I am looking for some (cheap) LED light strips that are compatible with ST, I do not have any Philips Hue bridges, so would need to connect with ST either (preferably) directly or via a cloud connection.
I have seen loads on Amazon but I can’t seem to figure out which ones will be compatible with ST.
I see there has been a few posts on here regarding these, but if anyone has any experiences and recommendations I would much rather go down that route.
A few questions…are you looking for RGBW (analog) strips or Digital (individually addressable) strips? Are you looking to do funky colors/patters or just all the same color biased lighting, like under or above a cabinet? Or is this going to be a primary light source?
I use Sengled strips. They run cheaper than other Zigbee strips and have the advantage of acting as end devices, not repeaters, so they don’t mess with your Zigbee mesh, but require a strong network.
I just installed them in my kitchen & they work directly with the Samsung hub without issue. I use alexa to change the colors.
digital is a bonus, however analogue would be fine. digital would allow me to Crete a Christmas theme for them so I guess at this time of year if they are cheap enough id choose digital.
great I will have a look, are these digital (as mentioned above) or analogue?
edit - just checked amazon UK for them, they don’t appear to be available
edit2 - I just bought some Alexa compatible govee ones, I think they are analogue but they will be fine. If anyone knows of some good digital ones let me know.
I have a few different strips of various lengths, all randomly from amazon, but then ended up getting these controllers. have to install a custom DHT and such but otherwise works fine in ST. The only issue I have had is that some strips/controller combo dont output the correct colors so I had to mess around with the order of the RGB wiring going into the controller to figure out the correct configuration. For what I paid for it all I cant complain.
Digital (individually adressable) LED strips currently require additional hardware, some DIY electronics skills, and some coding knowledge to work with ST. There are some projects on the forums that use microcontrollers like Photons, Arduino Uno’s, ESP8266’s, etc. If you have the skills and inclination for a project like that search the forums for “WS2812B” and you’ll find a few of them.
I’m as technical as it comes tbh. I’m a devops and test consultant with IBM. Happy to write code and get my hands dirty with electronics as well so all good there 
Nice. I keep thinking it would be fun to put together a NeoPixel project, but I have a lot of higher priority projects in line before it. The controller software I was looking at is here:
WLED
WLED looks very interesting. I’ve not used it myself but I like the idea of being to send post and get commands to control the device. But like you have limited time so tend to opt for as many out of the box solutions as I can. I’ve managed very well so far using that approach and combining webCoRe and my own custom device handlers into the mix
I have been wanting to surround three large front windows for the holidays with RGBWW LED strips compatible with ST. I just can’t find anything that will not end up costing an arm and a leg. Hue for the lengths I need is off the charts. If I went dumb strips and added Fibaros like I have for a couple of other projects that wouldn’t exactly be reasonable either.
Kinda frustrating. I guess I’ll be hanging trad string lights again this year.
Yeah. I’m just hanging these ones around the TV and if they do what I want I might use them elsewhere. If not then I’ve only lost £30
If you’re looking for fun ESP8266 projects, you should check out McLighting and also DIYHue. McLighting is similar to WLED but allows you to sync multiple stips and control each of the effects a little more thoroughly. DIYHue is a Hue emulator that runs on a RPi and allows you to use ESP based led strips in a Phillips Hue like environment. I have about 6 strips around the house that use this and sync to my system just like a phillips hue bridge would.
What exactly is a Phillips Hue like environment? Does that mean you can use the Hue app to control them? Or just Smartthings? Or some other app that is coded similarly to the Hue app?
It means it mimics a hue app in almost every way. You can use any app that can control a phillips hue bridge when you are local on your own network. It will show up to ST just like a phillips hue bridge on your local network. However, you will not be able to access the Phillips Hue cloud, since it isn’t a genuine phillips hue bridge. So, control from Google Home isn’t possible, since that is a cloud integration with Hue. However, Alexa can find the bridge since Alexa uses a local integration. There is one third party app, Hue Essentials, that does allow remote connectivity directly to the DIYHue bridge. They have partnered up to allow remote discovery of the bridge if it is preconfigured that way.
Seems pretty cool. I have heard of the Hue Essentials app before but didn’t know it was 3rd party. Thanks for posting!
No problem! The reason I use it is because I have a bunch of LED strips that i built myself with ESP8266 boards. They cost me about 1/10th of what they would have cost me if i’d bought Hue Strips. This program along with firmware for the board allows me to control them just like I would a Hue Strip from ST (or in my case now, Hubitat). It also allows you to use a Zigbee stick (Conbee or Conbee 2) if you want to connect genuine Hue lights to the hub. Or, if you already have a Hue hub, you can pair that with DIYHue so you have all your Hue bulbs in one place. They also have integrations for Milights and the Tradfri gateway for Ikea bulbs.
@Ryan780, I’m really wanting to be able to install light strips on the underside of all my gutters on the outside of my house and have a permanent christmas light strip that I can use in winter, but then a white light that I can use for just plain old house lighting. I realize I could accomplish that with a regular z-wave light strip controller (I’m using the H801 elsewhere in the house), but what I’m really wanting is a light strip and controller that supports lighting effects (individual addressable leds instead of just whole strips changing colors). Does DIYHue support that?
No, they do not. You would want to go with one of the other implementations like WLED or McLighting to get lighting effects.