Best option for LED light strips

[obas]

I realize there  have been many threads about LED light strips  and bulbs but I'm still wondering about a bunch of things.

I want to install some LED light strips, first in my house, mostly for ambient lighting, in kitchen, living room, bedroom. I don't need some fancy light show, just be able to change colors, turn on and off.   It seems just some simple Zigbee of Wifi strips will work ( I see drivers for Govee and Wix). Those all seem easy, pretty cheap solutions.  Are there any disadvantages of going that way? How do they compare to solutions with their own hub, like Philips Hue (I believe). I also read about Control4 new Vibrant lighting, I'm, sure they are way more expensive. I just don't see the benefit of using those, Am I missing something?

Later, I also want to add outdoor light strips, bulbs, and such. Will that make a difference? Lots of the installation, I can do myself and then ask the Control4 guy to integrate the LEDs/lights

Any suggestion is appreciated.

[Cyknight]

Don't know Wix, Govee is nice for the price, but I wouldn't trust it for outdoors.

Frankly, DMX is still the way to go for LED RGB strips for most flexibility in larger setups, but it requires more wiring, or more cost (axion has a wifi dmx module that works well, but you're looking at 250+ just for the module for each remote location).

DMX doesn't need to be 'fancy' - that's up to the install, but as a reliable protocol....

HUE has some good outdoor options as well.

Note that there's nothing stopping you from having a combination of any or all of the above.

I do, I have some Govee TV back lighting, HUE bulbs in a few places, DMX both plain white and RGB for potlights and led strips, and plenty of C4 regular dimmers/switches, oh and a few zwave outlets as well - it all works together fine with some minor limitations (mainly, ability to track state accurately for lighting scenes active/inactive purposes for some 3rd party lighting options)

[LollerAgent]

Hue, etc are nice -- but they are very expensive in quantity.

I'm in the DMX camp myself.  You can buy cheap strips on Amazon, etc, pickup decoders, etc.  There is an initial learning curve to DMX, but once you get the hang of it -- it's pretty straightforward.  But, you need to be able to run wires back to a central location (decoders) in most situations.  Like Cy said, wireless decoders are expensive.  I use Domaudeo's Advanced DMX driver (and the "red" box) -- but I think there are a few other solutions now.

I use Hue behind my TV's and DMX everywhere else (for LED strips).

[zaphod]

Some of these like Govee, etc, are actually Wifi rather than Zigbee.  But that is good.  And there are C4 drivers for a bunch of these.  Another option is MagicHome, aka Flux.  You just use generic strips and use a compatible controller - and there is a C4 driver for that as well.  The strips are cheap but if you want more than a 10m (30ft) run then you may need multiple controllers or a repeater.

A few others have mentioned DMX, you just use the same generic strips that you would for the other options with a DMX controller.

Hue is good, but is expensive on a per foot basis.

[anon2828]

I use Wiz.  Search the forums for my previous posts on this.  Availability - you can get them at Home Depot.  Cost - they are relatively cheap compared to Hue and others. Performance/quality - there are online articles comparing them versus Hue (generally thought to be top quality) where reviewers could barely tell the difference (they are both made by Philips).  Integration - there are now two different Wiz drivers available.  My experience has been very good with the integration - zero issues and I have them indoors (LED strips) and outdoors (bulbs).  Frankly don't know why more people don't use Wiz.  Only downside is that each bulb/strip does use its own IP address and if your WiFi setup is not strong could congest your network, but that is true of any Wifi solution versus Zigbee, etc.

[obas]

 

Thanks for all the feedback.

I might have misunderstood about the cost of DMX and the intended use.  Actually, I do have a DMX-controlled LED strip on the stairs. In the media closet there is an ENTTEC ODE MK3 gateway, which is connected to another box, guessing the decoder? I was not very happy with how it was setup though, especially for the cost. In the Control4 App, it shows up under lighting  as 4 independent lights ( LED R, G, B, W), that can be individually controlled, no color wheel, no option for any light effect. Was pretty expensive too

Apologies for my newbie questions, I was under the impression that if I want to go the DMX way, I should buy specialized DMX LED strips, but from the comments here it seems that is not the case, or do most LED strips conform to DMX standard anyway? For running wires from the outside, I need to drill through the outside wall to reach the decoder, which worries me a bit. 

I just bought a Govee led strip to test it out (not connected to Control4 yet), it works fine, but it uses Wifi (not keen have to enter my wifi password, no clue where that is going). Aside from that, are there any preferences to use Zigbee instead? I already have a bunch of light switches, dimmers, and keypads that use zigbee?

I will definitely try out Wix too

For the outdoor lights, nothing fancy, just a bunch of LED strips and some other accent lights, pot lights and such. As long as I can change the color depending,  have some scenes for Christmas, Halloween, etc, I'm happy, some light effects would be nice, not sure if the neighbours would appreciate I'm ok to pay extra for decent quality but preferably nothing outrageous.

@Cyknight Why not trust Govee for the outside? 

Does Anyone have experience with Control4 Vibrant? 

[LollerAgent]

58 minutes ago, obas said:

I might have misunderstood about the cost of DMX and the intended use.  Actually, I do have a DMX-controlled LED strip on the stairs. In the media closet there is an ENTTEC ODE MK3 gateway, which is connected to another box, guessing the decoder? I was not very happy with how it was setup though, especially for the cost. In the Control4 App, it shows up under lighting  as 4 independent lights ( LED R, G, B, W), that can be individually controlled, no color wheel, no option for any light effect. Was pretty expensive too

Apologies for my newbie questions, I was under the impression that if I want to go the DMX way, I should buy specialized DMX LED strips, but from the comments here it seems that is not the case, or do most LED strips conform to DMX standard anyway? For running wires from the outside, I need to drill through the outside wall to reach the decoder, which worries me a bit. 

I just bought a Govee led strip to test it out (not connected to Control4 yet), it works fine, but it uses Wifi (not keen have to enter my wifi password, no clue where that is going). Aside from that, are there any preferences to use Zigbee instead? I already have a bunch of light switches, dimmers, and keypads that use zigbee?

I will definitely try out Wix too

For the outdoor lights, nothing fancy, just a bunch of LED strips and some other accent lights, pot lights and such. As long as I can change the color depending,  have some scenes for Christmas, Halloween, etc, I'm happy, some light effects would be nice, not sure if the neighbours would appreciate I'm ok to pay extra for decent quality but preferably nothing outrageous.

@Cyknight Why not trust Govee for the outside? 

Does Anyone have experience with Control4 Vibrant? 

The gateway is probably connected to the decoder.  Lights connect directly to the decoder.  I think you may be using an older driver -- any modern DMX driver will have a better UI and allow you to have color and temperature sliders (vs having to control each individual channel separately like you describe).  I'm not familiar with the Enntec solution though, but I wonder if you can just update the driver.  What OS version are you on?  Enhanced support for color/temperature came in 3.3.0, but you need to update your drivers to take advantage of this functionality (if your drivers have new versions).  

No - there are no speciality DMX strips -- you can use any LED strips with DMX decoders. You just need one decoder channel for each channel (R, G, B , etc).  

[obas]

@LollerAgent The control4 guy (new company), just updated it to the latest OS version a few weeks ago. I believe that would be 3.4.x? I will ask them if it's possible to update. They are scheduled for next week to install some additional locks and switches. I didn't expect the driver and such to depend on the brand of DMX decoder/gateway and the OS version. Thanks for the information. It seems the Domaudeo is a more popular solution than Enntec. Not sure why the previous Control4 integrator used this brand. They definitely didn't have much experience with lighting.  I can use my current decoder for any additional led strips and lights, right? Only issue is getting the wires there, for an existing construction that would be a lot of work (and cost).

 

[Andrew luecke]

4 hours ago, anon2828 said:

I use Wix.  Search the forums for my previous posts on this.  Availability - you can get them at Home Depot.  Cost - they are relatively cheap compared to Hue and others. Performance/quality - there are online articles comparing them versus Hue (generally thought to be top quality) where reviewers could barely tell the difference (they are both made by Philips).  Integration - there are now two different Wix drivers available.  My experience has been very good with the integration - zero issues and I have them indoors (LED strips) and outdoors (bulbs).  Frankly don't know why more people don't use Wix.  Only downside is that each bulb/strip does use its own IP address and if your WiFi setup is not strong could congest your network, but that is true of any Wifi solution versus Zigbee, etc.

Did you mean wiz? I use wiz for some of my home (I wrote the chowmain driver), and have been happy with them. There is a major driver update being released likely early next week too. If there are any questions about any chowmain lighting drivers, I should be able to help

[LollerAgent]

2 hours ago, obas said:

@LollerAgent The control4 guy (new company), just updated it to the latest OS version a few weeks ago. I believe that would be 3.4.x? I will ask them if it's possible to update. They are scheduled for next week to install some additional locks and switches. I didn't expect the driver and such to depend on the brand of DMX decoder/gateway and the OS version. Thanks for the information. It seems the Domaudeo is a more popular solution than Enntec. Not sure why the previous Control4 integrator used this brand. They definitely didn't have much experience with lighting.  I can use my current decoder for any additional led strips and lights, right? Only issue is getting the wires there, for an existing construction that would be a lot of work (and cost).

 

You can use your current decoder as long as it has free channels.  Otherwise, you can just get another decoder and daisy chain it to you existing one.

[Andrew luecke]

By the way, 3 other good options are:

* TPLink Kasa

* Govee

* Shelly RGBW2 (wired into whatever LED Strip you want)

[Cyknight]

7 hours ago, obas said:

@Cyknight Why not trust Govee for the outside? 

Just wouldn't trust it to last, at least out here (it gets rather cold...) Location will likely influence that.

 

Sounds like you have an old style DMX, the enttec driver hasn't been updated for newer UI options and I'm not sure it will be - as mentioned only that piece would need replacement, the already mentioned advanced DMX driver is probably the cheapest (good) option in your scenario. It handles much better, has all the new updates in it's driver for the upgraded lighting experience and so on.

To be clear I actually run the enttec driver myself, albeit with a DMXKing controller, and it works fine for me as I'm primarily controlling white potlights with it, and a few rgb strips that merely get set to a chosen color (no 'fancy scenes' at all, but I don't recommend it for that either, especially as it puts the load of doing those scenes on the C4 controller (advanced dmx driver plus controller offloads more of that onto the DMX controller).

 

[Cinema & Sound]

Why not the Control4 light strips?

[Cyknight]

10 hours ago, Cinema & Sound said:

Why not the Control4 light strips?

Zero experience with them so couldn't recommend to, or recommend not to.

[anon2828]

23 hours ago, Andrew luecke said:

Did you mean wiz? I use wiz for some of my home (I wrote the chowmain driver), and have been happy with them. There is a major driver update being released likely early next week too. If there are any questions about any chowmain lighting drivers, I should be able to help

Whoops - yeah corrected that - Wiz not Wix.  Ha.

So we are currently using the driver from Axon Engineering.  They have done a decent job of updating it and it works with the new Control4 color wheel, etc.  That said we do have an issue with their new version of the driver being able to group lights.  For example, I have 3 different bulbs in pendant fixtures hanging over a dining table.  I want to be able to group all 3 of those lights in Control4 under one name and one control (including the color wheel) - can this be done with the Chowmain driver?  Any other advantages of the Chowmain driver versus the Axon?  Thanks!

[Andrew luecke]

6 hours ago, anon2828 said:

Whoops - yeah corrected that - Wiz not Wix.  Ha.

So we are currently using the driver from Axon Engineering.  They have done a decent job of updating it and it works with the new Control4 color wheel, etc.  That said we do have an issue with their new version of the driver being able to group lights.  For example, I have 3 different bulbs in pendant fixtures hanging over a dining table.  I want to be able to group all 3 of those lights in Control4 under one name and one control (including the color wheel) - can this be done with the Chowmain driver?  Any other advantages of the Chowmain driver versus the Axon?  Thanks!

Not sure I can easily compare them (as I haven't used theirs), but we do have a 90 day trial.

 

You can use the chowmain light group driver which should be compatible with many lighting drivers though and even group different manufacturers even (and we have a new light group driver in beta too). https://chowmain.software/drivers/control4-chowmain-light-group

 

[obas]

Thanks again for all the input.  I'm looking around but I cannot find a lot of Zigbee LED strips and/or lights. The only one I could find is Sengled. All the other ones are WiFi. I'm also a bit confused about ZigBee. Do I still need a hub for Zigbee light strips. I do have a bunch of wireless Control4 switches/dimmers/keypads, but they all seem to be directly controlled by the EA3? (or would need a CA1 for that). and what kind of driver will work with Zigbee devices? 

If go with WiFi, how many devices can I safely add to my home WiFi network without any degradation to my home network?

I still like DMX; interesting to get familiar with. @Cyknight you mentioned you have RGB spotlights, any recommendations on brand for those? No chance Enntec will update the driver, right?  I checked the Domaudio, but the Engineering Solutions "red box" doesn't seem to be available, is there any good alternative? Just to understand correctly, I can install the LED strips, spotlights spot lights on the same decoder (assuming enough channels) or daisychain them, but if use a wireless decoder, it cannot be the end of a daisy chain (I did see from different thread one that was only $80 or so). For wired, how long can the cables be to connect one DMX decoder to another one? I guess outdoor decoders are a bit different than indoor decoders?  How are the wires typically go to  the DMX gateway inside the house, do I have to drill straight to a wall or are there better solutions?

@Cinema & Sound do you have any experience with control4 lights? Are these the  vibrant lighting from the website? Are they very expensive compared to other solutions?

 

Seems, the more I look into it, the more questions I have  

 

[Cyknight]

10 hours ago, obas said:

No chance Enntec will update the driver, right?

It was never made by Enttec - but I've seen no movement on C4's side to do this. I wouldn't hold my breath.

10 hours ago, obas said:

RGB spotlights,

POT lights, not sport lights here. We usually use Mirus or Lotus

 

 

[obas]

@Cyknight oops, misread, pot, and spot   From your experience as a dealer, do you install a lot of Zigbee lights/led-strips?  Aside from Philips Hue, what other brands are good options for the lights and the HUB, with good C4 integration? I assume the EA3 cannot act as a hub. 

[Cyknight]

We use DMX control primarily (via the 'standard' Domaudio driver, Mirus or in some retrofit situations Axion) unless we're talking full on Pixel lighting (which we do with specialty controllers and just trigger scenes via C4).

Mirus is essentially DMX, but it's own closed system. Works great but pricey. Good driver and support though, including their own group drivers with some really neat overhead saving features. The one issue with things like dmx and other expansive rgb(w/ww/www/wwww) systems is that they can create a lot of overhead. the Artnet (enntec) options is the worst, domaudeo, Mirus and others (even HUE) offload a portion of that overhead to specialized controllers to varying degrees.

Others we've done are primarily retro-integrated pieces already in place. Hue works well but is pricey, as mentioned Govee works well but keep in mind that there is no control over video/music sync settings from C4 and it's cloud based - i wouldn't recommend Govee for huge setups with a lot of individual pieces to control..

EA series cannot act as a hub for any other zigbee, and it's zwave integration is limited to specific devices (basically, assume no lights) unlike the CORE units that have more or less no limit on zwave devices. We don't actively sell zwave however, at least not for lighting, so again, my experience is relatively limited and i can't really recommend specific lighting devices there.

In general, for 3rd party lighting OTHER THAN WIFI based you'll be needing a bridge or it's reliant on the cloud (which comes with limitations, not in the least that there are often limited number of calls (hence not recommending Govee for a large number of lighting)

[obas]

@Cyknight thanks, and again apologies for all the newbie questions. I see Mirus is only available through a dealer. How expensive are they, ballpark?  I'm still trying to understand DMX. Are the decoders connected to every LED on the outside, daisychanged and only one wire goes to the inside, or every LED or light will have a wire going to the inside and the decoders are thre?

For the Domaudio, does it need to have the engineering solutions "red box" It looks that one is unavailable on Amazon and its HouseLogix site is unavailable. Are there any alternatives?

For the Hue, I'm reading some posts on the forums here where people have trouble/issue with integrating it with the  C4 driver. Do you have a similar experience? 

[Cyknight]

https://response-box.com/gear/product/dmx-engine-output-select/

to order the red box

 

Mirus: not sure, I don't handle the quotes for new installs - but ball park 50-100% more than a 'standard DMX setup,

 

13 hours ago, obas said:

Are the decoders connected to every LED on the outside, daisychanged and only one wire goes to the inside, or every LED or light will have a wire going to the inside and the decoders are thre?

DMX in part is so handy because there is no 'one way' of doing it.

You can have wires from LED strips or potlights going to a central location (or grouped sets of strips or pots that are daisy chained or even paralell wired) an into decoders per 'set' or multi-channel decoders that can do multiple sets. You can have DMX decoders by the actual lights and daisychain them or use a DMX multi=port splitter, you can have areas in the house with multiple DMX decoders and a wire run betwwen the locations and then one to the engine......of course as you noted, all these options can make DMX a bit overwhelming when first looked upon as well.

 

[LollerAgent]

There is also the new-ish "grape" box and driver from Blackwire -- but I haven't talked to anyone who has actually used it.

https://www.blackwiredesigns.com/store/blackwire-dmx-ip-bridge/

[obas]

@Cyknight as always, great comments and advice. You are right. There seem to be so many ways to do it (I didn't really understand how to daisychain sets of pot lights, without decoder), Definitely much more scalable than Hue landscape lighting (although they did look nice). I guess most of the questions I have are not related to C4 but to DMX  I've seen videos how to connect LED light strips to a dmx decoder but how would I connect a pot/spot/washer light to DMX decoder?  Can only use lights with a special decoder? Do all RGB lights have a special connection?  

For advanced programming of the LEDs, create light show and such (nice for Xmas), can that be done using the C4 interface/app, or will that require a separate controller?

I noticed there is a box inside the wall next to the door,  I think it's prewired for something? Wonder if that can be used to get the cables inside. C4 guy is coming on Thursday, will check with him.

@LollerAgent Thanks, does that one have additional options the red box doesn't have (without any feedback from other people)

[LollerAgent]

7 hours ago, obas said:

@LollerAgent Thanks, does that one have additional options the red box doesn't have (without any feedback from other people)

I think the Domaudeo driver is actually more full featured -- it has Circadian capability (which I think may be native in C4 now via an agent), effects, sound-to light, etc.