I’m a sucker for good lighting. From LIFX’s color-changing light bulbs to putting in swoon-worthy LED backlights in each my lounge and residential workplace, I’ve discovered firsthand the ability of nice lighting to degree up your own home decor. Weirdly sufficient, it’s one of many solely methods I’ve stepped into the world of good dwelling gadgets — I’m not an enormous fan of many home assistants or randomly WiFi-enabled devices — however smart lighting bought me early. It’s handy, vibe-worthy, and one of many best methods to improve a room, which is why I jumped on the probability to strive Govee Envisual TV Backlight T2 for myself.
What’s the Govee TV Backlight T2?
There are many backlight choices obtainable in the marketplace right this moment. From LED gentle bars to color-changing LED lightstrips, most of them contain utilizing a companion app in your telephone to alter the colour of the sunshine to fit your temper. Govee’s Envisual TV Backlight T2 takes this up a notch, and it combines easy-to-install LED lightstrips with a easy, dual-camera system to offer synchronized coloration lighting that immediately ranges up your own home theater expertise. Govee makes use of high-density RGBIC know-how — with 60 LEDs per meter — which means you get smoother, extra exact coloration that integrates with its upgraded Envisual color-matching know-how.
Whereas all of that sounds difficult, the way in which it really works is fairly easy. After adhering the LED lightstrips to the again of your tv, you merely place the weighted digital camera on the highest of your TV the place it will possibly “see” your display and voila — the product syncs your tv display with the backlighting to offer a really immersive lighting expertise.
The Govee digital camera sits on prime of the TV to “see” what’s onscreen.
Credit score: RJ Andersen / Mashable
The LED strips are fairly simple to put in, and are tremendous vibrant.
Credit score: RJ Andersen / Mashable
Set up was simple, however the calibration course of took a couple of tries
I used to be fearful that the set up course of for the T2 could be painful, however I used to be shocked by how simple it was. After eradicating our TV from the wall mount, we cleaned off the again of the tv — fortunately Govee included alcohol wipes to make this simpler — then laid out the 4 conjoined LED strips alongside the again edges.
As soon as we knew the place every thing match, together with the small management field, it was only a matter of peeling off the adhesive and securing the sunshine strips with the extra clips. From there, we related the sunshine strips and the digital camera to the management field, plugged the management field into our energy strip, and moved onto calibration.
After downloading the Govee companion app and connecting the T2 to my WiFi community, the calibration course of — making certain the digital camera can see your display accurately and translate the colours to the backlights — was a little bit clunky. First, you connect seven orange foam squares to all 4 corners of your tv display, in addition to the middle of every aspect, then you definately observe the in-app directions to start the method. The app reveals you a view of your tv display, and also you drag the blue dots to match with the orange squares.
All of it sounds fairly easy, however it took a number of rounds of calibration to get every thing to work accurately. First, the glare on our TV display from the lights in our bed room interfered with the method, however after we turned them off it was tough to see the orange squares throughout calibration. We lastly received to some extent the place every thing felt “adequate,” and it was time to place the lights to the take a look at.
The Govee app is a little bit overwhelming
As soon as your lights are arrange and calibrated, you may have a ton of choices to be used. There are 4 most important modes obtainable — music, video, coloration, and scene — in addition to a DIY possibility for customers who need to create their very own lighting results throughout the app. We began with video mode, which modifications the backlight colours to match any video/picture on the display. After fidgeting with the saturation and brightness, we popped on a colourful animated YouTube video and have been instantly shocked by the outcomes.
These lights are vibrant, and the colour sync is past spectacular. If in case you have every thing calibrated accurately, the backlighting adjusts to match all sides of the display, and you may modify the brightness for a delicate or daring impact, relying in your choice. The lights themselves have been a bit glitchy after we used the “sport” possibility in video mode, however switching it over to “all” smoothed every thing out and offered a way more pleasurable expertise.
The extra modes weren’t as helpful to me, aside from the scene mode — which lets you select a pre-designed lighting/animation sequence in your lights — and I discovered myself switching between video mode and my favourite scene (I’m a fan of the one referred to as “night time”) continuously. I attempted spending extra time on the app — like utilizing the “Concord Lab” which {couples} lighting results with soothing, atmospheric feels like rainstorms, cicadas chirping, or a campfire — however the sounds all come by means of my telephone, not my TV, so it felt like an pointless characteristic that might require utilizing a Bluetooth speaker or headphones to be actually immersive. All in all, there have been simply too many choices to select from, so I caught with what labored for me.
Sync-to-screen is cool, however the novelty wears off
Right here’s the factor: The primary time you see these backlights sync to video, the wow issue is unreal. I instantly texted my household movies of the backlights syncing to a colourful YouTube video, and even my hard-to-impress mother was “ooh-ing” at how easy the sync was. It was colourful and immersive, and it surprisingly amplified our viewing expertise as soon as we flipped on our favourite Netflix present.
The draw back? I saved forgetting to make use of it. After the primary few days, it was arduous to recollect to show the lights on — not to mention swap from my favourite scene again to video mode — so I discovered myself leaving it on scene mode as a rule.
It was nonetheless an ideal expertise, however the novelty wore off fairly rapidly. We nonetheless use the sync-to-screen characteristic every now and then, often after we’re having a devoted film night time, however it didn’t stick to me as a lot as I assumed it will.
Is it price it?
For those who’re an avid fan of good lighting — or obsessive about cultivating the last word dwelling film expertise — then sure, the Govee Envisual TV Backlight T2 is completely price it. The set up course of is straightforward sufficient, the lighting high quality is improbable, and it actually provides some additional “oomph” to your tv setup.
For the typical person? You may need to stick to Govee’s different backlight choices — like its Good LED Mild Bars, that are extra reasonably priced and nonetheless provide a colourful, customizable lighting expertise. You received’t have the flexibility to sync-to-screen, however it’s probably not a characteristic I might see most individuals utilizing frequently.
I’m undoubtedly a convert to colourful TV backlights — and Govee’s product high quality was spectacular — however I simply don’t assume I would like the entire additional bells and whistles.
