GE’s Cync Full Color Dynamic Effects Smart Light Strip is a mouthful to say, but its name is perhaps the most impressive part of this 16-million-color, diffused string of LEDs. A big, diffused strip of LEDs whose length you can easily modify is held back by a ho-hum controller application — so much so, I’m not sure it makes a lot of sense to buy GE’s lights when you can get other, just as lovely looking solutions for mood lighting that cost half as much (or less).
GE Cync Full Color Dynamic Effects Smart Light Strip
GE’s Cync Full Color Dynamic Effects Smart Light Strip is incredibly bright; no question there. And the color effects you’re able to summon via its accompanying Cync app are fun to play around with, but the entire package costs way too much for the basic functionality you get. You’ll be able to get a good-looking simple glow for your cabinets (or parties). However, the “special effects” you can preselect (or customize yourself) feel pretty limited for how much you’re paying for this light strip. And while its hard plastic exterior does a great job diffusing the light (so you don’t go blind), it does make it more difficult to bend this light strip at angles. You’ll probably want to cut it and reattach it, which you can do, but only so much.
Price and availability
GE’s expensive Cync Smart Light strip is normally available in two different configurations (indoor and outdoor) and two different sizes (16 or 32 feet). However, the indoor version of the LED strips is oddly limited to just 16 feet. The 16-foot indoor version we reviewed regularly retails for $90, whereas the 16-foot outdoor version will set you back a whopping $180, or nearly the cost of a brand-new smart lighting kit from Phillips' Hue line — admittedly bulbs, not a string of LEDs, but still.
GE sells various light strips, so make sure you’ve selected the right “full color” version that’s a “smart light strip” when shopping around, or you may purchase the wrong product accidentally. Both indoor and outdoor lights support eight-foot extensions, typically ranging from $45 for the indoor version to $80 for the outdoor version.
Design, hardware, what’s in the box
The 16-foot Cync Smart Light strip has a simple but effective design. Within the box, you’ll find the string of LED lights curled up in a circle, waiting for you to unravel them and get to work. I didn’t count every LED on the 16-foot strip, but you get clusters of white, amber, and RGB LED running along the entire strip. The first two get used whenever you want a daylight look or pre-generated color temperatures ranging from Cool White to Sunset. The final LED is used for any RGB colors or lighting strip effects.
One of the things I liked most about the Cync Smart Light strip’s design is the diffusing plastic that covers the entire strip end-to-end. While this makes it very tricky to bend the LEDs around objects sideways (especially if you’re trying to make a 90-degree turn on a wall), it does give the incredibly bright LEDs a more pleasant-looking glow.
Speaking of, GE claims the LEDs go up to 1,600 lumens in total brightness. In a real-world context, they can get bright enough to irritate your eyes if you’re staring directly at them for a short amount of time. The diffusing plastic is, I would argue, absolutely necessary. Even then, it only does so much; I would strategically place these lights in an area where you’re not going to be continually catching the LEDs out of the corner of your eye unless you don’t mind adjusting the brightness all the time (or don’t mind setting that as part of any scenes you create in the accompanying Cync app.)
The light strip plugs into a separately connected power adapter, which has two buttons to quickly run through twelve different presets. You can access all of these presets within the app, too, but the hardware button won’t allow you to cycle through any custom scenes you’ve created. As strange as it was annoying, the adapter emits a high-pitched whine that’s noticeable in a quiet-to-normal room whenever the LED lights are set to pure white.
The whine decreases as the color temperature gets warmer. I first assumed the light strip I was reviewing was malfunctioning, but I did a little research, and I’m not the only one who has encountered this issue on the Cync light strips. It’s very irritating if you’re sitting near said strip.
I appreciate that Cync throws you a lifeboat if you want to segment your strip (or bend it around a sharp corner) by giving you an extra adapter in the box for this exact purpose. Cutting the strips is fairly easy, as long as you can see the “cut here” line through the 3M tape adorning the back of the light strip.
Once you’ve done that, it’s easy to connect your segments to said adapter, giving you a little more flexibility for placing the light strip wherever you need it most. You also get a few brackets you may nail into your wall if the 3M tape doesn’t do a good enough job adhering the light strip to a particular surface. Given the weight of the light strip itself, you might need them.
Software and performance
I’m not the biggest fan of GE’s Cync app. Getting the light strip connected to my home network (2.4GHz only) was simple enough, and I love not having to deal with adding another smart hub to my network to interact with the lights. However, the app is incredibly basic once you’re all up and running.
Switching between colors is easy enough, but if you want the light strip to do anything fancier than that, I found its “effects” and “scenes” too simple for the light strip’s expensive cost.
When creating a new effect, you pick one of nine base categories of effects — such as pulsing, flickering, colors moving in a wave, et cetera. From there, you can select which colors you want to use for the effect (which you can randomize or set up in a specific order), adjust the overall brightness you want, and set any other extra parameters like how long you want the fade to be between different colors or how long each color should last in your scene. You can theoretically preview the different effects categories while creating them, but the feature only worked sporadically.
That’s all well and good, but it feels more like you’re simply modifying presets thanreallycreating your own custom effects. And while said presets are probably fine for most people’s needs, they’re nothing fancier than what you’d ordinarily find on much cheaper light strips.
I much prefer the customizability you find on Govee’s RGBIC light strips, which come with alotmore presets within the accompanying app. You can fine-tune your strip’s individual segments of LED and even sync Govee’s light strips to your desktop PC (via Razer Chroma). If you really want to wow your friends and family members with your lighting setup, I’m not sure the (much more expensive) Cync light strip is going to do it.
The Cync Smart Light Strip also has a basic ability to react to music using a built-in microphone. It’s no better thanmost smart light brandsI’ve messed around with. Sometimes it catches the beat; sometimes, it doesn’t. More annoyingly, though, is that the only real effect the light strip delivers is a somewhat annoying flash of brightness on the beats. Your LED strip’s colors won’t change, so you can’t do something neat like have a wave of color wash over your LEDs based on whatever you’re listening to. Your strip will just pulsate in addition to whatever regular effect you’ve selected to run. That’s it.
Another annoyance I experienced within the Cync app is that you can’t set the brightness of effects after you’ve triggered them. That means the app’s presets will be as bright as whatever GE designed unless you create replacements. And even then, you’ll be stuck with whatever brightness you initially configured.
I would much prefer the ability to adjust LED brightness (or at least set a maximum) independent of whatever effect is triggered on the strip, especially since the LEDs can besobright that some of the presets can feel jarring. This adds unnecessary extra steps and configuration for those moments when you need less “bright sun” and more of a “mood lighting” feel.
The app can sync to Alexa, Google Home, and HomeKit, which means you’re able to control the light strip (including triggering effects and scenes) via your voice. I had no issues using it with Google Home, but I’ve seen quite a few reports that the Cync app’s connection to these smart home platforms can get spotty, requiring you to remove it and re-add it to restore the ability to control the lights with your voice.
It’s hard to say whose fault this is, but you’ll want to try it out early in your time with the Cync Smart Light Strip, just in case you need to return it due to connectivity annoyances.
Competition
There are a ton of other light strips out on the market that you may buy, ranging from the super-cheap “hardware remote changes colors and effects” variants that’ll probably set you back around $10-20, to the uber-expensivePhilips Hue Lightstrip, which costs $180 for a mere six feet of light.
At $90 as tested, the GE’s Cync Smart Light Strip is too expensive for its limited features, especially when a smarter alternative like Govee’s RGBIC strip lights can do even more for less than half the cost of GE’s similarly sized Smart Light Strip.
Should you buy it?
Given the basic functionality it offers, I’m surprised that GE’s Cync Smart Light Strip costs so much. Sure, its diffused lighting is pretty to look at. It’s easy to cut up and reattach the LED strip to fit the needs of your space, and I definitely can’t deny that the lights arebright. But there’s not much to do with the light strip beyond its basic functionality.
The scenic presets are fine, but nothing fancy, and while you may customize your own effects, the Cync app isn’t as robust a tool as what you’ll find on cheaper competing light strips that look just as good. If you’re outfitting your room (or rooms) with fun LED lighting, save your money and buy better (and longer) strips from someone else.
