Pros / tips:

- Nice color and even lights
-Lights are individually addressable
- Much prettier and 'normal' looking than trying to hang christmas 'bullet' leds
- WS2812B protocol: string is made up of 30 bulbs, each bulb has 2 addressable lights: an RGB pair and a warm white pair, every other light is white for a total of 60 'logical' lights on the chain
- WLED or any other neopixel driver works fine, in WLED create 2 segments with 60 each, then set the 'skip' parameter to 1 on both. One segment will be just the white lights and the other will be the RGB (BGR) lights.

Challenges:

- controller has proprietary firmware and uses an ARM chip (RTL8710BX) - the firmware has very basic local control (on/off and each primary color for all lights) and requires foreign cloud server access to use their ‘app’; their app (not tuya) requires location access to use

-I used an other WLED controller (ESP based) w/o any drama; the chain runs off 12V rails with a 5V data signal (like any other ws2812 string); the included power supply (2A@12V) seems fine

-the bulbs are spaced pretty far apart (2-3ft), so pretty dim compared to a string of christmas style 2812 LED bullets (which are usually 4” or 6” spacing).

- the wire between the bulbs is too thin to hang the bulbs, they must be mounted on a supporting guide wire to hang across a span of space
- the wire is too thin for the bulbs at the end to run full brightness, if you turn on the RGB’s and the WW full in each bulb the color changes along the length of the string as the voltage drop gets worse and worse
- the clips on the bulbs are very stiff and brittle: its hard to get them onto a guide wire w/o breaking them as you pry them open a little
- when mounted on a guide wire the bulbs hang sideways because they are very light compared to the wire
- the mounting clips have a sharp edge tht digs into the guide wire when you try to slide the bulbs, it is very time consuming to mount a chain of these to a guide wire as you move each bulb (one by one) a couple of feet, then repeat over and over

I've been a fan of Govee for a few years now- I have tons of lighting around the inside of the house (strip lights, rope lights, bulbs, a heater with the temp/humidity sensor), but these outdoor lights are truly the first product I've been disappointed in. I've had them up for a few months now. Yes, they're held up well to the southern US weather (though they are mounted under a covered patio). They pair and function well with the Govee app and with Google Home like all Govee products. However, a huge "but"....

I purchased these to replace some traditional LED rope lights that I purchased from a big wholesale warehouse store. Those lights were build like tanks- the wiring is super thick, the bulbs are large and very bright, and overall they feel like they will last many years. However, they are not multi-color and I've always wanted to have some of the multi-color fun outside so I took them down to replace them with the Govee 96ft long string lights.

First thing, the string wiring is super thin and cheap feeling. I don't forsee these lasting long. Second, there aren't a huge number of bulbs for the 96ft length and they are tiny (1/2 the size of a traditional rope light) and the worst part is...they are beyond dim, even at the max bright setting of 30 bulbs in regular "incandescent mode". In the color mode, they don't put out enough light to see a few feet into the yard. If you're into really romantic candlelit dinners, these will work. However, if you want something that will be fun, and produce enough light to be outside at night comfortably, these aren't it.

These may work better on an indoor patio or even as a super decorative accessory light (i.e. holiday lights), but I'm not sure they're worth the ~$100 price tag. Wish I could return them for something else.

These lights are really cool. They do amazing things. They are easy to setup. The problem for me is that they are more like a holiday decoration, than a set of lights that I want sitting out all the time for my patio. The bulbs are frosted, not clear, and the wires are thin. They look rather messy when hanging from our patio cover and the frosted bulbs don't look good in the day when the lights aren't on.

Just keep that in mind when you buy them. Otherwise, the software supporting the lights is incredibly well done. If you want to play with endless color combinations, these are for you.

Installation Tips:
Getting them out of the box and untangling them was a real beating. I recommend taking a look at how they are wrapped together before trying to unwind them. I think if you can figure out the "end", you'll have much better luck unwinding them and getting them ready to hang.

If hanging up high, I recommend feeding the end of the bulb string into a bucket in reverse order that you want to hang them. Then have a helper carry a bucket around behind you to feed out the light string as they secure each bulb to a hanger location. This will be much easier than dragging a very long light string around behind you and prevent a tangled mess.

The hooks on these light strings aren't that flexible and will limit the places where you can hang them. Keep that in mind, as you may need to come up with some alternative way to hang the bulbs where you want them. I strung up some black parachute cord where I wanted to run the lights and then hooked the bulbs to that.

I have some other Govee products and some have been great, but many have been underwhelming. This goes in the latter category.

Having read other reviews, I was very careful about the unboxing process to keep tangling to a minimum. So that was fine.

I got them installed in my backyard and rigged up something to be able to keep the plug to the outlet weather proof. That was annoying that they didn't think this through with a flat head plug that would fit into most outdoor protected outlets.

But the worst part is the quality of the light.

1. They are dim at their brightest. They do NOT illuminate my backyard like other string lights I have used. The frosted nature means they really just are light at the bulb itself. And at that, they look like light coming out of a flashlight with a weak battery.

2. The colors -- particularly the white temperature range -- is not good at all. In the app I try to choose warm white and they literally end up a shade of green. It's clear that whites are not this product's strength. So if you are looking for that cosy, warm white backyard evening glow, this isn't going to do it.

3. The app is way too complicated and larded up with lots of gimmicky scenes you'll never want to use after trying them out the first time. All I want is to turn on the entire set as bright as possible with warm white, but that's tricky to do -- let alone the issues with color fidelity in #2. They should provide a mode for super simple control to do what you are typically going to want.

So now they are never used. The cosy lighting I was hoping for is a fail. I wish I had returned them...

There are lots of better options out there. Good luck.