LED Strip Light Buyer’s Guide: Choose The Right Strip

When looking at most modern interior designs — especially for kitchens — most will feature the use of LED Strips. These fantastic strips can accent a space to highlight areas and give more depth to a room. Not to mention be useful, too. 

For example, placing them throughout shelving to highlight the objects on the shelves, under kitchen cabinets to help with food preparation, or even inside cabinets to prevent them from becoming dark boxes.

However, when it comes to buying LED Lighting Strips, it can get a bit confusing. Do you want 12 or 24 volts? COB or SMD chips? How are you going to install them? 

Our LED light strips last for many years without maintenance, so it’s important to make the right choice!

In this buyer’s guide, we’ll break down each aspect you should consider, so you can make sure you get the right LED Light Strips for your home.

LED Lighting Strip Buying Considerations

LED Strips are very convenient and can help you save a fair amount of money every year in terms of electricity. To illustrate where this lighting solution truly shines, and the different varieties there are, let’s walk through the different choices you make when buying an LED Strip. 

Voltage: 12 vs 24 Volts

Whether you need a 12 or a 24-volt LED strip will greatly depend on the distance you’re planning to run them. Typically, 12-volt LED strips are better suited for shorter distances, whereas their 24-volt counterparts are ideal for applications where greater areas need to be covered. 

Typically, a 12V strip can cover around 20m, while 24v can cover up to 40m without losing luminosity. 

Although LED strips have length limitations, with a bit of thought and some planning, there are a number of ways to get the length you need. For example:

1)       Connect a separate driver to each strip (Not always possible as you could need a lot of AC connections). 

2)       Run a cable from the driver to each strip

            OK, but can be messy, involve a lot of cable and with the longer cable lengths perhaps suffering from voltage drop

3)       Left-right configuration

This is the best option as there is very little DC cable run which makes it very tidy and ensures there is no voltage drop. For installing LED strips around the perimeter of a room the drivers are best situated in diagonally opposite corners of the room.

With 12V LED strip a circumference of 20m can be covered:

            With 24V LED strip a circumference of a massive 40m can be covered (much bigger than most domestic rooms):

In a nutshell, if you’re looking to light smaller spaces over shorter distances, you’re better off with a 12-volt LED strip light. But if, on the other hand, you want to light larger areas over greater distances, then something like our 5-metre EcoBrite 24V 60 LED per metre Strip Light, which comes in colour temperatures of 3000K, 4000K, and 6000K will be ideal. 

This product also comes with a 30,000-hour estimated lifespan, a 3-year warranty, and a 28-day money-back guarantee. 

Chip Type: COB or SMD

Another question we often get from our customers is what the difference between COB and SMD lights is. And luckily, the answer is very simple. 

First, let’s get down to the basics. 

COB stands for “chip on board”, whereas SMD stands for “surface mounted device”. The former has many small LED chips packed close together that are mounted directly onto a board, which gives them a smooth look with no visible light dots. 

SMD LED strip lights, on the other hand, have individual LED bulbs spread along the strip—small dots are visible, and they typically have a 33% narrower lighting degree than COB strip lights due to their design and housing. If you want an in-depth look into each LED strip light type, make sure to check out our full comparison between COB and SMD strip lights.

Interested in a COB variant? Our 5-metre EcoBrite 24V Single Colour COB LED Strip is ideal for bars, clubs, boats, and any other application that requires long-distance lighting. This product comes in three different white temperatures, 3000K/4000K/6000K. They also have a total light output of 4,500 Lumens and a beam angle of 180 degrees. 

Do You Need An LED Driver?

Now that you know more about LED strip lights, you might be wondering whether you need an LED driver to pair one with. And the answer is, yes. At least in most cases. 

Pairing your SMD or COB LED strip lights with an LED driver will not only protect them from power surges and provide great AC/DC conversion, but also prevent flickering. Not to mention that many LED drivers can be used outdoors in wet locations, making them ideal as a complement to 24-volt LED strip lights. 

LED Light Strip Installation

Typically, installing LED strip lights is extremely simple and doesn’t take more than 10 minutes. Most LED strip lights these days come with a strong adhesive at the back that’s ideal for installing them wherever you need them. 

Here are some quick and easy steps you can follow: 

1. Clean the surface where you’ll be sticking the LED strip lights and let it dry completely afterwards. Ideally, you’ll want to choose materials like wood, plastic, vinyl, or metal for your LED strip lights, as trying to stick them to textured surfaces doesn’t always work. 
2. Remove the protective peel at the back of the LED strip light to reveal the adhesive. 
3. Stick the LED strip light to the surface you want. Make sure to start near a wall outlet so you can plug it in comfortably and with little slack so it’s not visible. 
4. Keep sticking the LED strip light until you’re comfortable with the length and position of the product. 
5. Cut off the excess and discard what remains. Unfortunately, once you cut the LED strip light, the residue will no longer work. So, as they say, measure twice, cut once. 

Products like our 5-metre EcoBrite 24V 5050 60 LED per metre RGBW LED Strip Light can be customized to change to any colour in the RGBW palette, and can also come in different colour temperatures. Here are some of the options available:

• RGB + 3000K (Warm White)
• RGB + 4000K (Natural White)
• RGB + 6000K (Daylight White)

This makes the product ideal to stick under your kitchen countertop, a bar area, and even behind your TV or PC setup to give it a lively look. 

Should You Buy An LED Strip Light?

If you’re looking for a durable lighting solution that’s cheap to run, customisable, and requires little to no maintenance throughout its lifespan, then absolutely, you should opt for an LED Strip Light over a fluorescent lightbulb any day.

Despite LED lights’ higher upfront cost, you’ll quickly discover that they pay for themselves in the long run. 

If you have any questions regarding our products, please do not hesitate to email us at enquiries@ledsave.co.uk, or give us a ring at 01652 638840. We’re open Monday–Friday, 9 a.m.–5 p.m. Please check out our contact page for more information.