Two-minute review
You may have been drooling over RGB TVs such as those available from Philips, but these TV sets come with a hefty price tag. Want a similar viewing experience with your current TV without breaking the budget? Then the Govee Immersion TV Backlights should be your next purchase.
It’s very hard to describe the effect that comes when your TV is surrounded by ever-changing lights, but it’s a viewing experience that you truly have to see in person in order to appreciate.
The Govee Immersion does a very good job of adjusting to what’s on screen, and despite the very minor delay in reaction time, it’s still very enjoyable to see swathes of color wash up against your walls during a particularly colorful scene.
Gaming is also similarly affected – whether it’s subtle blues and purples in Ori and the Blind Forest, or a flickering fireplace in Assassin’s Creed, there’s an added sense of depth that changes how your favorite games look and feel. Of course, there are moments where things aren’t quite as fluid, but then again, nothing’s perfect.
Price and availability
The Govee Immersion TV Backlights retail for $71.99 directly from Govee, though due to their popularity they’re regularly out of stock. You can also find it through select third party websites such as Amazon, through pricing may differ accordingly.
Design
There are three main components to the Govee Immersion – the RGBIC light strips, the control box, and the 1080p camera.
The lights themselves are of quite good quality, and come connected to each other. You simply peel off the backing tape and affix the strips to the back of your TV. There are also small support clips you can attach to ensure that the connecting cables are secure as well. There’s a bit of tinkering involved, but once it’s all been fixed in place, it’s not going to move or fall off.
The Govee Immersion works best on 55-65 inch TVs, and while we ended up wrapping it around our Samsung Frame TV for a less than clean look, correct mounting at the back of your TV set will yield the best result. We recommend affixing the lights away from the edge of your TV as well, which gives off the best balance of color.
Setup and performance
Once you’ve physically connected the lights to your TV, your next big decision is the included camera. This can either be mounted at the top or bottom of your TV, and we strongly suggest mounting it at the bottom to try and keep it out of sight.
The Govee Home app will then let you pair the lights with your wireless network, as well as run through a quick calibration process to ensure that the camera has the best view of your TV. The entire setup and configuration process took us around 20 minutes to complete, and once you’re done you can then start enjoying your lights.
The app gives you a ton of control of your lights, including the ability to set different scenes, react to music, or control individual sections of each light strip. You can also pair them with your favorite smart assistant such as Amazon Echo, but the control is fairly limited.
Our overall experience with the Govee Immersion was a lot of fun – we highly recommend turning down the brightness and saturation to get more of a slight glow from the lights, otherwise they’re far too bright and start to distract from what you’re watching.
Nature documentaries came to life in gorgeous shades of green, blue, and yellow, while an action-packed sequence of Guardians of the Galaxy enjoyed pops of neon pink with a smattering of orange and red when there were explosions on screen. Getting the lights to react to music was also quite fun – just make sure the control box can actually pick up the audio properly and isn’t being muffled.
You’ll find some moments where the lights sometimes default to blue or white if the camera can’t make out the right colors, so when this happens it’s a bit jarring as it contrasts sharply with what you’re seeing on screen. But when the kit works, it really does a great job of highlighting almost every color you see, bring a new feeling of immersion to pretty much anything you watch.
The advantage (and disadvantage) the Govee Immersion has over other similar kits is the use of its camera for light syncing rather than using an HDMI sync box. The camera will pick up anything it sees on screen regardless of source, so whether you’re playing on a console or using Netflix through your TV’s built-in app, the Govee Immersion will never have a problem.
The disadvantage of the camera is that it lags behind ever so slightly with what’s going on screen, so it’s never going to be totally in sync. Plus, depending on where you mount your camera, it’s prone to light interference or reflections, so it’s important that you enjoy this best in a dim room. Daytime viewing is pretty much ruined as the lighting effect won’t be so noticeable, so we would save this for movie marathons at night.
Gaming with the Govee Immersion is another fun thing to enjoy. Mario Kart 8 was an absolute dream, with the game’s bright colors spilling on to the walls behind, making for a really gorgeous and fun gaming experience. We can safely say that the Rainbow Road level has never looked this good.
Should I buy the Govee Immersion WiFi TV Backlights?
Buy it if…
You want a new level of immersion
The Govee Immersion is supremely easy to set up, and does an excellent job of bringing whatever’s on screen to life.
You don’t want anything expensive
It’s priced well below similar market offerings, so stop overthinking things and buy one today!
Don’t buy it if…
You’re in a brightly-lit room
Other light sources will easily interfere with the camera here, so if you can’t set this up in a dim room, then you won’t get the best experience.