Setup Lighting has come a long way in the past few years. From the development of RGBIC to AI-created scenes, lighting has seen some serious upgrades. These days the focus has shifted slightly from sheer hardware improvements to software support for the technology. Focus areas such as software support, synergy and ease of use have become the measurements of good lighting.
The Elgato Light Strip Pro is a 78” RGB individually addressable LED light strip that aims to provide an accent to your gaming setup. With both magnetic and adhesive attachment options and designed to work with existing hardware, the Light Strip Pro looks to be a great addition to your room lighting. While this all sounds great on paper I do wonder if it can keep up with other leading RGB lighting companies not only in build quality but software support. Grab that coffee and let's find out in our review of the Light Strip Pro provided by the good folks over at Elgato.
Specifications
- Current Price: $49.99 (Amazon)
- Power consumption: Up to 30W
- Strip Dimensions: 78.74 x 0.47 x 0.11 inches
- RGB LEDS: Individually Addressable, 16 million colors
- WiFi Support: 2.4 Ghz / 5 Ghz a/b/g/n
- Software: Elgato Control Center
Quality built
The Light Strip Pro is a well-built RGB light strip. Featuring both a magnetic and adhesive mounting option the thick, rubberized outer coating helps prevent the connections between the individual RGB LEDs from being accidentally bent and also helps keep the lighting from getting tangled. As such, while the Light Strip Pro does weigh a bit more than your average light strip, the trade-off is a rugged, adaptable light strip.
The controller is a straightforward affair with no controls on the device itself. Instead, users will need to download the Elgato Control Center app on their device of choice with support for Windows, MacOS, Android and iOS (more on this in a moment). The controller also comes with an adhesive strip for easy mounting. For those who prefer a glueless solution the controller, like the strip light pro, supports magnetic mounting.
The Elgato Light Strip Pro comes equipped with individually addressable RGB LEDS giving users an impressive amount of freedom to design scenes with their unique flair though it does require experience with JavaScript to utilize. Additionally, thanks to this design choice the light strip can be cut to accommodate the specific surface length that the light will be mounted to. All of this leads to a durable, easy-to-assemble light strip.
Setup and Usage
Setup is exceptionally easy and takes only a moment. Once the layout has been determined attaching the strip is as easy as peeling back the adhesive covering and applying a small amount of pressure. Alternatively, if the surface supports magnetic mounting, place the strip light in the desired location. After applying the strip simply connect the light to the controller, power it on and link it to the Control Center app. It is that easy.
There are a couple of notes on installation that, while not major, are still good to know. First, due to its rugged design, the Elgato light strip doesn’t take corners well. When mounting it to the back of the 43” TV here in the office, getting the light strip to shift 90 degrees was a bit of an issue. It required leaving a bit more slack at the corners than I would have liked and resulted in a bit of a bump out. While not a major issue it's worth factoring into your layout as it will take up a bit of the length.
Additionally, the controller needs to be connected to the start of the coiled light strip. This can lead to a bit of awkward placement depending on where you are mounting the light. This can be easily resolved by starting the installation at the end of the light but it's important to factor this into your installation plans. However, despite these slight issues, the overall installation is a simple affair.
Once installed the Light Strip Pro produces some solid lighting. In testing, it handled the light spectrum quite well, presenting serviceable color representation. All the colors looked rich, vibrant and distinct. The preset scenes looked great with the addressable RGB on full display.
The white light spectrum was a bit of a different story. While it handled the cooler whites well, warm white light didn’t present as well. It seemed to reach a white light spectrum threshold and despite being able to adjust the light's warmth with the app, simply wouldn't produce a warmer white light. This was a bit disappointing considering that warmer tones tend to be preferred in a lot of settings.
As for brightness, while there were no official specs given for brightness, based on the base Elgato Strip Light, the Pro version should be around the 2000 lumens mark. This translates to a beautiful and colorful accent light adjustable to accommodate a wide range of settings and needs. On that note, the Strip Light Pro presents quite well on camera and when testing with standard webcams presented a solid, consistent light effect with no flickering. For streamers, this is an important feature to have in your accent lighting.
Hampered by Software
While the hardware side of the Elgato Light Strip Pro is solid with only one or two critiques of note, the software is another story altogether. In today's current lightning landscape, where quality hardware can be found from many manufacturers, software has become the definitive separator of good and great. Unfortunately, the Elgato Control Center holds the Light Strip Pro from being in the latter category.
Initially, the Elgato Light Strip Pro was connected and configured on the Android version of the app. While connecting the device was quite simple, many of the functions that are supposed to be supported were simply not available. RGB adjustments couldn’t be made and the preloaded scenes simply didn’t work. Even adjusting the white light temperature didn’t work as intended often simply adjusting the overall brightness instead. Even after uninstalling and reinstalling the app, the results remained frustrating.
Thankfully, the Control Center App is supported on multiple platforms and as such I shifted testing to the MacOS version of the software. While the results were much better with RGB and scene selection functional, there were still some added quarks that came out during testing. Often applied settings wouldn’t save forcing me to go in and recreate the color or setting I had just applied. While it is functional, the Control Center software, at the moment, is serviceable but buggy.
As for creating custom scenes while it is doable, it's not user-friendly. As mentioned, you will need to have a basic understanding of JavaScript to create your own scenes. While that does give users a bit more freedom it also means cutting out a large portion of people who would leverage this type of feature. With so many other RGB lighting companies offering easier-to-use experiences similar to the custom scene builder in the Control Center, I hope that a future update will see this area improved and much more user-friendly than in its current state.
While the above critiques are worth noting Elgato has done a good job at integrating the Strip Light Pro into the Stream Deck experience. Thanks to an easy-to-download and install plug-in, programming the Strip Light Pro on the Stream Deck takes only a moment and gives you access to pre-programmed scenes and brightness controls.
Final Thoughts
The Elgato Light Strip Pro is a well-built RGB light strip hampered by some buggy software. While the build quality, individually addressable LEDs and overall brightness and color representation are solid, controlling the lights leads to a lot of frustration and in some cases a need to install the app on a different device. While the light is functional its current software solution holds it back from achieving the potential of the hardware.
The product described in this article was provided by the manufacturer for evaluation purposes. Purchasing items through our links may result in a small commission for the site. Authors are not compensated based on clicks or commission.
