I’m trying to determine which lights strips, controllers, dimmer to purchases for good quality under cabinet kitchen lighting. Quality and brightness is important. It would be nice to have color options integrated if possible. There are just so many strips out there it is hard to determine which to go with.
My plan is to hard wire these to wall switch - that wall switch will control the 14-2 wire under two areas of the kitchen so I assume that means I will need a controller on each side of the kitchen.
I am actually looking at doing this again in my new house. In the past I just went with Phillips hue lights plugged into a counter top outlet. It worked ok and the colors were nice, but I didn’t think they were bright enough when I wanted lots of light and obviously not hardwired.
I am debating what route to go as well. I like the idea of a switch as opposed to always controlling with the app or Alexa, but depending on how you do that you will kill power to the z-wave radio as well. Kind of the same idea as using z-wave lightbulbs, the switch has to be on all the time. You could go with a z-wave switch and then any LED light strip, but then you wouldn’t be controlling the colors etc from ST just on/off/dimming etc.
I’m sure there are some ways to get the best of both worlds, I just need to research it some more. I will let you know what I discover.
A lot depends on your budget. You will have a very easy installation if you choose a smart light strip and then just plug it in, but those will generally be more expensive than if you choose a dumb light strip with a smart controller.
You can still have an on/off switch on the wall, it will not have to be hardwired to the light strip in order to work. The switch sends a message to the hub, the hub sends a message to the strip. Some people like to use a Wi-Fi phone on the wall to display an app so they get full color control from the local tablet.
Another alternative is to use a multi button switch where each button is a different color setting/scene.
You can see what other people have done by looking in the community – created wiki on the quick browse lists, looking down near the bottom of that page for the “project report” section, and then choosing either the kitchen list or the lighting list.
I am thinking of going with the Fibaro controller connecting to two LED strips. My question would be what would be the best quality RGBWW LED strips for under cabinet lighting since there are so many to choose from? And is it safe to run the the RGBW extension cable to the other LED strip behind a backsplash in the thinset?
