So I’m looking to add some bias lighting LED strips around my display in my home theater. It is important to me that the white light at 6500K has a very high CRI rating (90+), and control with Home Assistant is a must.
One option would seem to be to go with MediaLight Pro2 strips ( MediaLight Pro2 CRI 99 6500K White Bias Lighting ) and plug it into a smart power socket that allows HA to turn them on and off.
But part of me thinks it would also be very cool for the ambiance of the room if the strips also supported addressable RGB. High CRI would be less important for RGB color ambiance, but still important when providing white bias lighting. The only candidate strip I’ve found that might fit the requirements is the ColorBright RGB+Dynamic Tunable White Strip from Flexfire LEDs ( RGB + Tunable White LED Strip Light | 5-in-1 Dynamic LED Strip (flexfireleds.com) ) however the “smart” controller for this strip, “Leona Pro Controller” does not appear to have a Home Assistant integration. That said, looking at the data sheet ( Leona_Smart Home Controller_Spec Sheet (flexfireleds.com) ) the device does have a “Tuya” logo printed on it, so maybe it would be possible to control with the Local Tuya integration?
Does anyone know if (a) this controller could be wrestled into working with HA via Local Tuya (or other Tuya integration), or (b) if there is another WRGB LED strip with very high white LED CRI that can be fully controlled by Home Assistant?
I’ve had mixed results with “Local Tuya” so I’ve banished it from my network. Now with Tuya devices my go-to is to check the tasmota compatibility list to re-flash, but I don’t see the Leona module. However note the similarities to this controller with the same inputs and outputs, but it unfortunately has an incompatible WB3S WiFi module inside, which you’d have to replace with an ESP32-C3 to match the example template, requiring some intermediate-level soldering.
Looking for 6-channel (RGBCCT) LED controllers that work out of the box with HA, people seem to prefer using WLED, which you can get pre-flashed from Athom if you want to avoid soldering. Just keep an eye on the max wattage of your controller, and keep it at least 20% over the connected strip’s total (length times watts-per-foot).
Lighting-wise, I’m sure the flexfire product is nice but seems a little pricey when a similar strip with 90 CRI can be purchased from Amazon for under $60. I’ve also purchased BTF-Lighting and PAUTIX (white) strips, since I was using them in an art gallery and in my kitchen I needed a CRI >90 as well, so their products might be worth a look on amazon or aliexpress.
Not strictly true. There’s been a way to flash these Beken chips for over a year.
I don’t personally use this software since I’ve been off wifi for a while, but it seems to be very similar to Tasmota.
This ^^. BTF are considered to be one of the best when it comes to the authority on addressable LEDs. Personally, I’ve only bought a single strip from them so far and am extremely happy with the results.
I’m using BTF WS2814 with WLED, the CRI is ok, with WLEDs color correction I can get it to match my 92CRI single color white strip fairly well. However, at least for me even driving it at max brightness is barely acceptable for primary lighting, my 900 lumen/ft strip run at ~35% PWM is at least as bright as the 2814 running at 100%. Personally I’d recommend a 92-95 CRI single color white strip for primary lighting and have the ARGBW strip for fill lighting and effects.
Thank you very much for the suggestions. I’ve got some more homework to do to find the right solution for my project, but this has helped a great deal.
I’ll share back when I have a solution implemented, or if I get stuck again.
