Best HomeKit light strips for the Home app in 2023
Hey Siri, turn on the mood lighting! You can do this and more with the best HomeKit light strips for the Home app.
If you're looking to add a little extra color and light to your home, then some of the best HomeKit smart lights could be just up your street. Just like the best HomeKit smart lightbulbs, they connect to the Apple Home app and let you control the lights with your voice or a tap on your iPhone or iPad. You can even automate them so that they behave differently depending on what else happens in your home – maybe you can sync them up with the best HomeKit smart blinds to add extra privacy and ambience. We've selected some of our favorites, and put them in the grid below.
Let there be light the best HomeKit light strips
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Thread and more
Nanoleaf's Essentials Lightstrip is the brightest HomeKit light strip around, with the ability to output a whopping 2,200 lumens of colorful light. Nanoleaf's Essentials Lightstrip also includes the latest HomeKit features — like Adaptive Lighting — and Thread networking. With Thread, we experienced blazing-fast response times and excellent range when we combined it with a HomePod mini in our recent review.
Customizable colors
The LIFX Color Zones Lightstrip features Polychrome technology, allowing it to display multiple colors across eight distinct color zones. LIFX's strip provides up to 700 lumens of brightness for the base 40-inch strip and can reach up to 2,100 lumens with the 120-inch kit. This strip works with HomeKit, Alexa, and Google Assistant right out of the box, too, so you can use it alongside all of your smart home devices.
Year round color
The Philips Hue Smart Outdoor Lightstrip Plus stands out for its accurate color reproduction and ability to display up to 16 million different shades. The ability to display this many colors works in tandem with Hue scenes, allowing the strip to function as a wake-up, entertainment, or party light with just a tap. Plus, due to its weather resistance rating, you can leave it up all year round outdoors.
Bright beauty
The Eve Light Strip boasts an insanely bright 1800 lumens of peak brightness and millions of colors. This 6.6-foot light strip connects directly to your iOS device and HomeKit via Wi-Fi, offering a secure and private connection without relying on a cloud server. In our hands-on review, we loved the Eve Light Strip's ability to produce better greens and blues than most light strips and how it works with HomeKit Adaptive Lighting.
Great lengths
As noted in our review, we appreciated how the Meross Smart Wi-Fi LED Light Strip blankets up to 32.8 feet in colorful goodness, thanks to the inclusion of two 16-foot sections in the box. As the name suggests, this incredibly affordable light strip connects with HomeKit over Wi-Fi without a hub, and once up and running, you can change colors via Siri, the Home app, or the Meross app.
Dynamic lighting
Like the LIFX Color Zones Lightstrip, the budget-friendly ONVIS Kameleon LED Light Strip supports the ability to display multiple colors at once. With color zones, you can adjust brightness levels and saturation for numerous areas throughout, and they also enable some pretty cool dynamic scenes and effects through the ONVIS app.
Light it up with the best HomeKit light strips
Just as you get with HomeKit light bulbs, the best HomeKit light strips can brighten your home with rich colors with just a tap or through voice control via Siri. Scenes can give your room the look of a natural sunset, and HomeKit automation can turn them on or off at set times through custom schedules. They also work great as holiday lighting, with suitable options for the outdoors, enabling some discreet installation options that can be left out all year.
We love the Nanoleaf Essentials Lightstrip, which offers cutting-edge Thread technology and incredible brightness in a wallet-friendly package. Thread makes Nanoleaf's strip incredibly responsive if you have a HomePod mini or Apple TV 4K in your home, and with HomeKit Adaptive Lighting, it automatically adjusts color temperature throughout the day.
The LIFX Color Zones Lightstrip's ability to display multiple colors simultaneously makes it another clear winner. The LIFX light strip is easy to set up, connecting to your Wi-Fi network in seconds. The Philips Hue Outdoor LightStrip Plus is another excellent option if you don't mind hubs. The Hue light strip boasts millions of colors and shades of white and works with pre-built scenes in the Hue app.
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Christopher spends most of his time writing and dreaming about all things HomeKit and the Home app. Whether it is installing smart light switches, testing the latest door locks, or automating his households daily routines, Christopher has done it all.
- Bryan M WolfeStaff Writer