. The lights weren't quite as colorful as I had hoped and the colors seemed to be a bit washed out versus some of the other lights on the market (LiFX). I did only use 3 of the 4 strips so I might try plugging in the 4th to see if that improves the color vibrancy. They still look great when the room is dark and it really makes what you are watching pop.

Connecting these to the Wink Hub was an absolute breeze. No issues and the strips came on and off and instructed through the app. I also use IFTTT and the Strips respond fine. The only issue I have is that sometimes the Strips will shut off in the middle of a movie or they will reset to white with no one touching the app. I haven't figured it out yet.

I also have hooked the Lightify Strips to Alexa and made it simple for my wife to turn the lights on and off. She can say "Alexa, trigger reading" and the light by her chair will turn on to bright white. And going to bed is easy since we just say, "Alexa, turn off living room lights". Oh, sometime remind me to tell you about the Wink Relay...it works great!

All in all I like the Lightify Strips. You can't beat that they are half of what the other smartbulb strips are selling for.

17 people found this helpful

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Bibbit

Very happy, but I got them from Amazon for well below MSRP

Reviewed in the United States on May 3, 2018

Verified Purchase

I did not bother to purchase these until recently because I suspected the price was too high. Fortunately, I was able to get 2 boxes from Amazon for about 40% less than the price I saw last year. Last year is when I began trying Sylvania/OSRAM/Lightify/Smart+ bulbs. I liked the bulbs, but was not crazy about the software and Amazon Alexa reliability. For a long time I had to regularly break out the phone app to adjust the bulbs (of which I have about half a dozen), or repeat commands several times before alexa worked. The latest software updates combined with Alexa updates (and tweaks I made to my Wifi) have made a big difference on how well the bulbs work. They work night and day better (no smart lighting pun intended at all). So, when I saw the big price drop (I don't know if it was a temporary thing) I decided to purchase 2 starter kits (the prices for the other kits remained the same). I put them under the kitchen cabinets, and much to my delight the lights work great. My only problem is hiding the wiring and the occasional droop of one of the lights (the tape could probably be a tad stronger). I plan on getting some under cabinet mounts if needed. I'd also like to see more options for extending the lights and flexing them around corners that aren't 90 degrees. To get around the corners that aren't 90 degrees I purchased Kabenjee Super Handy SMD5050 RGBW LED Strip Light 5pin Extension Cable,4x Solderless Extension Cable Connector for Osram LED Strip Ribbon-30cm/12inch,RGBWW 5 pin Corner Connector(4pcs/pack) . They are a tad longer than I need (you'd think there would be 2 or 3 inch versions), but the added length may eventually come in handy.

I'm not sure I would rate these higher than 4 stars if I paid the price I saw prior to the (temporary?) reduction. The cost was similar to other brands which get much better reviews at tech sites, are apparently a little brighter, and in the case of Philips Hue have much better software (including a great Windows 10 app). If the pricing remains what it was when I got mine I'd forego purchasing one of the other kits and simply get more starter kits if I decide to get more. Though the 16 foot strip is tempting.

2 people found this helpful

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🎉customer

Looks good

Reviewed in the United States on February 27, 2020

Verified Purchase

This is a terrific light string. Of course, I’ve never purchased a light string before so I don’t really have anything to compare it with. I specifically wanted Zigbee lights that would pair directly with my Echo Show without needing another hub.

Echo Show: It paired directly with my Echo Show after four attempts. I was getting a little antsy after 3 attempts, but unplugged/replugged the string then gave it another try. I also paired it in the same room as the Echo Show. Once paired, I moved the string to where I wanted it elsewhere in the house.

Lights: Once paired, the Alexa app showed the string turning on and off to my commands, but there was no light. I checked all the connections, still no light. Then, I unplugged the strip at the controller, turned it over, and replugged it. Finally, the lights came on. The lights can be controlled by voice, such as “Alexa, set string light to 50%” for brightness, or “Alexa, change string light to magenta.” In the Alexa app, there are 15 color choices plus 5 choices of white shades.

Colors: Realistically, there are probably only 11-13 truly different colors if using the Alexa app. The differences in the remaining color choices are very minimal; some I can’t even tell the difference. Another commenter mentioned orange looks yellow; I agree, it does look like light yellow on my light set. Yellow has a green tint to it. Green is definitely green.

Length of strips: Each individual strip is 2 feet long. The LED chips are spaced 2” apart for a total of 12 chips per strip. This starter package comes with 3 strips = 6 feet long. For me, that’s all I needed for my fireplace. Be sure to measure your intended location and distance to the electrical outlet.

Controller cord: There are two cords and two bricks. The length of my cords is different than what the Product Instructions state. The Product Instructions state the length of the controller cord is 15.7”. My controller cord is 17” in length plus 2” more for the controller brick for a total of 19”. The controller cord connects to the light strips at one end and to the power cord at the other end.

Power cord: The Product Instructions state the power cord is 78.7”. My power cord is 60.5 inches in length plus 3.5 inches more for the power brick for a total of 64 inches. Both cords are thick and white. They are something to think about because they look ugly if you don’t have some place to hide them. None of the product photos shows the placement of the cords and the two bricks, but trust me, you’ll have to deal with them.

Power brick (adapter): It’s very large at 3.5” length x 2.125” width x 1.25” thickness. I don’t know why it’s so large, but it is. The electric prongs are not polarized (i.e., the two prongs are the same size), so the plug will fit in an outlet right side up or upside down, which is good because otherwise it might block the second outlet.

I like the light. Jazzes up the mantel of my fireplace. 5 stars!

Addendum: So, my internet went down for about 15 hours. My dots and plain Echos could do nothing. I figured I was out of luck in getting this light string to turn on. But wait — turns out my Echo Show 2 (with built-in Zigbee hub) can indeed control this light string without the internet. Nice.

3 people found this helpful

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VJL

Good Smartthings integration, struggles to make yellow light.

Reviewed in the United States on April 23, 2019

Verified Purchase

Pleased with SYLVANIA SMART+ ZigBee Indoor RGBW Starter Kit, the sticky tape was good and strong for mounting. I had no trouble mounting it under my cabinets. Curiously vague and ambiguous to load many products in one amazon listing though, kind of makes reviews pointless.

Integration with Smartthings was pretty good. I would like if the Smartthings interface allowed me to program whiteness-temperature and color into routines, instead of just brightness levels, but that seems to be a Smart things thing.

The RGBW kit struggles to make the color yellow. I used Arrow T25 staples in my staple gun to mount the wires under the cabinet, and washed the under cabinet of any kitchen grease and wiped down with rubbing alcohol before using the provided sticky tape backside. The connectors are somewhat finicky, they just slip on and off, there is no mechanical click-lock retention.

7 people found this helpful

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Becca Shansky

Easy to link with Smartthings; difficult to install; build quality so-so (LED hum)

Reviewed in the United States on October 21, 2020

Verified Purchase

I bought this strip light to use as a bias light for a computer monitor. It was easy to put together the light strips and power supply, and it linked up with Samsung SmartThings and Amazon Alexa seamlessly (Alexa found it without even my prompting).

Installation was more difficult. The adhesive on LED strips is almost always garbage, and this was no exception. For the price point, these should include self-adhesive and screw clips in the box. Due to the thickness of these strips, it's also basically impossible to make "looped" 90 degree corners. Don't even try to do it, because the loop will try to work itself straight, which will further pull the light strip off the mounting surface. It also doesn't come with 90 degree turn connectors, so there's another few bucks you have to shell out to use this kit.

Beyond that, the lights seem solid and colors are very nice. However, as is common, the power supply creates a high pitch hum when making many colors. It's not as bad as some of the bargain brands, but if you're sensitive to high pitch noise and will be sitting within a few feet of the power supply, you'll definitely notice it.

One person found this helpful

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Mark

Really cool lights

Reviewed in the United States on September 29, 2015

Verified Purchase

These lights are connected to my SmartThings v2 hub. Adding them to my network was extremely simple, just put your hub into inclusion mode then plug in the lights. They joined on the first attempt, and my hub knew exactly what they were. I was able to setup a few SmartApps to get some use out of these lights. The overall design is nice, and they look built to last. The only issues I have with this are: no easy way to mount unless you use the sticky back, and no extensions (to place between the light strips if needed). Neither really detract from this light, and can easily be worked around.

Pros: inexpensive, easy to setup, looks great
Cons: only mounting method is the double sided tape on the back, no extensions to go between light strips

3 people found this helpful

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R. Morris

Good but not quite bright enough for me

Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2017

Verified Purchase

Having used both the Osram light strip and the Philips Hue Lightstrip Plus, which is probably its main competitor, I think it would be helpful to compare the two:
* Lightstrip Plus is brighter. I could use Lightstrip Plus as the main lighting source for an entire room, but the Osram strip is just a bit too dim for this to work, even in the small room I tried it in.
* The Osram strip is cheaper. If you don't care about brightness, it may work out in your favor in terms of price. (If you want to make either brighter, there are extensions available for both. You could probably bring the Osram up to Hue brightness if you added one or more, assuming you don't mind the extra length, though then you'd probably end up spending more than the Hue product would have cost.)
* Both can work with SmartThings (and possibly similar home automation hubs)--the Osram natively by pairing it directly to SmartThings, and the Hue strip via SmartThings's Hue integration (and possibly native pairing if that's supported for this product, though I'd prefer to go through the Hue bridge). Both can also work through Alexa if the hub/bridge you've paired them with supports it.
* The Osram strip *might* be able to be paired with your Hue hub. If it can't out of the box, you might be able to change its firmware in order to be able to pair it with the Hue hub, but you will need the Lightify gateway to be able to do that. Mine couldn't pair out of the box and I didn't want to buy the Lightify gateway just for this. nor, I suspect, wouldn't most people if their goal was to avoid needing another hub/bridge for this product. (That wasn't my goal since it can pair to the SmartThings hub, but I was hoping to be able to use Philips accessories like the Dimmer and Tap with this product.) You might not even be able to do it at all anymore, as Osram has stopped helping people perform firmware changes (it needs ZigBee Light Link and not ZigBee HA firmware to work with Hue, but now they are switching to ZigBee 3.0, which they say combines the two functionalities but that your hub/bridge needs to support it, without actually commenting on which ones they've tested it with). [2018 Update: Philips has upgraded the Hue Bridge to support ZigBee 3.0, but I haven't had any luck getting ZigBee 3.0 lights to pair, but this may be possible/easier in the future.]
* The Orsam strip has more options available for extending--you can get all sorts of connectors for the Osram strips, including various lengths of purely extension cables (without LEDs) and at different angles. Hue only officially provides extensions in the form of additional lengths of the LED strips that connect directly to your existing strips (or extensions), i.e., your only options are one continuously lit strip. That being said, you can find third-party connectors for the Hue Lightstrip Plus that provide more options--if you trust them.

Personally, I ended up trading my Osram strip out for a Hue Lightstrip Plus. I already had a LightStrip Plus but wanted to try the Osram somewhere else because it was a bit cheaper, but it just wasn't bright enough for me. Both work well (though with the Osram your experience may vary depending on which hubs and apps you pair it with), but if you can afford the Philips product, I think it's generally better, and Hue has a rich ecosystem of first- and third-party apps that work well with it.

38 people found this helpful

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J

Easy to set up bright lights

Reviewed in the United States on May 4, 2019

Verified Purchase

We have slowly been automating our home and hooking up lights to Alexa and routines so it would make life a little easier. We usually run with Phillips Hue but they are usually expensive so when we saw these for such a good price, we sprung for it.

At first, I was hoping to get these for under-cabinet lighting for the kitchen but hubby said while you can cut these, the strips are rubber-plastic so you can't really bend them so there was no great way to go about fitting it to the 90 degree angle and I wasn't really looking to get a whole 'nother set up for the 12 inches we'd still have to cover for the 2nd set of cabinets.

In light of that, we decided to have it light up a strip of the hallway so it wouldn't need to bend. For this purpose, it's been pretty great. The white are pretty bright and the colors are quite vibrant. As a nightlight, the white was too bright for us even on the lowest setting (it doesn't really get any more dim than 5% and it was still bright for those 2AM potty breaks.) so we put it on as "cyan" and it's been the perfect dimness and color since! It's just enough to light the way but not enough to blind us.

We also hooked it up with Alexa but assigned it to a routine so it turns on at 8PM every night until dawn - at least until we get motion sensors and then we intend to only have it turn on when it sees something during the night hours but for now, it works as a nightlight for us as is!

3 people found this helpful

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Disneyfannn

Connectors NOT included no matter what the box and description say.

Reviewed in the United States on June 19, 2018

Verified Purchase

I had no problem connecting this to my Smartthings hub and to Alexa. I am able to change colora via Alexa although it seems to not be able to turn lights pink when selected. My issue is that the box and Amazon description CLEARLY state that 2 Flex connectors are incuded. It says this on both the front and the back of the box. I need the connector to make one set of these lights work under my cabinets. It's a false description by Sylvania and Amazon but I am not sure who is really the culprit here. The boxes (3) all appear to be untampered with and the contents appear to be new and unused. The strips were banded together and the power cord was perfectly wound and tied with a twist tie. The only indication of anything amiss is the fact that the box has a 2nd UPC sticker stuck to the box over the original pre-printed one with a different last 6 digits than what is on the actual box and I've attached a photo of 2 boxes, one has the sticker peeled to reveal the original UPC code with a slightly different model description. Both of these UPC codes come back to different model numbers on the website of Big Blue but their decriptions don't help.
The price I got these for was GREAT and this is the only thing I have found that will do what I want the way I want it but it's annoying one has to go and buy connectors, if needed, when they should be included. It's total False Advertisement. Strips get 5 stars but I gave just 3 because of the bait and switch BS.
Edited: 3/8/19: one of these kept falling down and now it won't set to "white", when "red" is selected, it shuts off and most of the other choices light up blue or a greenish hue.

One person found this helpful

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