Blog

7.5/ 10
RESULT

Govee 2 floor lamp

Professionals

• Great light dispersion

• The illuminated base is a nice touch

• Good color saturation

• Consider startup support

cons

• Fewer preset scenes

• No Bluetooth speaker

• Glossy plastic base

In general, when we think of a smart light, we think of a light bulb or a strip. While Govee makes these more traditional smart lighting products, the brand does a great job of expanding the perception of smart lights and lighting in general with a variety of designs. Govee recently updated the original Lyra floor lamp with the Govee Floor Lamp Pro and Floor Lamp 2.

These floor lamps are designed so that the light is directed at the wall – corners work very well – and the light can “paint” your wall with a glow in any of the more than 16 million colors available, including a range of whites. The way these lamps add light to the room is quite unusual. However, there are some drawbacks and differences between the two models. And I don’t just mean the price.

The best smart home deals this Memorial Day

You can find more of our smart home deals throughout the year via CNET Deals.

Check out the Memorial Day smart home deals

Design and hardware

In the most basic sense, these two lamps look the same as the first model. The light source is an LED strip in a silicone shell, which acts as a diffuser, which is clamped in an aluminum tube. The tube is attached to the round base and you get a metal bracket that mounts to the metal part of the tube and the included remote magnetically attaches to it.

Govee has improved the quality of the light strip and the base of the lights. The technology used is still RGBICWW, which means the light bar can display multiple colors at the same time and has special white LEDs, but Govee has put more nodes per bar. This allows for better color representation and means the lamps are brighter than before. The Govee Floor Lamp Pro is about 7 inches taller than the Floor Lamp 2 and is 375 lumens brighter.

The Floor Lamp 2 is only available in black, but silver is also coming. The base and the aluminum frame that holds the LED strip are matched to the color of the base, giving it a glossy finish. But when you get to the bottom of the foundation, the black finish fades and becomes clear. This is where the upgrade comes into play because Govee added LEDs to the base so it lights up too. Within the Govee companion app, you can control the base independently of the main lights if you wish.

Govee added more flair to the base of the Floor Lamp Pro with a fabric cover in gray or black. You’ll still get the new lighting effects in the base as you do with the Lamp 2. However, the Floor Lamp Pro has an extra trick that its counterpart lacks: Bluetooth speaker at the base.

The speaker can act like any other Bluetooth speaker you’ve used by pairing it with your phone to play audio. Audio gets pretty loud and clear at lower volumes, but can start to distort as you turn up the volume. But Govee has also built some preset white noise sounds into the app for things like rain, nature, rivers, and more. Some of the light scene presets – we’ll cover more in a later section – have sounds that match the lights for a more immersive experience.

Both lamps are well built and offer a clean, minimalist style that looks good in almost any room. Upgraded LED strips and light bases are a great addition to the new lamps.

Making it glow

One area where Govee has always impressed me is its app and its customization options. In addition to simply turning on the light and adjusting the brightness, the app allows you to choose the color of the lamp and the base. While you can choose from over 80 different preset scenes with names like Glacier, Sunset, Moonlit Night, Birthday, and Romantic, keep in mind that Floor Lamp Pro offers more preset options than Floor Lamp 2.

These preset scenes offer color changes and movement to paint your walls with living light. But in addition to passively providing ambiance to your room, some of the scenes also react to music, using the microphone at the base of the lamp or your phone’s microphone, depending on your choice. If you don’t like any of the scenes, the app lets you create your own with different lighting effects and lots of colors.

Controlling your lights with the app is just one way to control your lamps. Govee floor lamps also integrate with Alexa and Google Assistant for voice control, and the Floor Lamp 2 is matter-ready out of the box. Floor Lamp Pro will pick up the feature in a future update. You can always use the included remote if you don’t want to use your voice or phone to control the lights.

But you can go even further in lighting control by using another useful tool smart home devicemotion sensor or the app to set your lights to turn on and off automatically at certain times of the day.

Should you buy a Govee floor lamp?

If you are looking for ways to add more light or some unique atmosphere to your home with a less traditional style, you should do it. Govee has been making some of my favorite smart lamps for years, and the original Lyra floor lamp is a staple in my home. These upgraded lights are better in every way, with improved LED strips that provide better color reproduction and brightness.

The new lamp base brings improved styling and the added LEDs are great. With the Govee Floor Lamp Pro, the Bluetooth speaker at the base is a nice touch and brings some fun features, but it might not be a big selling point for some. It really depends on your use case and where you plan to place the light in your home. Overall, both lamps are great and would be a great lighting choice for your home.