Govee RGBIC Curtain Light
design
Out of the box the Govee Curtain Light is a rather unique looking thing, by lighting standards anyway. At first glance you’d be forgiven for thinking it was the connection kit for a light, rather than the light itself. A couple of neat bundles of cable arrive boxed with a power adapter and a range of mounting hardware.
I was impressed by the range of mounting options included by Govee, the lights themselves are evenly spaced beads along 2m clear strands and each terminate in a small box along the main thread. You’ll find your choice of G4 hooks, seamless nails and sticky foam pads are all waiting inside the box, I was mounting mine across the front of a wardrobe so went with the sticky pads. Installation was simple and the Govee Curtain Light has remained rock solid for in place a few weeks, even with me deliberately fiddling around and tugging on strands the sticky pads look like they’ve just been installed.
Overall each strand and bead feels thick and high quality, though I did find they were prone to tangling and clumping up, particularly towards the bottom of each thread. The beads are coated in soft rubber which, while helping with the IP65 water resistance, means they also tend to grab on to each other when blown around. In more controlled environments this won’t be a huge problem but you will occasionally need to check everything is still hanging straight if you’re using particularly detailed images on the curtain.
That same cable thickness that makes the Govee Curtain Light feel confidently high quality also brings rise to another problem. There’s a decent amount of muscle memory in the strands and after a few weeks of hanging in place most of mine still feature bends, kinks and generally hang with a slight wobble rather than straight up and down. It’s more prominent on certain strands and a small amount of tussling can ease things but I was nervous about breaking internal connections to push this too far. I’d have liked to have seen some extra weight added to the bottom of each strand, not only should this help straight each thread out, it would likely also help with the tangling issue too.
Cleverly the Govee Curtain Light’s power connection can be attached to either side of the main cable which is a nicely considered quality of life add and meant I could neatly keep the main power line out of sight. There’s a generous amount of cable too, 4m in total split between a 3m initial run to the control box and a further 1m to the wall plug – plenty to work with.
performance
There’s a range of uses for the Govee Curtain Light’s canvas, a single kit offers 1.5m of space but you can chain up to three in sequence to build an impressive 4.5m continuous display. IP68 water resistance makes the Curtain Light suitable for outdoor use but I’m approaching the Govee Curtain Light from a streamer’s perspective, and it’s that specific use case as a face cam background light that I’m basing my opinions and this review overall on.
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My experience so far has been an equal mix of delight and disappointment.
I’ll say this up front as it’s arguably the most important part for Govee to have got right; the actual LED lighting of the Curtain Light is excellent. Each of the 520 beads pumps out bold, colourful light with uniform brightness across the RGB spectrum and with absolutely no flicker on any camera I tried. That in itself is a great achievement as I have lost hours of my life to trying to find the right balance of LED brightness, camera shutter speed and ISO to achieve punchy colour without flicker spoiling the effect.
If you’re happy with just a solid background colour then the Govee Curtain Light will excel. Using the Govee app I was able to quickly choose between a wide range of saturated, bright colours and each time I chose another the Curtain Light was quick to respond. The 520 LEDs release enough light to wash over the surface they’re up against though unlike a single LED floodlight the individual sources remain pretty clearly visible in their grid so you’ll need to embrace the dotty effect.
Somewhat annoyingly the same cable rigidity and memory that meant the strands don’t always hang straight also revealed a secondary issue – some of the LED beads face the wrong way. The result is a lack of uniformity in brightness as some bulbs face outwards and some twist and shy away facing backwards, dimming the impact of that specific pixel. It’s subtle and in some cases can look like a deliberate mottled effect, but I’d rather be able to choose to add some twist to a thread rather than being forced to have it.
The Govee Curtain Light is somewhat wasted with just solid colours though, there are plenty of LED floods that will do just as good a job at a lower price point. The real joy of the Curtain Light is its ability to show off graphics, animated GIFs and patterns. Testing a range of options through the app I was impressed by the possibilities, some of the default effects are genuinely eye-catching with the ability to download other users’ creations which quickly brought some holiday cheer in testing. The potential is massive but this is also where my disappointment starts when looking to use the Govee Curtain Light as a streamer.
The Govee app features a handful of eye-catching, audio-responsive effects that bring the canvas to life and I was excited by the potential of having these react to stream notifications or moments – nope. There is currently no automated way to control the advanced effects of the Govee Curtain Light. Lumia Stream can choose solid colours, as can the only Stream Deck plugin – but neither allow you to engage what the Curtain Light is actually for. Even Govee’s own desktop version of the app is limited to a sliver of the features of the mobile equivalent. Why?
This is such a missed opportunity for Govee to own a piece of must-have streamer gear. The hardware is excellent, the effects are impressive and sit there waiting to be unleashed but while I’m live there’s just no easy way to trigger them. If I was able to use hotkeys to quickly change to different animated backgrounds or update the scrolling text effect with a Notepad file I could make the Govee Curtain Light a real feature of my stream. It would take it from being just a light to being a way to engage the community and add value to donations and notifications – as it stands though, it’s just a light.
All isn’t lost though, in theory this is just a case of lacking software connectivity or a more robust API so I’m hopeful there may be developments to unlock this down the line. If things change I’ll be back to update this review, I’ve also asked Govee if there’s a roadmap for this kind of integration.
summed up
The Govee Curtain Light is equal parts excellent and irritating, but in a strange way that’s almost a complement at the same time. The hardware is high quality, the lighting is bold and flicker free and the effects are downright cool.
I just wish I could take full advantage of them as a streamer.
For anyone looking to grab the Govee Curtain Light for general house decoration, jump in. The app will deliver everything you need and I’m confident you’ll be happy with the results. If you’re a streamer thinking this could take your viewer engagement or background to the next level you’ll need to hold fire for now or get very good at navigating the app.
