Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This led strip is interesting and better than others I have tried for the following reasons 1) Kasa control app and all the features it brings. 2) White is true white because of dedicated white leds in addition to the RGB elements. White on other strips is more like 'simulated white' and looks crappy. 3) Bright AF. The dedicated white leds make the strip way brighter as they are on to varying amounts for all but the very edges of the color wheel. Bummers 1) You cannot create you own effects nor can you configure segments individually as the marketing info says. You get 10 "predefined effects" only, of which maybe 3 are interesting or useful to me. Other strips can't do this either, but they also don't claim to be able to. Expectation fails cost stars. 2) There are not as many intensity levels as other strips, making transitions more stroboscopic and less fluid. 3) **EDIT** this one is now solved. You can buy the extensions. The strip extensions are not available despite the public release info (including a part number, even). I want to put these under upper cabinets... that are 12 feet long. Can only get 6 feet lit up currently. Where are the extensions? 4) The price is bonkers. Congrats to TPLink for my kasa addiction, where rational choices are just a distraction. 5/15/2020 Update Upgraded from 3 stars to 4 I have 2 sets of these now. One has a single extension, the other 2 extensions. They have both been on continuously now for 6-7 months. No issues. There have been a few updates to the app that are meaningful, improving customization and ease of use. Was hoping for a bit more, such as the still advertised segment-by-segment configuration. 12/13/2020 Update Segment by segment color customizations have been released in the app. Not incredibly useful, but you can use this to edit the canned scenes that come in the app with some interesting, although the results are a bit unpredictable. These have now been continuously running for over a year. Seeing some intensity inconsistency now between RGB elements. Animated effects rarely show this, but with static colors it is perceptible. 5/8/2021 update App iteration has slowed/stopped. No new features since my last update as far as I can tell. The strips have been on 24 hours a day for a year and a half. Usually around 70-80% brightness, sometimes more, sometimes less. And maybe a few months total of only using the white LEDs. And the blue is getting very inconsistent, with different LEDs on the strip having different brightness. Red and green are consistent in brightness. So any color that includes blue is starting to look like crap. See attached photos. I suspect this is going to get increasingly worse. The description for this product states ~23 year lifespan @ 3 hrs a day. I am using them 8x more so should get 1/8 the lifespan. That would be about 3 years. It’s been half that at this point and I am starting to get dissatisfied. Minus 1 star. 10/21/2021 update The app previously showed energy usage. This is no longer true. I am not sure when it went away. The blue LEDs are getting even weaker and more inconsistent now, making solid colors that include a blue component look like crap. Still leaving 2 different strips on 24/7. One with 2 extensions, one with 1 extension. I think these strips are amazing and I want to love them. But the cost is really high and the longevity is low. I have 2 LED strips, 2 bulbs, 2 power strips, 8 energy monitoring plugs, 2 built-in plugs, 2 outdoor plugs, and 9 switches (27 things!) from TP-Link/Kasa. These strips are my fave. Why won't they last years and years :( 10/24/2022 update I bought another base unit and 4 extensions when they were priced lower for a period. I run these at 75% brightness for about 16 hours a day and 25% brightness for 8 on a schedule. So far, no dimming of any colors. I feel that TP-Link overdrives these at 100%, leading to early LED degradation. Simple answer to make them last much longer is don't run them at 100%. Probably even 90% would make a huge improvement. The difference between 75% and 100% isn't that much anyways. Bumping back up to 4 stars because I just love these things, despite my complaints.