I recently purchased the Govee Smart LED Strip to create a sunrise automation for my mornings. The goal was to have the lights gradually brighten and change color temperature to simulate a natural sunrise, helping me wake up more gently.
Setting this up was a bit of a challenge since I’m using a non-Hue LED strip connected via a Zigbee controller to a Hue bridge. Initially, I followed the Alexa app instructions, but the process was quite lengthy and required constant adjustments. For instance, I had to manually dim the lights every night to prevent them from blasting me awake before the sunrise effect kicked in.
After some trial and error, I found a better approach. I created an automation in the Alexa app that triggers at my wake-up time. The automation slowly increases the brightness and warms up the color temperature over 30 minutes. To avoid the lights being too bright before the automation starts, I set another automation to dim the strip to 1% warm white in the evening.
Here are a few tips I learned along the way:
- Test gradually: Start with shorter automation times to ensure the brightness and color changes feel natural.
- Use multiple automations: Combine them to handle both the setup and execution phases.
- Check your LED strip settings: Ensure it’s set to the correct color mode and supports the necessary adjustments.
Overall, the setup has been a game-changer for my mornings. It’s made waking up much more pleasant, and I’m grateful for the flexibility Govee’s products offer. If anyone has questions or needs help setting something similar up, feel free to ask! 