Govee recently released the Neon Rope Light 2, an upgrade to the most flexible (literally) light kit in their lineup. Basic LED light strips are limited by design to simply adding ambient RGB lighting to a room. Other lighting kits, like the Govee Glide Hexagon Panels Ultra Kit that we reviewed last year, are a simple way to add some geometric art to your gaming station or living room. With the Govee Neon Rope Light 2, Govee takes the creative process to the next level. Just don’t expect creating an artistic masterpiece to be as easy as slapping a few hexagon panels on your wall.
Specifications
- MSRP: $99.99
- Length: 5m (16.4ft) reviewed / 3m (9.8ft)
- Weight: 687g / 424g
- Wattage: 48W
- Strip Color: White
- LEDs: 420 RGBIC
- Bead Density: 84 LEDs/m
- Control Methods: Govee Home App, Voice
- Smart Lighting Integration: Matter, Alexa, Google Assistant
- Connectivity: 2.4GHz Wi-Fi, Bluetooth
- Warranty: One year
Govee Neon Rope Light 2 – Installation And Use
The Govee app has a wide variety of preset designs to help you get started, and your design options are only limited by your imagination. You also don’t have to be a skilled artist to create a basic design. Without any pre-planning, I was able to create a curvy design that flowed from floor to ceiling and across two walls in about five minutes.
Replicating one of the default designs was more complicated than creating a freehand design. Sixteen and a half feet of rope doesn’t sound like much to work with, but it’s actually enough rope to create large designs. It’s difficult to take a design from a piece of paper or phone screen and scale it up to fit onto a wall, and I found it easier to plan out the design on the floor first. Even then, it was still difficult to manage the sheer amount of rope by myself, and I found a second set of hands a godsend when moving the design from the floor to the wall.
The Rope Light 2 comes with two types of clips to hold the rope in place. Standard plastic clips are perfect for creating large, sweeping curves or straight segments, while metal bend clips are used when sharp angles need to be formed. The rope itself is soft and flexible – 14% more flexible than Govee’s first-generation Rope Light – and extremely tight curves can be formed without creating a kink in the rope. The clips easily slide over the sides of the rope and attach to the wall with pre-applied double-sided tape. The adhesive wasn’t strong enough to pull off chunks of drywall when removing it – this has been an issue with other light kits – and I was able to adjust the clips a couple of times without them losing their adhesive ability, though I’m not sure at what point they would become ineffective.
Once on the wall, the Neon Rope Light 2 looks pretty cool. Unlike a standard lightstrip, where each LED is visible, the Neon Rope Light 2 has a diffuser to spread the light across the rope. The LEDs are grouped into 70 clusters, with 6 beads per cluster, each of which can be controlled individually to create amazing light patterns. The Govee app has a default list of over 60 scenes and 12 music modes, and users can create their own light modes within the DIY mode on the app. Govee has even included an AI Lighting Bot that can help manage light effects by analyzing user input via text, voice, and image recognition.
The Neon Rope Light 2 can be controlled through lighting ecosystems such as Matter, Alexa, and Google Assistant, but I still find Govee’s own Home App to be a simple-to-use option to control all of my Govee light kits. During setup, you will take an image of your design which the AI Lighting Bot will use to adapt the different lighting effects to your unique design. The app also allows you to set up timers to display different lighting effects at specific times throughout the day, dim and brighten your display, and set the speed and direction that the light flows across your entire display.
Final Thoughts
The Govee Neon Rope Light 2 is a nice addition to any room. Its flexibility is its most appealing feature and will let you show off your creative side while illuminating your space. And unlike other light kits that are a standalone feature, the Rope Light 2 can be intertwined with other room features and furniture to create a larger artistic display. There is a limit to the Neon Rope Light 2, though. While other Govee kits allow you to seamlessly extend your design by combining multiple kits together, you can’t link ropes together to create a longer rope or larger design.
