The Best LED Light Strips for Every Room

Best Overall

Govee Smart WiFi RGBWW LED Strip Lights

4.7

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Govee is well known for feature-packed LED lighting at affordable prices. The Govee Smart Wi-Fi RGBWW LED Strip Lights is our top pick overall for the best LED light strip because it has all the features needed to work just about anywhere in your home. These strips are bright enough to use in the kitchen or living room, but the built-in dimmer and RGB (red, green, and blue) lighting effect options make them a decent choice for bedrooms.

These light strips come in a 9.8-foot length and put out more than enough brightness for mood lighting while being right on the edge for functional lighting. That means you’ll probably still have to rely on your traditional lighting in some situations, but you might be surprised at how little you reach for the light switch.

Aside from the great value, the best thing about Govee Smart Wi-Fi RGBWW LED Strip Lights is the flexibility you get with RGBWW LEDs. Strips with this configuration include alternating RGB, white, and warm-white LEDs. So if you’re looking for some colorful mood lighting, the RGB LEDs do the heavy lifting, but if you want more natural, warm light, the white LEDs switch on.

These strips also offer versatile controls, including Wi-Fi connectivity, a smartphone app, and the option to control them with your Amazon Echo or Google Home speaker. Smart home integration also allows you to set the strips to come on or switch color at specific times of the day or based on other triggers. The white and warm white LEDs can be difficult to manipulate using smart home voice controls, but you can always fall back on using the app if you experience any issues.

Price at time of publish: $40

_{Length: 9.8 feet︱Lumens/Foot: Not listed | LEDs/Foot: 22 | Controls: Remote, app, Google Home, Alexa︱Voltage: 24 volts︱Power Source: Wall outlet (adapter included)}

Best Budget

TJOY Multicolored LED Strip Lights

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TJOY LED Strip Lights provide the best value if you’re working on a tight budget. When you look at the cost per foot for these strip lights, many of our top recommendations are as much as 10 times more expensive. The stripped-down TJOY lights are a little light on features, such as app control, but you can’t beat the value.

These strips use super bright 5050 LEDs, come with a power adapter, and include a remote that lets you set a specific color or access a handful of programs like flashing or gradually changing colors. You can’t control the strips with a phone app or your smart home speaker, and TJOY doesn’t provide some key information, like exactly how bright the strips are, but you have to expect some cut corners to get a value this good.

Price at time of publish: $17

_{Length: 50 feet (25 feet x 2 pieces) | Lumens/Foot: Not listed | LEDs/Foot: Not listed | Controls: Remote control︱Voltage: 12 volts︱Power Source: Wall outlet (power adapter included)}

Best Splurge

Philips Hue Bluetooth Gradient Ambiance Smart Lightstrip

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The Philips Hue Bluetooth Gradient Lightstrip is expensive, but it’s well worth the splurge if you have room in your budget and don’t want to deal with any hassles. These strips are easy to install, and they have plug-and-play electrical connectors that allow you to attach additional strips. You can technically cut and splice just like any other LED strip, but there’s no need. The base kit starts at 6 feet, and then you can add additional strips in 3-foot increments.

These strips are a little dim to replace all the lights in your living room or bedroom, but they can get close when set to a bright white color temperature. You can also set a wide variety of colors, and the gradient feature allows you to set two colors at once that gradually meet in the middle. The only downside of this product is that Philips sells two different versions that aren’t compatible. When you buy the base kit, check whether you have version three or version four, and then buy expansion strips that match that same version.

Price at time of publish: $180

_{Length: 6 feet | Lumens/Foot: 266-300 | LEDs/Foot: Not listed | Controls: Google Home, Apple Homekit, app, Bluetooth︱Voltage: 120 volts︱Power Source: Wall outlet (power adapter)}

Best Outdoor

HitLights Outdoor LED Strip Lights

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Installing LED light strips outside isn’t that different from installing them inside, but you need to worry about the elements. HighLights Outdoor LED Strip Lights have an IP67 water-resistance rating, the second-highest rating for protection against liquids. That means these light strips are perfectly safe to use in the rain. You can even submerge them in water to a depth of up to 1 meter.

These lights are bright enough to provide a comfortable lighting level at night, with about 165 to 195 lumens per foot. The package includes a 16.4-foot reel of LED lights, and you can cut that to size or splice in more if necessary. If you do so, it’s important to seal up the tube that encases the light strip, or it will no longer be waterproof. This kit doesn’t come with built-in controls or a power supply either, which means you need to buy, wire, and install one yourself or consult with a professional installer.

Price at time of publish: $50

_{Length: 16.4 feet︱Lumens/Foot: 165-195 | LEDs/Foot: 3-3.6 | Controls: None︱Voltage: 12 volts︱Power Source: Wiring required; no power adapter included}

Best for TVs

HitLights 4 Pre-Cut LED Light Strips

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If you want to add some accent lights to the back of your TV, a Pre-Cut LED Light Strip kit from HitLights takes all the guesswork out of the process. The kit includes four pre-cut strips, four flexible connectors with clips, and a power source. There’s no need to do any measuring, cutting, or splicing, as all you have to do is snap the pre-cut strips together with the connectors.

One of HitLights’ pre-cut light strip kits is all you need for smaller and medium-sized televisions, but you can easily connect a second kit if you have a larger TV. These kits are also perfect for shelf and cabinet lighting, and anywhere you need short light strips that can be snapped together quickly by flexible connectors. The kit includes a remote, but there’s no option for app control or integration with your smart home.

Price at time of publish: $27

_{Length: 4 feet (1 foot x 4 pieces)︱Lumens/Foot: Not listed | LEDs/Foot: 12 | Controls: Remote︱Voltage: 12 volts︱Power Source: Wall outlet (power adapter)}

Best for Bedrooms

Sengled Smart Zigbee Multicolor Light Strip

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The Sengled Smart Zigbee Multicolor Light Strip is an excellent lighting choice for bedrooms and other rooms where you’d like to have multicolor mood lighting with the option for true white lighting as well. These are RGBW light strips, which means they have color-changing LEDs to provide colorful mood lighting and dedicated white LEDs for white light. Pure RGB lights have trouble producing white light that isn’t noticeably shifted to one part of the spectrum, so the dedicated white LEDs in RGBW strips address that problem.

Unlike many other light strips, the Sengled Smart Zigbee Multicolor Light Strip requires a base station if you want to connect it to your smart home. That does result in a mark against this light strip since it represents an extra expense, but it also comes with a hidden benefit. If you want to add LED light strips to a bedroom that’s a little far away from your wireless router, where a standard light strip wouldn’t be able to connect, you can place the base station somewhere between the two and not have to worry about how weak the Wi-Fi network is in your bedroom.

Price at time of publish: $40

_{Length: 6 feet | Lumens/Foot: 250 | LEDs/Foot: Not listed | Controls: App, Alexa, Google Home, requires a base station︱Voltage: 100-240 volts︱Power Source: Wall outlet (adapter included)}

Best for Closets

SENSKY Motion Activated LED Strip Lights

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Sensky’s Motion Activated LED Strip Lights are perfect for closets and other applications where you don’t have easy access to a power outlet. You can pull off and charge the rechargeable battery unit that supplies power to these light strips whenever it runs down. The battery unit has a switch you can use to turn the lights on manually or set it to auto, and the light will turn on whenever it detects motion.

These lights are great for closets because you don’t need to worry about wiring them to a power source, and they switch on automatically whenever you open the closet. They’re also great for use in cabinets and other similar spaces for the same reason. The battery tends to drain quickly when used in high traffic areas, but it has a standard Micro USB connection that allows you to connect to a USB power bank to extend the time between charges.

Price at time of publish: $16

_{Length: 6 feet︱Lumens/Foot: Not listed | LEDs/Foot: 10 | Controls: Motion, switch︱Voltage: 5 volts︱Power Source: Battery (lithium, rechargeable)}