Kitchen LED Strip Lights

Hardware
1

I’m new to the Home Assistant world and I’ve started to build out the bits I need. One thing I’m struggling with is my kitchen under‑cupboard lights. I need about a three‑metre strip and I don’t care about colour. I’m currently using a lot of Zigbee products so I can link them directly with Home Assistant, but I can’t decide which strip would be best for this.

Has anyone had something similar and have any recommendations?

Thanks,

2

It depends whether you’re running ZHA or Z2M for zigbee, but it’s extremely simple:

  • Buy a decent dumb LED strip + power supply. I like the ones made by BTF lighting, personally.
  • If you’re running ZHA, go here, type +led +controller in the search & pick anything that has the Homeassistant logo. This one is perfect for your use case, but you can use anything if you only intend to turn the lights on/off & set brightness.
  • If you’re running Z2M, click here. Same advice as above applies.
2 Likes
3

Thank you so much for the help. I’m currently set up using ZHA so im looking at going for the FUT036Z controller as you recommended and looking at a stip like this BTF-LIGHTING COB but im not 100% sure

4

That’s a tunable strip, meaning you can change colour temperature (CCT) as well as brightness. The Miboxer I linked earlier can only control a single white channel.

I’d actually recommend going for this sort of CCT strip in a kitchen. I made the mistake of installing RGBW strips in mine and can count on one hand the times I used the colours once the novelty wore off.

Note that you’d have to get a different controller instead of the FUT036Z though.
Search the blakadder site again & look for something which mentions CCT or Dual White. Miboxer have the FUT035Z which would be perfect for you. Otherwise the BTF store has the C02Z controller available. It’s supported by ZHA according to the Blakadder site, and there are a couple of reviews which specifically mention it working with HA.

5

Hm which one would you recommend for zigbee2mqtt when using a single light color strip? The link is pointing to a whole bunch…

6

Pick whichever one you like from that list. Even if you get an RGB controller, you can just use one channel and it’ll work if you only hook up a single colour & positive. The “more info” popup in HA will be confusing because it’ll still show a colour wheel, but you can still dim it.

If you want to be 100% sure, the Miboxer one I linked initially is also supported in Z2M. There is also this one, but make sure the form factor matches when you buy it, because I’ve seen a lot of negative reviews for a larger square version of the same model.

7

Thnx for pointing in the right direction!

8

Amazing, thank you for all your help; it’s been very useful. One more thing, have you ever come across anything like these drivers that can be wired directly into a lighting circuit?

9

You mean for LED strips? They do exist (they’re called drivers), but I wouldn’t recommend mains controllers anyway.

Much safer to get a reputable separate transformer. A) Because you can’t vouch on the quality of any transformer inside a controller, and B) because if you get a massive power issue, a separate transformer will blow before your controller or your entire LED strip does.