r/Govee

For as long as I’ve known of their existence, Govee has been a staple in my house. Not just because I love their products or that their customer service is top notch, but their rewards program was so good and actually “rewarded” their customers for regularly visiting and buying through their website vs online retailers. The discounts were significant enough to make you feel like you were getting a deal. You were rewarded not just for buying the products but also installing them on your account and sharing with the community.

Then I got an email this morning… it was from Govee about their “new and improved” rewards program. For people who aren’t aware how businesses work, whenever they overhaul their rewards programs, it’s NEVER for the consumers benefit. Seems as though the only overhaul now is spending more money to get less rewards. The only discount you get now is after you’ve spent a significant amount of money (and you better use those rewards points within a year now or they’re gone!). I also lost every bit of rewards I had before the overhaul, which I regularly used to get a pretty good discount on their products. Just wiped away with no recourse for recovery.

Shame on those in charge. Brand loyalty is only fostered through good products, good will, and good service. But in the name of making more money, they decided to spit in the face of those of us who stayed loyal. Just another company continuing the capitalist cycle to the top. Im sure the IPO will be coming any day now.

So I have 2 sets of the 4 outdoor spotlights model H7094 - both have now died in under a year. I am submitting warranty claims for replacements. But these things were not cheap. If the next set die in a year again I would not replace them as I assume Govee would only warranty them once.

Are these things just destined to die? Kind of let down right now. Am I doing something wrong, is there a way to better protect these things I'm not doing?

The adapters and controllers have both died - the actual spots are fine. I tested with a working set of spot lights adapter so I know its the controllers/adapter that must have shorted.

They are outside, in covered outdoor boxes for as much protection as possible, but these things are supposed to be waterproof and the adapter and controllers are not on the floor to be submerged in water, they may get some small amount of rain water that seeps in but as I mentioned they are covered even tho they are supposed to be waterproof.

How am I supposed to keep these things working properly outdoors?

Is it even possible to buy replacement controllers and adapters? I don't see them for sale anywhere, only some on ebay - I would assume the spots are the expensive part and the controller pretty cheap so shocked there is not an after market for this.

I’m planning to replace most of my home lighting and I’d really appreciate advice from people with long-term experience using Matter smart bulbs.

Current setup:

• Home Assistant
• MikroTik network (currently Wi-Fi 6, planning to move to a MikroTik hAP be3 with Thread Border Router support)
• Mostly Tapo devices right now (smart power strips/plugs)
• Apartment setup, starting with living room, dining room and hallways first
• Gamer/tech enthusiast, but I care more about reliability and good lighting quality than RGB gimmicks

I’m intentionally excluding Philips Hue because the cost becomes very hard to justify where I live.

Right now I’m mainly comparing:

• Tapo L535E
• Linkind Matter RGBTW bulbs (especially the 1600lm A21)
• Nanoleaf Matter bulbs
• Govee Matter bulbs

Things I care about:

• Good white light quality (important!)
• Consistent color temperature between bulbs
• Efficiency/power consumption
• Low flicker/fatigue
• Matter reliability
• Home Assistant integration
• Long-term ecosystem stability
• Good brightness for common areas
• Preferably local-first behavior

I discovered my current bulbs are generic ones 1055lm 6500K 12W, so the Tapo L535E would basically match my current brightness while using less power.

However, the Linkind 1600lm RGBTW bulbs look VERY tempting because of:

• CRI90
• 1600 lumens
• 1800-6500K
• RGBTW architecture

At the same time, I keep seeing mixed opinions about long-term software/ecosystem maturity compared to TP-Link/Tapo.

One thing I’m struggling with:
Should I keep using Matter over Wi-Fi for bulbs since my network is already good, or should I start investing into Thread/Zigbee for lighting before I scale further?

Some people say Wi-Fi Matter is perfectly fine unless you have huge deployments, while others regret putting dozens/hundreds of Wi-Fi devices on their routers.

Also:
Is mixing bulb brands in connected spaces (living room + dining room + hallways) visually annoying in real life? I’m worried different whites/tints/dimming curves will look inconsistent.

Would love to hear real-world experiences from people running these bulbs long term, especially with Home Assistant.

One thing I’m also trying to understand better:

Linkind explicitly advertises true RGBTW architecture, while Tapo mostly markets the L535E as RGBW + tunable white.

Does anyone know if the Tapo bulbs actually use dedicated warm + cool white channels internally, or are they partially mixing white through RGB?

In real-world usage, does this actually affect:

• white light quality
• color consistency
• CRI perception
• dimming smoothness
• overall comfort

…or is it mostly marketing/spec-sheet differences?

I've read reviews of the outdoor string lights that are supposed to be waterproof, yet there are numerous complaints that water still gets into the bulbs. I'm curious if anybody has any recommendations to do extra waterproofing so they might last a bit longer?
As an example, I purchased an outdoor uv light for night vision cameras. The user base recommended adding a silicon bead around any seal since the uv lighting fixture tended to have water leaks.

I'd welcome any suggestions since these lights are not cheap and it's not feasible to be replacing/repurchasing every 6 months because the lights don't seem to have long-term waterproof capability.
Constructive comments/suggestions are appreciated.

Update 1: forgot to mention I'm looking at the Govee S14 h702c lights: 144', 45 bulbs. I'm leaning toward only using one strand at a time - it comes with 3 strands. We have a 20x10 carport, so the 48' strands will work nicely.

I have the Govee Lantern Floor Lamp (H1630) and while I have the lamp synced to the app and running fine, for the life of me I can't find the DaySync setting anywhere. Am I blind or something? I really could use some assistance.

TLDR: upset neighbor, what's common courtesy for lights.

Curfew, brightness, modes, or settings.

I currently just have the LED's on my neighbor's side off and now I'm stuck with plain white lights and I just turn them off at night. Although I wanted all night lights.

I've always been a huge fan of these lights. Growing up every year around Christmas I always thought to myself. " Why don't we leave the lights up year round? " The world always seemed more beautiful with color.

Anyway I finally got my own permanent house lights up yesterday. It felt like a dream coming true. Within one day I had a next door neighbor complain about my lights on her side. Now I am fearing that I might be offending other neighbors.

My house is lit up well and so is my walkway now. I just wonder: what's the common courtesy? Are these lights offensive to people across the street? Should I have them on a timer ? Are they only bright to me because I'm in them?

I wanted to have these all night so I could see out of my window well. I'm also in a bright neighborhood with street lights and a main road. My house is just dark. I turned off all the LED's on the neighbors side. I don't see me turning them back on her side because of confrontation. I just wonder, what's the common courtesy you have learned as long time owners. Thanks in advance.

With lights outside and inside is there any type of touch screen wall mounted unit that can be used to have the app basically permanently on it so I can walk up to it, touch the grouping button, hit the lights outside and change all their colors from there instead of having to use my phone? Similar to just mounting a tablet to a wall and being able to quickly select the room and colors that way anyone that's over can have access to it, but having the app open 24/7, screen not always on though until something touches it. Any products out there? Even possible?

Trying to figure out my best options + make sure they all work in sync with each other smoothly.

I had a govee glide wall light, I used it for maybe 6 months and then had it unplugged for a year and a half. Went to plug in, and the power adapter on the bottom is receiving no power.

There is a plug that goes into the wall, as well as the actual bottom part that seems to be the wireless receiver -- this has what appears to be a light, but it does not come on.

However, the light itself is picked up over bluetooth as if it is on, but it doesn't respond to me changing the light.

I am unsure what is broken, and with it being out of warranty, Govee is just telling me to seek professional help.

Anyone familiar with this issue that might know what is wrong?

My HOA is asking for me to “supply a complete color brochure for the lighting”. I have no idea what they’re talking about. Any suggestions?