The house was built with 3 hardwired neon under cabinet lights controlled by a single switch. I upgraded the lighting in two phases.
The first phase consisted in installing HUE lightstrips both below and above the cabinets for RGB lighting. My goal was to have at a very minimum 900 lumens per section so that it would be as bright, if not more, than the existing Neon tube lights. I am addicted to bright lights! This got complicated very quickly as a single HUE strip, especially when limited to roughly 2 segments per section (cabinet), were not even close to 900 lumens per section. I was dealing with maximum light output of the strip (limited to about 1100 lumens regardless of how many additional segments are added), and the limited light output of the 2 segments that fit under the cabinet. Long story short, I went with 1 controller per cabinet, and used 4 segments sitting side by side inside the aluminum channel. I do not recall the numbers but I believe this got me to where I wanted to be in terms of ‘theoretical lumens output’.
The picture below shows the HUE light on. The light output is nice - do not pay attention to how it looks in the picture. The white box on the left is the Hue controller. Having a dedicated controller per cabinet allows for the entire power budget (24W) to be available for the 4 segments so they can output their maximum lumens (there are other threads detailing why the controller is limited to 24W and lumens to 1100 so I won’t get into it here). I also gained the ability to have 4 different colors… one on top, and 3 on the bottom. I came from Italy so I occasionally have red, white and green ;-). Downside is ST control as by default you have to control each one individually but there are software solutions around that. This is all custom so there is a lot of DIY wiring, soldering, etc.
Later, the neon lights were failing and I finally found half decent LED under cabinet lights with sufficient lumens output and 3 different color temperatures. 2700K is the typical light bulb color temperature but I am of the opinion it is NOT suitable for the kitchen. Something between 3000K and 4000K is better as the colors of the food are closer to the actual color yet is is still ‘warm’. I know this is highly subjective so to each their own
These LED lights were dimmable so I replaced the switch with a zwave plus dimmer.
I believe this is the fixture I purchased:
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Good-Earth-Lighting-Premium-Slim-LED-Color-Changing-24-0-in-Hardwired-Under-cabinet-LED-light-bar/1000379673
I believe it came in 24 in and 32 inch lengths so on one side I have a 32" and the other 2 x 24". All 3 are set to 3000K or 4000K (can’t recall) but you can also set them to 3000K. These are easy to install. The hardest bit was closing the fixture.
There is some webcore automation to administer this type of lighting setup…
There are two IRIS motion sensors that turn the main LED lights on when motion is detected and leave them on until there has been no motion for at least 15 minutes or more (can’t recall). If the lights were switched on manually they stay on regardless of motion. I will soon add a 2 hour limit (to be tweaked) to this as it is impossible to know whether the lights are on manually or by motion so I’ve found the lights on the next morning on many occasions. The 2 hour limit (or more) will take care of this issue. During night hours, the LED lights turn on at 10%, while the rest of the day, 100%.
When the Hue lights are on, then the other lights do NOT turn on automatically regardless of motion. I can of course turn both on if I wish to bathe in light .