Looking for Permanent Lights Instead of Tired Bulb Strings? I Tested Govee’s Installation

This holiday season, I can leave the ladder in the garage. Every year, hanging lights from my gutter is a chore that I both relish and resent. That’s not a problem anymore, though, thanks to Govee and its Permanent Outdoor Lights 2 Pro ($640), which now adorn the eaves of my home.

This kind of installation has been gaining a lot of steam over the past year or so, with more and more homes getting the year-round treatment. They look absolutely lovely, so when Govee asked if I wanted to try them out, I jumped at the chance. Now the Joneses need to keep up with me.

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It wasn’t easy. Arguably, my Christmas lights are a lot easier to handle, but now that they’re installed, I’m in love with the look, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Still, I wonder just how “permanent” the IP68-rated lights are. I live in Chicago, which is known for brutal winters and suffocating summers, but only time will tell on that front. For now, I’ve been using Govee’s Permanent Outdoor Lights 2 Pro for about two weeks, and this is my full review.

Installation heads-up: This is a two-person job

Year-round lights like these start with installation, and it’s not simple. My home is actually perfectly suited for these lights because the eave (the underside of my roof) starts in one corner and runs in a continuous line around my house, varying in height from 9 to 23 feet above the ground. Such a setup meant I didn’t have to use any of the splitters, Y-adapters or extension cables that come in the kit. It runs as a single continuous 200-foot line all the way around my house and ends exactly at the outdoor outlet in my backyard. I couldn’t have planned it better.

Three of us started the installation, which took three days, two and a half hours per day, to complete. Our system went something like this: spray cleaner, wipe it down, slot the light into the bracket, stick it to the roof, and screw it in place. Rinse; repeat. Hopping up and down the ladder, and driving the screws into the aluminum soffit were the hard parts. 

The adhesive on the bottom of the brackets is very strong. On a couple of occasions, we accidentally brushed it against the soffit, only to have it stand fast. On the other hand, the lights slotting into the brackets didn’t feel like they held firm enough. You can slot the lights in from either side of the bracket, which is convenient, but sometimes when we attached the light, it would slide all the way through the slot. Once we had a system down, though, it went pretty fast.

Placement of the lights is critical. The lights shine down and cast a cone shape on your siding, so distance from the wall needs to be consistent for every light, lest the cones look inconsistent. Govee sent along a gauge that you could use to measure in centimeters, but it was just a cardboard ruler. Instead, we used a box that was about 7.2cm thick to measure the distance. It gave us a nice, consistent line all the way around the house. I really love the look of it.

Everything else you need to install these lights comes in the box — screws, anchors, brackets, extra sticky pads, Y-adapters and extension cables. The lights themselves come in long strands with connectors on each end. Every terminus has a waterproof cap. At the outlet, there’s a power cable and a control module, both with similar adhesive pads so you can stick them to the wall or, like I did, the roof eave. The button is just a simple on/off switch. Everything else is controlled through the app via Wi-Fi.

Each light fixture has two LEDs, each of which supports its own color, so you can mix and match the colors that are cast against your wall. This gives the lighting a really neat effect, especially since I finished the installation before Halloween. The Govee app even had some spooky presents to choose from.

Govee’s app is fun and limitless

Speaking of the app, Govee has been in the smart lighting game for several years now, and I’ve had the opportunity to use several of its products to date. They’re all managed within the same app, which I’ve always found to be a bit cartoonish with its bright colors and focus on fun.

But the functionality is all there, and intuitive. Controls are placed where they make sense. In the case of the lights, you can set all of the lights to be a single color, you can double them up, you can have the colors move in sequence or fade between colors, and you can even manually set each individual light to a different color if you want to. The sky is the limit.

For Halloween, I went with one of the holiday presets, custom scenes that Govee offers in the app. After Nov. 3, I decided solid blue was a better choice. I’ll change it up when Christmas rolls around, probably to red, white and green, or perhaps one of those holiday presets.

The point is, it doesn’t matter, because they’re all really simple to do. There’s even an AI mode where you can tell the lights what you want to do, including, say, brighten the lights as the sun goes down, or give prompts to create custom scenes. Speaking of which, you can also set the lights on a timer to turn on and off on a schedule. I currently have mine set to turn on at dusk and turn off at midnight.

Pricing thoughts on the Permanent Outdoor Lights 2 Pro

As I mentioned, I adore how the lights make my house look. I haven’t found a mode that I don’t like. If you want something simple, you can set them all to the same color. You can have playful lights that run around the house. You can even put together the most garish combinations of colors you can think of. But overall, I love them, and I can’t wait to adjust them throughout the year to make them seasonal.

All that being said, they are an investment. At the time of writing, the lights are going for $640 on Amazon for the 200-foot strand that adorns my house. The suggested retail price is $800.

That price is about the maximum I could see myself spending for something like this, and much higher than even the smartest string lights. In return, you don’t have to worry about taking lights down, and they can function as both event lighting and extra visibility for safety on all sides of your house.

The look of these lights is spectacular, and when it comes to curb appeal, I love it. That’s a matter of taste, but I imagine if you’re of a like mind, you probably won’t balk at the price either. Considering everything you get and the control over the lights the app affords, these aren’t a bad deal, even at their normal price.

Around Black Friday, like now, Govee’s lights are at a steep discount and much easier to invest in, but you will need a friend and a ladder — and you might want to hurry before it gets too cold to install. Once you do, you can leave your ladder in the garage after Thanksgiving, like I intend to.

Bonus DIY hack: What if the Govee lights clash with your eaves?

As you may have noticed, Govee’s white cords and white mounts can clash with dark colors, and depending on where you want to put these lights, that can be unsightly. However, CNET Editor Corin Cesaric-Epple recently installed the Govee Permanent Lights 2 on her home, and found a solution for those worried about this additional hurdle.

“When the lights arrived, it dawned on me that there was a problem,” she said. “The cords are white, and the soffits on my home, where we were planning to install the lights, are dark brown. I knew that I would hate being able to see the cords, so I started to brainstorm solutions for how we could conceal them.

“I needed a solution that was affordable but would also hold up year after year. I initially thought a standard cord hider would do the trick, but I needed 50 feet worth of it, and I wasn’t sure how it would hold up outdoors. Because our house is south-facing, our exterior gets intense sun exposure, so I figured it would be best to find something outdoor-rated.”

Such a solution exists, although you’ll have to take a shopping trip. “After scouring DIY forums for a solution, I saw vinyl J-channel, which is typically used for siding, mentioned more than once,” Cesaric-Epple explained. “So my husband and I headed to Home Depot to pick some up. There weren’t any pieces available in brown, so we purchased the standard white trim and a can of dark brown spray paint and went to work.”

This project took around one can of spray paint and three 12.6-foot-long J-channel pieces, for a total of about $30. If you’re interested in the same DIY fix, Cesaric-Epple suggests these additional steps:

1: Purchase J-channel from your local hardware store, ensuring that you get enough length to cover your lights.

2: If your trim doesn’t match your soffits, spray paint the J-channel with UV- and weather-resistant paint and let it dry. (This is what we used.)

For the next step, there are various ways to get the lights inside the trim, but I found the method suggested on this post to be the most secure for the lights. 

3: Measure the distance between each light and drill a hole on each side of the lights. Then, use tin snips to create an opening from the holes. This allows the light to be on the outside of the trim while the wires are hidden underneath.  

4: Lace the lights through the trim, ensuring the solid side faces outward toward the street. The lights should fit snugly into the trim. Be careful when measuring to ensure even and correct spacing between the lights. 

5: Using soffit screws, attach the J-channel to the soffits of your home. 

Adam Doud

CNET Contributor

Adam has been a leader in the tech media field for over a decade, with bylines at a number of different publications. When he’s not hosting the Benefit of the Doud podcast, he’s busy getting his hands on as many phones, tablets and laptops as possible. He regularly uses both iOS and Android (six-month rotation for each), and he fully embraces technology. He hasn’t carried cash money since 2018, and pays for everything with his phone wherever possible.

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