Govee Glide Hexa Pro
MSRP $250.00
“Govee’s already-rich choice of animations are expanded with PC sync and a fun triple-cell layout within the Glide Hexa Pro light panels. Rough transitions, color accuracy, and aggressive brightness are small but noticeable complaints.”
Pros
- Easy set-up
- Robust animation options
- Great style
Cons
- Janky PC sync
- Iffy color accuracy
Govee continues its frontal assault on noted wall light panel behemoth Nanoleaf with its recent Glide Hexa Pro panels. On the surface, these might look an awful lot like Govee’s previous hexagonal light tiles just with just a few more LED strips inside to make them look cubey, but there are just a few other features that set them apart.
Set-up
The set-up process for the Govee Glide Hexa Pro may be very much like its predecessor. The app runs you thru layout planning as a starter. It’s really necessary to take your time with the measurements in case you don’t wish to be stuck repositioning and potentially running out of adhesives. My final positioning for this set ended up off-center because I forgot to take into consideration how a top row of tiles sinks into the underside. Though you’ll be able to place them nonetheless you want, flipping the tiles so that they’re upside-down cubes doesn’t look great. It’s much easier to take care of the illusion if the separator is in the usual “Y” orientation.
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Once the plan is ready, you’ll plug your power cable into the dedicated slot on the back of the tile, then the app will suggest which slot to place the extension cable based on where your next tile shall be. Then it’s only a matter of peeling off the adhesive, pressing the tile in your wall, and repeating for the remainder of your tiles. The good thing about this technique is that the adhesives are literally on a separate mounting plate, from which you’ll be able to remove the LED tile. This makes it easier to remove the adhesive later without having conspicuous pull-tabs jutting out out of your light. (I’m you, Nanoleaf Canvas tiles.) The mounting plate also gives the tiles a little bit of elevation for light to shine underneath. The one big thing I used to be missing within the setup versus the unique Glide Hexa was a physical alignment piece, which helps ensure recent tiles are properly snug and aligned with the others during placement. I assume it is because the highest layer of the tiles on the Glide Hexa Pro are barely domed to further accent the “cube” look, making a squared-off guide impractical. Luckily they still include a level.
I’d have also liked to see interoperability between the 2 models considering their similar connection mechanism. With the ability to take an existing Hexa array and extend it with a batch of Hexa Pro tiles in a while the identical power supply, connectors, and software management would have been very nice. This type of modularity stays a giant selling point for Nanoleaf. To accommodate the additional LEDs, the ability supply on the Glide Hexa Pro is beefy. This makes it a bit tougher to cover whenever you’re aiming for a seamless look. That said, the cable keeps the in-line microphone for live music sync and a hardware power switch, which stays handy for when the Wi-Fi is moody. I still feel sketchy about smart lights having internet-connected microphones peppered through the home, but odds are in case you’ve got smart speakers around anyway, you’ve already written off your privacy.
Features
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The Govee mobile app continues to impress. The aforementioned music sync affords a lot of entertaining effects, providing enough time to fiddle. This mechanism works higher than software-based music sync features, like Hue’s Spotify integration. The app can offer helpful color pairing suggestions, though it goes overboard with an enormous page dedicated to preset color palettes from stock images of varied foodstuffs, and assigning moods to certain colours. Orange means “concern,” apparently. Preset animations have equally awkward subheadings like “Life” and “Emotion,” but the outcomes still look great. With the ability to make your individual with a big selection of animation types, directions, speeds, and origin points gives us nerds a complete lot to chew on. The Glide Hexa Pro adds just a few recent animation types that produce cool rotations inside each of the three cells inside a tile. Google Assistant and Alexa tie-ins work just effective, though we’re still holding our breath for Apple HomeKit support. Jamming a web based store and social network into the app stays overbearing. Banners on the front page routinely advertise stilted community events which don’t have anything to do with me turning on my bathroom lights.
Recent on the feature list is PC sync. Since our last review, Govee has introduced its own PC app that plugs into Razer Chroma. Which means like a spread of Razer gaming hardware and other lighting partners, select Govee lights can reproduce what’s showing up on the screen. Chroma also has partnerships with game developers for customized lighting experiences. So in case you’re playing Apex Legends, for instance, your Chroma-enabled lights will blink red whenever you’re under fire, or have a cool light blue cycling animation at character select. Chroma is mostly assuming you’re coping with tiny lights which can be built into your mouse, keyboard, or desktop PC tower, but when it’s being applied to larger lights like wall tiles which can be inside your view, it might probably be just a little distracting from the primary event. That is exacerbated by Govee’s default brightness levels tending to be on the high side. For that reason, I prefer the ambient lighting option in Chroma. I’ve been using ambient lighting with my PC for a while, at first with an old Kickstarter called Lightpack, then expanded once Philips Hue added support.
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With the ability to add Govee to the combo was nice since I had arrange the previous Glide Hexa panels nearby. It meant running one other two apps within the background, however it’s possible to fold Hue and Nanoleaf into Chroma management if all of it becomes too cumbersome. When it comes to PC sync quality, I’ve found Govee’s to be responsive, but jittery. On the subject of screen mirroring, you don’t want secondary lights reproducing exactly what’s on screen 1:1. Your display pixels are changing rapidly, and in case your entire room’s lights are changing colours and brightness at the identical frequency, you’ll be on a first-class trip to Seizureville. Chroma does have a slider to extend the “fuzziness” of this reproduction, but I discovered even at its top end, the lights were repeatedly flickering attempting to work out what to breed. In one among my tests, I had bumped into a clumsy spot where vibrant blues and yellows on-screen were averaged to a green on the Govee lights. Inside Chroma, a series of Govee lights are positioned as a single entity, but I’d like to see that get a bit more granular in order that each tile might be managed individually. My Glide Hexa lights are arrange in a horizontal strip beside the TV. If I could set a delay in order that the tile nearest to the TV reacts first, then the following one, then the following, the lights would have an actual nice outward emanation. If the tiles were in a vertical line next to the display, you would set separate mirroring zones in order that the highest of the strip would take colours from the highest corner of the display, and the underside of the strip from the underside of the display. Because it stands, the entire connected tiles simply reproduce the identical color at the identical time.
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With Chroma dictating a lot of this experience, it’s hard to place these shortcomings entirely in Govee’s lap. While having its own desktop app is an incredible first step, it will be ideal if Govee could bake ambient PC lighting in so Chroma doesn’t must be involved. Govee’s mobile app is strong and on the verge of overwhelming, and I’d like to see the identical effort put into their recent desktop counterpart if it meant smoother, native ambient PC lighting. Currently, Nanoleaf and Hue each do PC sync higher.
When it comes to overall color quality, Govee tends to go just a little too far with its saturation. When I take advantage of Google Assistant to set a room’s lights to “candlelight” for instance, the Philips Hue bulbs will produce a light-weight, dim yellow. Meanwhile, the Govee tiles will go for a deep orange. As mentioned, the utmost brightness is sort of high, so even whenever you tell the Govee Glide Hexa Pro to go to 50% through a voice assistant, it would still be hella vibrant. This is simply really an issue in case you’re among the many industriously dorky juggling multiple smart light brands in the identical space. Those which can be all-in with Govee can adjust their sensibilities accordingly.
Our take
The Glide Hexa Pro lights are a pleasant option for fleshing out Govee’s lineup of wall tiles. Though lacking the modularity and choice of Nanoleaf, and the graceful software experience of Philips Hue, the sheer volume of animation options available with Govee is staggering. The Glide Hexa Pro tacks on just a few more animation features that accentuate their cube-like appearance, and a recent partnership with Razer adds much-needed ambient PC lighting. Maintaining hardware-based music sync where other players have eschewed it cements Govee’s spot amongst the very best within the industry. Small niggles like oversaturation, high brightness, and a bulky power supply do little to detract from the sheer novelty of the Govee Glide Hexa Pro light panels.
Is there a greater option?
The added 3D texture of the Glide Hexa Pro over the unique is good, but I wager for most individuals it’s not well worth the extra $50. The usual Glide Hexa light panels afford the entire same features with roughly the equivalent experience.
How long will they last?
LED light bulbs have very long lifespans, and use little or no power. You possibly can expect a few years out of those lights. Odds are the software will stop working before the bulbs themselves do, but luckily hardware controls will keep them useful. Govee offers a one-year warranty on the Glide Hexa Pro.
Do you have to buy it?
The Govee Glide Hexa Pro light tiles are a protected buy. They’re fun, easy to put in, and look great. It’s just a little harder to justify them as practical lights in comparison with smart light bulbs, but when you’ve gotten the budget for something only for the pure cool factor, these are great.
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