Under cabinet strip lighting

Thinking about converting a hardwired light fixture above the sink to a strip light that I could also possibly run along the whole cabinet area. Wife caught that there are some RGBW offerings and that would now be a plus, if I’m going to do it. I know Hue and Sylvania have some offerings, but wanted to see if anyone had any specific success for under cabinets

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Well, if you are looking for nice and cheap rgbw I suggest to go here

I have the rgbw controller with ir and they work under and on top of the cabinet, WAF is high with this.

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Zigbee Glepodo works with hue RGBW controller with strip lights from Aliexpresa.
10 meter rgb strip plus power plug plus controller @ under $35

For white ones go with Ikea driver and strips

check out erocm123's webpage. There is a method to flash a cheap RGBW wifi controller and it works very well with hubitat. see link below
You do need an FTDI adapter to flash the controller, but it's not hard. And the FTDI($8.00) opens up a whole world of flashing cheap WIFI controllers to work with hubitat and ST
The magic home above needs work, 40% of the controls don't work, at least for me. I'm sure the guy will eventually fix it.

https://smartlife.tech/blog/2016/06/24/smartlife-h801-esp8266-based-rgbw-controller/

But the RGBW controller with IR I said works, I have 2 of them, no need to flash, works directly with google home. Not sure what doesn't work for you because even the color pick works now.

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Ah Thanks, looks like he just updated driver 3hours ago, and I discover I have RGB, not RGBW so maybe that is my problem. Time to go to aliexpress and get some RGBW

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I have tried several of RGBWW from ebay, the lights are good but over time the waterproof plastic cover is turning yellow..
So after I have changed them 1-2 times in the year I was fed up and bought Hue Ledstrip, this is working perfect!

Can also buy the strips who is not waterproof, then the plastic is not there to be yellow.
Put the inside an alloy profile and it also looks good.

This is true, but I got my strips without the plastic to avoid this, anyway they are installed indoors, with the plastic is more for outdoor.

Thanks for all the input. Maybe I need to do more homework, but these seem like some hacky solutions. (Are folks really using WiFi?) Guess I’m looking for something a bit more mainstream like most of the devices I’ve picked up and implemented with my HE setup.

If I may throw my hat in the ring here.

I'm using Wifi with almost perfect reliability in my house---which is great. MagicHome is great for the price, and WAF is high with the app and the remote. Not hacky at all :slight_smile:

Wifi: ($47 + 24v Power Supply) - 5m (This one doesn't use an IR remote, though)
The RGB + WW/CW CCT controller is great. We use 12 of them in our office without issue. It's wonderful---and I'm working pretty heavily on this driver (which unfortunately means I'm not working on my other apps or drivers right now). That, with these strips, has been lighting my bedroom as the primary source. My spouse has never complained, which speaks well for their consistency.

Zigbee: ($60 + 24v Power Supply) - 5m
I ALSO use a Zigbee RGB/CCT controller (compatible with hue) and a bunch of hue products connected directly to my hub (had a bad experience with their customer support recently and I'm transitioning away). If you want something in this range, get something like this with some of these LEDs and a 24V power supply of your choice.

ZWave: ($60-$70 for JUST the controller, you'll need to find RGBW strips.)
If you're looking to use Z-Wave, get a Fibaro RGBW controller --- although, that won't support CCT through Warm/Cold LED channels, only through RGB.

Or, get Hues---if you'd like. There are other options as well, these are just my favorites.

I'll also note --- if WiFi goes down in my house, home automation is usually the last thing I'm concerned about.

I forgot to ask--- are you looking for RGB + CCT? Or perhaps just RGB + W, or simply RGB? I can send you recommendations for all of them (I have a lighting obsession problem haha)

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Wow this is a ton of great info, thanks! I definitely need to take a step back and figure out what kind of leds I’m looking for. The question on RGB CCT, RGBW, RGB, I really don’t know enough about all the differences to really answer this question. I was initially thinking just white light, but my wife caught wind of being able to do colors for holidays and that then became a “requirement”. Any suggestions for someone who is just looking for a simple setup?

Are your overhead lights in that room white-only? I use circadian daylight for pretty much everything, so all of my lights are RGB + CCT.

If CRI/accuracy isn't super important, you could (a lot of times) get away with using RGB-only.

If CRI is important, but you don't need CCT, RGB + W (with the white channel matching your overhead color temperature) is usually good enough. Some controllers will still let you do CCT with this, but it will use the RGB channel. Personally, I've created the magichome driver to let you choose if the white channel should be used for CCT.

If CRI is important for both color AND CCT, the 5-channel LED strips are your best bet. These can get BRIGHT. I actually had to tone down a coworker's overhead lights because they were too much :laughing:

My question for you would be: which of these three categories do you fall into? Also, do you have a preferred protocol? Finally, is a remote control important to you?

Edit: I might write a comprehensive community guide on LED strips and bulbs...

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This past weekend I ripped out the last of my old Lightify light strips form the kitchen and installed the Hue light strip system in place of it. When I remodeled the kitchen 4 years ago I ran 5 conductor low voltage cable to all of the cabinets as Lightify and others all used 5 conductor cable for RGBW lights. Hue uses 6 conductors. Really wasn't in the mood to try to fish wire through walls and ceilings so instead I just purchased 3 Hue kits to have 3 controllers. Probably saved an entire day of pulling cable. A side benefit is there are now 3 zones that can have different colors and dimmer levels.

I am a huge fan of diversification, and that's what sold me on Hue. When I started on Hue about a year and a half ago, it was in the midst of a SmartThings outage that rendered every Osram bulbs useless. That obviously has severe negative WAF implications. To fix, I wanted a separate system that offered full local control, could still be integrated into ST (and eventually Hubitat), and had it's own app for ease of control (and WAF) when SmartThings was not working. Thats how I settled on Hue.

Hubitat has full access to all of my Hue lights and is the primary control point. When building Hubitat scenes, I actually use the Hue app to set the lighting since Hubitat controls are still in their primitive stages. Once I have set everything in the Hue app, I switch back to Hubitat and capture the scene for future use. That combination has served me well.

I do think in terms of light quality, there are probably better options out there. However, in terms of the system as a whole, I am quite satisfied with Hue.

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I don’t have anything like CRI going on in the kitchen or anywhere in the house. Simple soft white LEDs on a single Lutron Caseta dimmer. With a few extra Picos laying around, I thought of controlling the cabinet lighting with a Pico

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What do I need to cleanly re-wire the incoming 120v wires into the dumb-light fixture into the 24v controller? I would prefer to not have to splice into a power supply.

I think I answered my own question, Amazon to the rescue - https://www.amazon.com/SUPPLY-Output-100-240V-Waterproof-Certified/dp/B01LZDR42C/

I just saw your message from a couple days ago. :slight_smile:

That power supply would work. The one you linked to is 12v (I personally prefer 24v strips/power supplies since they don't require as much amperage, and thus run cooler).

Let me price some different setups for you---if that's something you'd be interested in?

Edit: I can't believe it --- MagicHome actually has a branded controller for cabinets! Sadly, they're just RGB.

Will certainly take your recommendations! Something I just thought of, the 120v wires I have are above the sink, which is in the center of the cabinets - meaning, I have to run LED both ways... does this mean some soldering is in my future? Is it avoidable?

Yup. I'll try to work out a solderless design for you :slight_smile:

:bowing_man: thanks, I've been looking at this for hours and am starting to get a headache lol