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Started By
Message
jellyfish or govee (or something else)?
Posted on 8/31/26 at 11:48 am
Posted on 8/31/26 at 11:48 am
i have a friend (yep, same one) 
who got a 11k quote for his 7k sf house for jellyfish.
i told him that was outrageous and i bet we could do almost the same thing for 10% of that cost. jellyfish system doesnt even have a dedicated white LED so you're stuck mixing the colors to get white like LED technology was just invented
that alone would be a dealbreaker for me not to mention the arrogance of 'oh you need your trusted jellyfish installer to come out and adjust that light schedule'.
smells like early 2000s control4 bullshite to me.
anyway, i'm having AI do some comparisons but i know alot of you have done whole home permanent lighting and have some opinions on this.
who got a 11k quote for his 7k sf house for jellyfish. i told him that was outrageous and i bet we could do almost the same thing for 10% of that cost. jellyfish system doesnt even have a dedicated white LED so you're stuck mixing the colors to get white like LED technology was just invented
that alone would be a dealbreaker for me not to mention the arrogance of 'oh you need your trusted jellyfish installer to come out and adjust that light schedule'.
smells like early 2000s control4 bullshite to me.
anyway, i'm having AI do some comparisons but i know alot of you have done whole home permanent lighting and have some opinions on this.
2
Posted on 8/31/26 at 12:57 pm to CAD703X
WLED, all PoE powered. You can put some of those ports to use.
Posted on 8/31/26 at 1:28 pm to Dallaswho
damn baw. just read up on this.
you nailed it in one!
100% the way we will go. WLED seems almost too good to be true. PoE powered controllers and since this is a new build we'll bring the power in through the 2nd floor maintenance closet wall which is in the rear of the house and hook into that omada switch that's already there.
i see there's already a HUGE number of lighting effects out there for WLED but of course, our good friend Mr. AI can build more.
you nailed it in one!
100% the way we will go. WLED seems almost too good to be true. PoE powered controllers and since this is a new build we'll bring the power in through the 2nd floor maintenance closet wall which is in the rear of the house and hook into that omada switch that's already there.
i see there's already a HUGE number of lighting effects out there for WLED but of course, our good friend Mr. AI can build more.
Posted on 8/31/26 at 2:03 pm to CAD703X
I just use PoE splitters but running PoE in general makes retrofits 1000x easier compared to 120v or rigging up a low voltage supply. Crazy that in 2026, 120v residential lighting still even exists. Inside or out.
Also full white control is going to cost a lot more compared to the trusty 2815 that can span really far and is basically free
Also full white control is going to cost a lot more compared to the trusty 2815 that can span really far and is basically free
This post was edited on 8/31/26 at 4:37 pm
Posted on 9/1/26 at 11:03 am to Dallaswho
this is now an official provisioning and shopping list.
incredible
this will end up being better than perfect and the second floor server closet is in the absolute perfect spot (back of the house, backs up to woods) that adding a conduit or channel straight through to the wall where the rack is hanging couldn't be more perfect if it had been intentionally designed that way.
on a related note: keystone crimping frickING SUCKS. spent the weekend in a house with no AC or lights crimping a few hundred keystones and testing them.
i cant imagine doing that for a living. between figuring out which cable was which out of those GIANT WHITE WADS OF CAT6 the installer failed to label, stripping the wires, untwisting those 8 tiny arse wires and using my bad eyes to make sure i could tell which was the brown striped vs the orange striped wire which LOOK frickING THE SAME and breaking my thumbnail off trying to floss 8 tiny fricking wires into those channels that were so tight i couldn' even get them started...a million times then praying the connector at the other end gave me a thumbs up...
oh and the fancy punch panel keystone slots-to-color-positions were different than the cheap 'wall outlet' keystones so i ccouldnt even memorize which wires went where...
good lord it was like trying to walk through a vat of molasses. there is no way to speed that process up except to crank up some loud music in the background.
incredible
this will end up being better than perfect and the second floor server closet is in the absolute perfect spot (back of the house, backs up to woods) that adding a conduit or channel straight through to the wall where the rack is hanging couldn't be more perfect if it had been intentionally designed that way.
on a related note: keystone crimping frickING SUCKS. spent the weekend in a house with no AC or lights crimping a few hundred keystones and testing them.
i cant imagine doing that for a living. between figuring out which cable was which out of those GIANT WHITE WADS OF CAT6 the installer failed to label, stripping the wires, untwisting those 8 tiny arse wires and using my bad eyes to make sure i could tell which was the brown striped vs the orange striped wire which LOOK frickING THE SAME and breaking my thumbnail off trying to floss 8 tiny fricking wires into those channels that were so tight i couldn' even get them started...a million times then praying the connector at the other end gave me a thumbs up...
oh and the fancy punch panel keystone slots-to-color-positions were different than the cheap 'wall outlet' keystones so i ccouldnt even memorize which wires went where...
good lord it was like trying to walk through a vat of molasses. there is no way to speed that process up except to crank up some loud music in the background.
This post was edited on 9/1/26 at 11:58 am
Posted on 9/1/26 at 12:10 pm to CAD703X
Here you go.
Permanently installed LED "Christmas" lights.
When I did this project, there weren't many options beyond 5v lights. Now there are. Going with higher voltages will reduce how often you have to do power injection (which was the hardest part of the project for me). I had to power inject at least every 5m.
Edit: FWIW, I have 30 LED/M strip and only run every other light. It's plenty.
Permanently installed LED "Christmas" lights.
When I did this project, there weren't many options beyond 5v lights. Now there are. Going with higher voltages will reduce how often you have to do power injection (which was the hardest part of the project for me). I had to power inject at least every 5m.
Edit: FWIW, I have 30 LED/M strip and only run every other light. It's plenty.
This post was edited on 9/1/26 at 12:13 pm
Posted on 9/1/26 at 1:05 pm to Lonnie Utah
quote:
Edit: FWIW, I have 30 LED/M strip and only run every other light. It's plenty.
This is a good point. It’s so easy to get overwhelmed when ordering these.
5v for <5m runs, 12v for longer runs
30/m is fine for outside when people are at a distance.
Individually addressable is nice but addressing 3 at a time will probably work for most and in theory is more reliable. If you go ws2811 AND 30/m then your resolution is 4+ inches. Still ok for most things.
There is also the COB that have a cool continuous appearance but only 4-8” resolution.
RCBWW adds warm white perfect for indoors if used as main lighting and not just accent. Otherwise, plain RCB is good.
RCBCW is the cool white that makes whites pop on displays but I still find bright whites to be unsettling on Christmas. Just a personal thing.
Posted on 9/1/26 at 1:22 pm to Dallaswho
Another piece of advice I will add. Whatever you get, make sure the individual lights are replaceable if (and when) one fails. Sometimes it's easier to replace and entire strip/string than and individual pixel.
Posted on 9/1/26 at 2:13 pm to Lonnie Utah
yes individual replacement is key.
he already has 3 stories plus a 4th story which is the turret
its his man-cave; an octagonal room above the rest of the house with windows and i had him plumb an ethernet jack there and in fact, i keystoned and tested it this past weekend so i know its working.
so i'm thinking something architecturally different/crazy with the turret; those bigger puck style lights there..its a showpiece and you can see his house for miles already so lets turn it up a notch!
we can pull power and put a dedicated controller in there and then have effects like a lighthouse going around or in general having those big single lights will make it stand out against the rest of the roofline which is more continuous/difused lighting.
this project is going more off the rails every week
he already has 3 stories plus a 4th story which is the turret
its his man-cave; an octagonal room above the rest of the house with windows and i had him plumb an ethernet jack there and in fact, i keystoned and tested it this past weekend so i know its working.
so i'm thinking something architecturally different/crazy with the turret; those bigger puck style lights there..its a showpiece and you can see his house for miles already so lets turn it up a notch!
we can pull power and put a dedicated controller in there and then have effects like a lighthouse going around or in general having those big single lights will make it stand out against the rest of the roofline which is more continuous/difused lighting.
this project is going more off the rails every week
Posted on 9/1/26 at 2:13 pm to CAD703X
Thanks guys, now I’m decking out my pantry. There’s no point in having a light switch in there. I need lights when the door is open. Period. And having 270 degrees of shelving lit around you sounds kind of great.
Posted on 9/1/26 at 2:16 pm to Dallaswho
quote:
Thanks guys, now I’m decking out my pantry. There’s no point in having a light switch in there. I need lights when the door is open. Period. And having 270 degrees of shelving lit around you sounds kind of great.
you should do this. i'm trying to talk my friend into doing this in his basement home theater. he's pretty handy; after all he's installing his own ELEVATOR
so this should be a breeze that nintendo logo Posted on 9/1/26 at 3:07 pm to CAD703X
quote:
so i'm thinking something architecturally different/crazy with the turret; those bigger puck style lights there..its a showpiece and you can see his house for miles already so lets turn it up a notch!
Turn it into a lighthouse...
Posted on 9/1/26 at 4:19 pm to Lonnie Utah
quote:
Turn it into a lighthouse...
the first thing i thought of. a white led rotating around the turret would look a whole lot like a lighthouse
Posted on 9/1/26 at 4:19 pm to CAD703X
WLED has a "lighthouse setting"...
Posted on 9/1/26 at 4:39 pm to Lonnie Utah
quote:
WLED has a "lighthouse setting"...
perfect!
did you watch those videos? you've probably already seen them but i was blown away with some of the effects. absolutely insane the amount of individual led light control.
clearly i know nothing about what i'm doing here
happy to learn thoughPosted on 9/1/26 at 7:28 pm to CAD703X
Briefly. I need to run updates on a few of my microcontrollers that power wled.
Fwiw, any wifi capable microcontroller that runs in the ardurino environment should be able to run wled. I designed a couple of basic pcbs to solder a D1 mini to. I used to teach scouts programming and electronics.
Fwiw, any wifi capable microcontroller that runs in the ardurino environment should be able to run wled. I designed a couple of basic pcbs to solder a D1 mini to. I used to teach scouts programming and electronics.
Posted on 9/1/26 at 9:08 pm to CAD703X
I just had to install a new controller for some puck type lights under my eave. Damn codex was bringing them into HA and guessed at the settings and bricked the controller that came with them. I ended up buying a quinled dig-next-2 controller and wiring it in. Lights now like a charm with wled instead of the proprietary app they used to have. I have to say- damn- those 144/m lights look great even without a diffuser.
Posted on 9/1/26 at 9:21 pm to BR Tiger
This thread made me look again and Ali express is through roof now but Amazon has some “WeGoIOT” 4-channel ESP32 controllers with mic on sale for $13 after further discount. I just picked up 6 more. I usually use only 25w power so I need to spread the controllers out thin for big music effects.
Edit: that was articulated horribly. You can use several 25w sources on the same controller on different channels or isolating Vcc on same channel even. Still, I’m controller heavy to keep things organized and powered the way I want.
Edit: that was articulated horribly. You can use several 25w sources on the same controller on different channels or isolating Vcc on same channel even. Still, I’m controller heavy to keep things organized and powered the way I want.
This post was edited on 9/2/26 at 8:56 am
Posted on 9/2/26 at 12:59 am to BR Tiger
quote:
I just had to install a new controller for some puck type lights under my eave. Damn codex was bringing them into HA and guessed at the settings and bricked the controller that came with them.
i'm hoping to lay all of this out on the floor and do lots of dry runs before the hondurans tape 3 ladders together so they can reach the eaves for the install.
(100% true story)
Posted on 9/2/26 at 8:14 am to CAD703X
quote:
before the hondurans tape 3 ladders together so they can reach the eaves for the install.
Yeah, but it’s duct tape. “That’s not going anywhere.”
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