Govee Neon Rope Light 2 Review: Stunning Light Display, Limited Only by Your Imagination

While there are many generic "neon rope light" options out there, the Govee Neon Rope Light 2 is the only one that's Matter-compatible, with a host of brilliant software features.

The Govee Neon Rope Light 2 is currently available in 3m (9.8ft) or 5m (16.4ft) lengths, with an RRP of $70 and $100, respectively, but frequently on sale. It is also available in black or white to suit your decor, and offers a number of upgrades over the original Neon Rope Light, which I was already a big fan of.

Before we jump into setup, let's talk about what’s changed from the original Neon Rope Light.

What's upgraded from the original Neon Rope Light?

The Neon Rope Light 2 is Matter compatible, which means that in addition to the standard Bluetooth and Wi-Fi control through the Govee app, you’ll now effortlessly be able to add this to your HomeKit, Google Home, or Amazon Alexa (or all of the above).

If you don’t know what Matter is, you're in the right place: what does Matter give you that you don't already have?

The silicone sheath around the LEDs is now more flexible, too, meaning you can get more creative with your designs. Govee also includes a bendable metal clip in the pack, which means you can fix it into more extreme bends. 

Lastly, on the software front, the Govee app now includes shape recognition, which uses the phone on your camera to learn what the shape of your rope light is on the wall.

This enables the animations and gradients within scene effects to make sense in the context of your design, rather than simply following the line. 

Installation, and what's in the box?

Included in the box is the rope light itself (neatly coiled up) and prewired with a controller at one end—be sure to factor the power cable into your design.

You also have a power adapter, a set of screws should you want to make things permanent, and a generous amount of fixings. These are what you'll use to create the shape of your design, with both bendable metal clips and standard straight plastic clips. These secure to your wall (ideally you'll screw them in, but they also feature some strong adhesive pads), then the Neon Rope Light pushes into them.

The physical installation is not exactly tricky, but coming up with a suitable design and planning it out with consideration to the exact length of the strip can be.

After roughly determining with a tape measure how large the design could be, we ended up using a mini projector to put the exact design on the wall.

Here are a few tips to help you:

• If you're coming up with a completely custom design such as some text, I'd suggest using a vector designer such as Adobe Illustrator to ensure your total path length is the same as your rope, then lay down a grid of 10cm squares and print out or project the design. 
• Straight lines are almost impossible to do. Even with multiple clips, it will sag a little.
• Don't try to be too exact; if your design relies on exact lines it will fail. Think flexible, flowy, free-form curves. 
• If you can't find inspiration from the Govee designs (plug it in first, open the app and add a new device, then you'll be presented with some design ideas); try searching for "one-line art".

Once your design is on the wall and plugged in, get the Govee app if you don't already, log in to your account, and add a new device. You should see it listed automatically as you click the plus button.

Matter + Govee Neon Rope Light 2

Adding your Neon Rope Light 2 to the Matter network is a little awkward, sadly. Typically, you'd scan a QR pairing code on the back of the controller or manual. However, you'll find neither here. Instead, after adding the device to the Govee app, you'll need to navigate to the device settings and tap on Matter. Then, you'll be shown the QR code on screen, as well as a number you can use instead—though annoyingly, it can't be copied. 

If you have two smartphones, then you can go ahead and scan the QR code on this page. But that's an edge case. Instead, you may want to screenshot and then print this page, or in my case, I used the iPhone text recognition feature to copy the code. 

There's another complication to bear in mind: you'll need to do the Matter pairing within 15 minutes of powering on the lights. If you've spent some time playing with the scenes on the app, as I did, that's easily elapsed. Don't worry: just turn it off and on again at the plug (not the power button on the controller). Then go through the pairing again, and it should work first time.

The Govee Neon Rope Lights 2 don't run on Thread, so you don't need a Thread border router; as long as you have Wi-fi, it should be fine. That said, my experience with Thread devices so far has been a lot simpler than this, and it really would have been nice to have a printed copy of the pairing code in the box.

One thing to remember about Matter support is that the controls are limited by what the Matter specification offers—which is only a small subset of what the Neon Rope Lights 2 is capable of. For colored lighting, that means brightness (and by extension, on/off at 0 and 100%), and a single solid color. You must use the Govee app to get multicolor or dynamic and music scenes. 

How does the Govee Neon Rope Light 2 look?

Absolutely stunning. The diffusion of the soft silicone is gorgeous, and you shouldn't see any hotspots where the individual LEDs are (though you will see each segment).

In the 5m/16.4ft model, that's 420 RGBIC LEDs in total, and though I don't have any exact figures for the light output, I believe it’s around 170 lumens per meter. Regardless, it's plenty bright enough on full to light up a small room; it will spread a lot of light around.

But don't buy this as an ambient room light; it is, first and foremost, an art or logo fixture on your wall.

If you use the Govee app, you get a huge selection of 64 ready-made dynamic scene modes, including some music-reactive ones that use the microphone on the controller to match the beat.

While those scenes certainly have their uses, the ability to quickly switch it on and off or change colour via Matter/Apple HomeKit is by far my favorite feature. I hate having to open the Govee app just to turn a light off at night. With Matter support, it can be automated. 

It's an Ambilight, too

One other feature worth mentioning for gamers or TV Ambilight fans is that the Neon Rope Light 2 can be integrated into any of the Govee Dreamview systems.

The most impressive Dreamview system is the ambient game lighting. There are a few ways to do this, but the easiest for PC users is to download the free Govee desktop app. After setting each segment of the rope light to correspond to an area of screen, anything your desktop displays will be reflected on the lights. And you're not limited to the Neon Rope Lights 2, either—you can add a number of Govee fixtures around your room. 

Note: don't forget to enable LAN Control for any Govee lights you want to use with the desktop app. You'll find this on the device settings page from the Govee app, just above Matter.

For a more generic TV Ambilight solution, you can combine the Neon Rope Light 2 with the Govee AI Gaming Sync Box or TV Backlight 3 Lite (neither of these are Matter-compatible however). 

Should You Buy the Govee Neon Rope Light 2?

I can highly recommend the Govee Neon Rope Light 2. Although the RRP is $70 and $100, at the time of writing, it's actually on sale for $50 and $70, and there are frequent sales throughout the year. Still, even without the discount, I think they’re well worth it.

There's one downside, though. Unlike a lot of smart wall lights where you have a limited choice of patterns that you can make with straight lines or perhaps hexagonal panels, I found the biggest problem with the Neon Rope Light 2 is that you need to create a compelling design from a single bendy line—which is much harder than it sounds. But thanks to the flexible silicone and bendy metal clips, that's now easier than ever, and you won’t be limited by the hardware anymore... just your own imagination.