Govee Skyline Kit review: Lovely floating LED accent lighting

I keep wondering when the smart lighting category will become tapped out. Bulbs, lamps, strings, and strips. We’re surely approaching peak smart lighting about now.

But we’re not there yet, thanks in part to the Govee Strip Light with Skyline Kit, conveniently abbreviated as just the Skyline Kit. Govee is already one of my favorite smart lighting manufacturers—I have five of its products installed in my home right now—and the Hong Kong-based operation continues to innovate.

As Govee puts it, the Skyline Kit is “more than a lighting accessory,” it’s a “refined design element that uses light to shape and elevate interior spaces.” That goal is achieved by attaching a standard adhesive strip light to a strip of flattened steel wire, allowing you to suspend the strip light in open space instead of sticking it to a wall.

If that doesn’t make sense, this is one of those cases where a picture tells the story best. But in other words, the Skyline Kit is accent lighting that emanates from mid-air, throwing light into a dark corner, onto the ceiling, or from beneath an alcove.

Specifications

Christopher Null/Foundry

There is nothing special about the underlying lighting tech here: This is merely an LED strip light, outfitted with a fancy backing system on which to hang it. The LEDs in the strip use RGBWWIC technology (there are discrete red, green, blue, white, and warm white ICs) with a maximum cumulative power draw of 36 watts. The strip includes eight addressable zones, with each zone containing six lamps.

Installation and setup

From the jump I will say this is one of the most difficult and wearisome smart lighting installations I have undertaken. I would categorically not recommend you attempt to install it unless you’re completely comfortable with the basics of home improvement, you don’t mind drilling a lot of holes in your walls (eight), and you’re rock steady while working high on a ladder.

In broad strokes, you’ll need to stretch the aforementioned wire between two opposite walls, keeping it taut so the strip light attached to it doesn’t sag in the middle; otherwise, the LEDs won’t deliver the desired effect on the ceiling. All that requires some fancy footwork on Govee’s end—and a lot of trial and error on yours.

Christopher Null/Foundry

I won’t walk through the entire installation process, but I will hit the major steps to give you a flavor for it. My first challenge was simply finding a place in my home where the Skyline Kit would even work. The kit will be available in two versions, depending on length: 4 meters ($120) or 6 meters ($150). Govee sent the shorter version in advance of the product’s May 11 launch, but finding two walls less than about 13 feet apart—with access to a power outlet within reach of its 13-foot power cord, including the inline controller—proved difficult.

Almost every location where I thought the Skyline Kit might look good was just too wide, and unlike standard strip lights, there’s no way to extend the Skyline Kit with additional pieces. (It can, however, be cut shorter using regular scissors: snip the wire and then the light strip at regular intervals denoted on the tape.)

Ultimately, I found a spot that would work in my garage, essentially illuminating a lengthy work bench about 10 feet long. This is probably not what Govee had in mind for a “refined design element,” but it turned out to be a good fit for testing.

Christopher Null/Foundry

The first step is to install two mounting bases on opposite walls, each of which gets attached with four screws. Govee includes wall anchors in the box if you’re mounting to drywall; unfortunately, these are not the best wall anchors for the job, and they pushed through on one side of the wall during my installation process. This caused the mounting base to pull away from it.

So, I’d recommend using higher-quality anchors, as you will want these mounting bases to look as clean—and as secure—as possible on the wall.

Next, you’re tasked with unspooling the wire strip and flattening it out (plan to have a lot of flat space for this, like a hardwood floor), then adhering the lighting strip to the wire strip. I didn’t really understand why Govee didn’t provide the two already connected—especially since the light strip must be installed with a gap of exactly 7.5 centimeters at one end of the wire strip. That’s a tedious and somewhat delicate process.

The wire then attaches to the mounting base via what Govee calls “fixing bars,” pairs of devices that let you pull the wire tight by screwing the two halves of the fixing bar together, slowly raising the tension on the wire until it is taut. After one fixing bar is installed, you then cut both the metal wire and the strip light to fit before connecting them both to the second fixing bar.

Christopher Null/Foundry

This is where I ran into the most trouble of the day, as my wire turned out to be too long, requiring me to disassemble things, cut it, and try again. On the second try it was again too long, and only on my third attempt did it dawn on me that the trick was to attempt to maximize the length of the fixing bars, not minimize it. Screwing the fixing bars together is difficult work, and you can save yourself a big headache by lowering the amount of rotating you have to do to pull the wire in nice and tight.

Pro tip: Pay close attention to every detail in the full printed manual (just ignore the quick-start guide) at each step of the process. Hopefully, videos will also be available when the product ships to retail that will clarify some of the trickier aspects.

At last, with the wire taut across the room, the Skyline Kit can be powered up. This is done via a pigtail that snakes out from one of the fixing bars. There’s unfortunately no great solution for mitigating this eyesore. As with most strip light products, you’re on your own when it comes to hiding the exposed wiring. You’ll probably want to ensure you leave access to the inline control box, which provides access to on-demand power, a color-changing feature, and a brightness adjuster.

Using the Govee Skyline kit

Christopher Null/Foundry

After more than two hours of work, I had the kit installed and operational. Even before I configured it, the Gove Skyline’s effect was impressive, casting a lively, aesthetically pleasing backlight into a formerly dark corner. And while not really the point of the product, it also provides some helpful working light to the space when I needed it. The colors are vibrant—much like Govee’s strip lights—and the whites bright.

You’ll use the Govee app to manage the lights, and you’ll almost certainly need it despite the device’s Matter support, because that’s the only way to manage its color features. The Govee app discovered the Skyline Kit automatically after it was powered up—although the app identified it as a standard strip light—and I was able to immediately start working with it.

As far as the Govee app is concerned, the Skyline is a regular strip light, and it can do all the same things, including choosing from dozens of scenes, setting a standard white color temperature (a warm 2700 Kelvin to very cool 6500K), and pulsating in time with music either via a microphone attached to the power cord of the device or through your phone’s mic.

Christopher Null/Foundry

Govee’s AI assistant can also create custom scenes based on verbal or typed prompts—or even a photo you’ve snapped. That said, none of these features are any different than you’ll find on standard Govee strip lights.

This review is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best smart lighting.

I did encounter one problem when calibrating the length of the lights. An ostensibly helpful tool lets you tell the Govee app exactly where you cut the strip of lights, which lets you recalibrate scenes and reset the start and end points of lighting effects.

I followed the directions in the app but this simply didn’t work right: After calibration, the last foot or more of lights remained white during most color operations, as if those lights didn’t exist. I ended up recalibrating the lights to tell the app that the strip was five steps longer than it actually was in order to get those last segments to light up properly. I presume this is just a bug that will eventually be resolved via a firmware update.

Should you buy a Govee Skyline Kit?

Christopher Null/Foundry

As with all smart home tech, I must now decide whether to leave these lights in place or dismantle them now that my testing is complete. For now, I’m planning to leave them installed, in part because I know removal will be a headache and in part because I want to see how useful they are over the long term. The light looks great. The chunky mounting brackets on either wall and the dangling cable, not so much, and I’m hoping that version 2.0 of this technology cleans up the hardware a bit.

If you can find a spot in your home where this solution makes sense—and both its brackets and cabling can be at least somewhat hidden—it’s worth considering as a potentially powerful statement piece.

Updated shortly after publication to report the length of the Govee Skyline Kit’s power cord, which is 13 feet, including its inline controller.