Reddit reviews Nexlux LED Strip Lights, WiFi Wireless Smart Phone Controlled 32.8ft Waterproof Light Strip LED Kit 5050 LED Lights,Working with Android and iOS System,Alexa, Google Assistant
We found 7 Reddit comments about Nexlux LED Strip Lights, WiFi Wireless Smart Phone Controlled 32.8ft Waterproof Light Strip LED Kit 5050 LED Lights,Working with Android and iOS System,Alexa, Google Assistant. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
WORK WITH ALEXA &GOOGLE ASSISTANT: Use simple conversation starters to turn your lights on and off, make them brighter and swap them to your favorite color, currently compatible with Echo ,Google Assistant ,IFTTTWIFI WIRELESS CONTROLLER: Take complete control of your lighting with Magic home Pro APP; Create romance, relaxation, party ambiance with Music and Mic function; Remote control allows you turn on/off the led strip lights from anywhere; Timer function of the wifi controller make you wake up at your favorite color, keep you on ScheduleMULTI APPLICATIONS: Nexlux RGB LED light strip can be used for decorating your dining room, bed room, upstairs, kitchen, porch, desk, and living rooms, especially great for holidays and events like Christmas, Halloween,Parties, and more. It is a great gift for your family and friendsEASY INSTALLATION: All in one a kit, comes with a UL approved adapter, a wifi controller, a light strip; no need for any other expensive devices; Nexlux is engineered to provide a simple way to start designing your connected home; Our App is keep upgrading to make it compatible with more smart devicesRELIABLE AFTER-SALES SERVICE: Nexlux offer high quality and diverse products, including waterproof, non-waterproof, various lengths led strip lights and accessories. Our friendly and reliable customer service will offer any help about your project
I'm using seperate wifi controllers for each strip, works really well especially considering how cheap they are!
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0722VLVRR?psc=1&ref=yo_pop_mb_pd
To;dr: I spent a whole bunch of time putting together some custom lights for my setup. If you want to know more, read on. If you want to see the pretty pictures, click the links. Here’s one that shows the setup from the back of the room, and here is one from the front.
Intro
Some of you might recallmy last post. Well, I have finally found the light (forgive the bad dad jokes) at the end of the tunnel.
I took me basically the entire summer and a bit of the fall to get my system back up and running. Thankfully I have a old ‘65 Maggie in my living room that I spin from time to time when I’m desiring nostalgia. It took me as long as it did because I have a pretty busy life, but also because like Billy Joel, I go to extremes.
Like I said in my last post, I decided to replace all of my kallax because they apparently discontinued the natural color. I decided to go with a 3x4 and two 4x4s so my collection would have some room to grow. Since everything was boxed up, I also decided it would be a good time to wire in lights and stoppers.
Selection
I started to look at rope lights, but ultimately decided against them for a few reasons. First, I bought some, tested them, left them on for a while and felt that they were just putting off too much heat. Second, I really wanted them in the front, illuminating from above, and I didn’t just want to string them across the entire front. I like to put new records, favorite records or records I want to remember to listen to in front of the others for display. That and album artwork is fucking awesome. I quickly decided I wanted something to come from the back of the cabinet inside each cubby to just light up that top lip. I looked a bit, but wasn’t really finding exactly what I was looking for, so I figured out that I would probably be doing it on my own.
It was about this time that I decided that if I was going to put time into this, I may as well go for smart lights (Alexa already controls most everything in my house) and I may as well do color (that also reacts to the music, does strobes...). Because, well, it kind of matches the inherent extravagance of records collection itself.
I ended up going with these lights. .
Issues / Creating
Honestly, there’s a shit ton of variations for these lights, but they’re all probably made in the same shop, so I recommend buying one and testing it out. One thing I’ve learned after spending a decent amount of time with smart home stuff is that sometimes people in reviews have no idea what they’re talking about. “Didn’t work at all” or couldn’t get it to connect usually means “I know nothing about WiFi and therefore didn’t know that most of this stuff won’t run on a 5ghz channel, and my network isn’t set up so it will connect to 2.4. That is all to say that I noticed a number of bad reviews, bought them anyway (knowing Amazons return policy) and had absolutely no problem.
So, my plan was to use the junctions, clips and wires to build harnesses that would run all the power on the back of the kallax, with a wired clip running to the location that I wanted each light, and the remaining lights on the sides of of the stereo equipment, and then across the tops illuminating the box sets and legos.
Here’s where pain in the ass #1 comes in. The clips work well with the strips and the junctions, but they don’t connect directly to the wires. This was especially awesome because the wire that I bought fucking came with clips. Oh well. What that means is soldering, and a ridiculous amount of it.
I don’t mind soldering. In fact I find it therapeutic. However, this is 42 strips that each connect to at least one junction, in addition to jumpers between sections so they could all be controlled by two WiFi controllers. Next, the connections are all really small, and there are four of them for every single one. All in all, I believe that it ends up around 400 soldered connections.
So, one strip accepts the power from the controller. At the end of that strip is a clip with wires soldered. At the end of those wires is either a four way junction with wires either going to another strip, or to another junction that powers two more strips. That would do one vertical section of the kallax. One of the strips that is powered from that would have another clip and wire connected to the other end that jumped to another vertical section. Heres a photo showing a section being built and strips being powered at different sections.
To create each individual strip, the roll can be cut at certain points, and the rubber coating can be peeled and cut so it can be inserted into the clips. It’s obvious where to cut because there is a metallic connection with a dotted line through it. Every so often there is on that, rather than the copper connection, it’s a soldered and sealed connection. That can be cut and stripped like the others, but you’ll need to invest in a cheap solder sucker or wick to desolder that point or it won’t fit into the clips. I planned on doing this tutorial when I started to work on the project, and tried to remember to take pictures to illustrate. For some reason, this was the only one I took of a clip being soldered to a wire, and it’s the shittiest job, I’ve ever seen, so I’m going to assume it was done at the end of a session where many connections were created, and many beers were consumed.
Tips
I thought I would try to make this as a DIY thing, but it’s also soldering, which is more of a DIY after you practice sort of thing. That being said, it is something that anyone can do with the right patience, tools and a couple of hints.
Tip #1. Constantly test everything. If you test every connection immediately after making it, you can address your mistakes immediately. If you wait until you do a whole bunch, you end up having no idea what’s causing the problem.
Tip #2. Tin everything. This is the first thing you learn when learning to solder. Basically, this means you apply solder to both thing you want to join before you join them. This is me tinning a junction and some wires before connecting them.
Tip #3. Tape everything that you can. Whenever you solder things you want to make a physical connection (wrap the wire around what you’re soldering to). You can’t really do that here, so the tape helps in making the connections a little stronger. In the case of the junctions, the tape also insulates. The voltage is pretty minimal, but you still need to cover that up.
Installation
The strips have a self adhesive backing. which actually works pretty well. The wires running along the inside I decided to just use electrical tape. This has proven to have some mixed results, especially in the fronts where I was covering the white clips. I may eventually use them more like straps, stapling the ends.
Pain in the ass #2 - the clips pretty much just suck in general. I’ve run into a number of situations where the contacts aren’t holding against the strips tight enough, and they flake out a bit. This causes a bit of tinkering from time to time. Also, the space where the connection is made is pretty small, so a small shift and you lose one (blue being on one end).
This brings me to the big thing I would have done differently. I would have skipped the clips entirely and soldered the wires directly to the strips. I was avoiding doing this because I thought that I could run into situations where a strip would eventually go bad, and this would make it so I could switch it out. I think now that headache would have been minimal compared to the headache of setting them all up.
All in all, I’m pretty happy with it. I don’t use the color functions too often, but I have turned it to the sound reaction setting, and it’s pretty cool. I just need to get the remaining pictures and art on the wall and my basement will be ready to go (until I get around to finishing the bedroom and bathroom stubbed in the unfinished portion).
Thanks for reading if you made it this far. Hope it’s helpful for someone. I’ll be glad to fill in any details that you’re curious about.
Some additional photos can be found HERE. Full specs are below:
Rig on the right:
Rig on the left
Desk
I bought these.
Nexlux LED Strip Lights, WiFi Wireless Smart Phone Controlled 32.8ft Waterproof Light Strip LED Kit 5050 LED Lights,Working with Android and iOS System,Alexa, Google Assistant https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0722VLVRR/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_jz3qDbK9B6786
They are pretty solid. You can cut the strip and buy extra power cords and WiFi modules. They are cheaply made but they get the job done.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0722VLVRR?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_image
They have their own proprietary app. But I'm planning on controlling then with IFTTT. When I turn in my smart switch, it will turn them on.
Not sure where you’re using them but we needed some for a quick show. This worked great. Nexlux LED Strip Lights, WiFi Wireless Smart Phone Controlled 32.8ft Waterproof Light Strip LED Kit 5050 LED Lights,Working with Android and iOS System,Alexa, Google Assistant https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0722VLVRR/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_x8u1DbYMKBYVK
It's hard to just dim the brightness from a switch, though. LED dimming is not something that has a widely adopted standard. Each manufacturer usually has their own system for matching a dimmer with bulbs.
Can you find a smart light strip instead?
https://www.amazon.com/Nexlux-Wireless-Controlled-300leds-Waterproof/dp/B0722VLVRR/ref=sr_1_4?rps=1&ie=UTF8&qid=1504043435&sr=8-4&keywords=smart+light+strip&refinements=p_85%3A1