LEDENET Super Bright LED RGBW Strip Lights 5050 12V 5M 300LEDs RGB White Flexible Lighting

This strip is actually somewhat dim compared to some of the RGB strips that I have used. The problem most likely stems from the fact that since this is a strip with no guaranteed heat sinking surface since the user may stick this to whatever they please, the power dissipation per foot of strip has to be limited to prevent overheating. By adding the white LEDs, that is additional heat that has to be dissipated so either the designers have to space out all of the LEDs further on the strip so the additional white LEDs have suitable heat sinking surface area, or they have to reduce the total delivered power to the LEDs to accommodate the unchanged heat dissipation of the strip per foot. It seems to be a little bit of both in this case. So, at full power with white and RGB all turned on, this may have a similar light output to a similar RGB strip, but with only the RGB elements turned on and the white turned off, the output is somewhat lackluster.As for the actual color quality, visually it looks quite acceptable compared to other RGB strips. On the RGB modules "White" (RGB all full) has a little bit of a blue tint but otherwise the output visually looks even. The white LEDs appear to have an acceptable CRI for basic non-primary lighting applications such as accent or effect lighting.Overall, this is a decent strip. Soldering looks good, but the weakness is that it is not as bright as people might expect most likely to thermal dissipation limitations. As a use case example for kitchen lighting, these strips would work well as floor accent lights under cabinet kickboards, but do not use them as under cabinet counter lights if you want them to be the main light source for a prep area. So, good for color accents and effect lighting inside glass cabinets or under a kickboard by the floor, but they do not put out enough light for work area primary lighting or for mounting on top of cabinets to wash a wall/ceiling with significant amounts of light for daytime use.

Bought these for use with the venerable Fibaro controller. I've given them 4 stars because they work as expected, but don't produce quite enough output to be useful for one of the more common use cases, under-cabinet lighting. I'm using the Fibaro controller with a high quality 12v supply, and after doing all the soldering and wiring to get them hooked up, I was underwhelmed with the brightness in their intended application. Worst part was, after all the setup, the girlfriend walked in to the room and said "Thats it?" Nobody wants to hear that! I'll likely leave them in place for a bit until I have the time/energy to install a higher quality strip.Pros:-Decent light output for accent lighting or vfx-Decent color mixing for getting a good white temp-Real 3M backing tape-Cheap!Cons:-Insufficient for task lighting-Relatively small solder pads require precise cutting and tiny little girly hands to get right-Dedicated white LED is very cool (6000k ish), requiring you to run the RGB led at full power if you want a warmer temp [you will].

It doesn't say it in the description but these are ANALOG LEDs so if you plan to use them with an Arduino, you NEED N-channel mosfets, 1 for each color (so 4 mosfets per strip). I only had a mini-breadboard so I had extra wiring so I could tie all the mosfets to ground. Use the simpler wiring diagram to set yours up. I followed the "Adafruit Analog LED Usage" guide. Make sure you run the ground from your 12V supply to the Arduino AND mosfet grounds!Also, because they are analog, all the RGB LEDs light up the same color, you cannot address them individually as you can with digital LEDs. The description mentions a "chasing effect or rolling effect" but this is only possible by alternating the RBG LEDs and white LEDs.The ends are BOTH female 5 pin but one end comes with a removable 5-pin male-male adapter so you can hook them up however you wish from either end.I'm using these as ambient lighting in my home office and so far they are excellent. I'm not sure exactly how much power they're drawing but using a 12V 360W 30A power supply with a fan that runs dependent on the load, the fan kicks up to high as soon as the LEDs are more than 50% bright.

These are great LED strips, they are nice and bright and they worked out great for my project and I purchased 3 of them, but there was two issue with one of LED strips which is why I didn't give them 5 stars. One of the strips actually had 2 male ends on it instead of a male and female and the second issue was the wires were soldered to the wrong PIN outs so the colors were not correct, but that wasn't too big of a issue, since I needed to cut off the end, so that I could wire it directly into a control box.

Colors were good and bright however on the strip I received the R & G were actually mis marked (swapped). I intended to cut in several short sections and add lengths of wire between but every other section seemed to short out the colors. Not sure if it is an issue with the strip itself or temp of my gun since there was no visible short due to weld. I may pick up an adjustable heat iron to try again. Ended up not being able to utilize the strip for my purpose since so many sections went bad. Never had so much trouble with any other strips. If I ever purchase this strip again I will definitely pick up solderless connectors. I think I will try a different brand next time.