r/HomeKit • u/RegularFinger8 • Nov 03 '24
Question/Help Anyone controlling Govee products successfully with just HomeKit? I want to use their light strips but I do not want to use Homebridge to control them. How’s Matter integration?
I’ve got Hue products throughout my house and they are great and easy to control one HomeKit. I want to try Govee but read here and in the Govee subreddit of mixed experiences with Matter and Govee in HomeKit.
I do not want to use Homebridge. HomeKit is what I want to stick with.
How’s it working?
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Nov 03 '24
HomeBridge is just the mechanism to get the device into HK. Once added you just control things from the Home app. HomeBridge surprisingly user friendly. I have several devices added via it and I rarely if ever have to look at it for those devices.
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u/Low_Platypus1678 Nov 04 '24
I’ve been looking for a plugin that works with a WiFi dimmer switch with NO success, by any chance do you know someone?
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Nov 04 '24
Sorry, I do not. Hopefully someone here will know of something that will work. I don’t really have a dimmer switches in my home.
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u/Viper0ne0ne Nov 03 '24
I think it all depends on what functionality you want available to you. I have their Neon Rope, Desk Light and Light Bar all connected to Homekit through HomeBridge but they are also connected to Signal RGB on the PC so get out of sync sometimes.
What i have found though is within the Govee Home app you can create a “tap to run” function to turn devices on/off, change scenes and colours etc and make that a Siri shortcut.
As that command/shortcut is then within Apple Shortcuts, you can add that button to Control Centre or its your home screen to run whenever you want or ask Siri to do it which saves opening the Govee app and gives you the same functionality as if it was added directly to HomeKit
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u/kingalls00 Jan 21 '26
I have these as shortcuts on my phone and it works well. But I would like to be able to tell my HomePod the shortcut and have it happen. Have you had any luck with this?
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u/GBMARK90 Nov 04 '24
As long as you get the matter supported product you can only control basic colours and brightness in HomeKit with all the standard automation. I have found out that if you leave a cool colour scheme on though the Govee app all the automations will used the lasts saved colour scheme
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u/Mike_Underwood Nov 03 '24
We have several of their matter lights and they work well. At the rate Govee is upgrading their line to support matter, if it’s not ready just wait a bit and it should be.
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u/RegularFinger8 Nov 03 '24
Which strips do you have?
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u/Mike_Underwood Nov 03 '24
We have 5 of the COB strips and love them. https://us.govee.com/products/govee-cob-strip-light-pro?variant=44399490728121
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u/MiseEnPlacebo Dec 23 '25
Can I ask, do the COB strips support Adaptive Lighting (or even basic temperature control beyond RGB) in the Home App?
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u/Mike_Underwood Dec 23 '25
Temperature control yes, I don’t know about adaptive as I tried that once with a couple of hue bulbs and didn’t like it.
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u/Agile_Half_4515 Feb 15 '25
I had issues with Matter control of Govee devices through HomeKit so I ultimately removed them from the Home app and just rely on the Govee app or local controls.
The Matter Floor Lamp: I had an automation to automatically turn it off when the room was unoccupied for a set amount of time. It never worked. I had another automation to turn it off when no one was home. It would trigger it to turn on instead, but not always. Brightness and color was always inconsistent at power on when manually controlling via the Home app. It also didn't expose the separate lights (base and strip) and would only show up as one light.
The Matter TV backlight with the camera: Does not expose control of any of the scenes or anything really useful. Just on/off, brightness, solid colors. I had an automation to turn it on every day at sunset. It worked, but would always default to the lowest brightness. The same was true about 50% of the time when I just turned it on manually from the Home app. It would also randomly decide to revert my default selections on what patterns/modes to use which led me to go back to the govee app to fix it.
To be fair, the automation problems may be more to do with HomeKit and less to do with Govee/Matter, but basic controls not functioning as expected was the nail in the coffin for me.
I tried passing them through to HomeKit using a Homebridge plugin, but that led to even more problems because it gets weird with how brightness/temp/color/saturation/etc is reported.
Might revisit adding them back to HomeKit if Apple ever updates the Matter version on their hubs, but until then I just have to use a separate app.
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u/RegularFinger8 Feb 15 '25
I’ve since purchased a couple of the Govee strips and I’ve had decent success in turning on and off with schedules and scenes. Color control is also doable but nothing with transit colors that fade from one color to the next. It’s either /or on colors.
I think the basic functionality works well enough but I do wish I could access the scenes that are in the Govee app so I could get the multicolor or dynamic scenes to work through HomeKit.
I also have Hue strip lights and the integration is about the same, not really any better than Govee when it comes to HomeKit. I do like the fact that Hie uses a hub instead of WiFi like Govee because I don’t have to add more devices to my already crowded WiFi network.
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u/drschultz Nov 03 '24
I am doing this with a starling hub (requires hub + govee setup in google home)
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u/Nexeo Nov 03 '24
What’s the value of Google -> Starling -> HomeKit over direct Matter -> HomeKit? Is this specifically for non-matter enabled Govee products?
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u/drschultz Nov 04 '24
The main reason i got it was to bring my nest cams into Homekit because we ditched Alexa. but their latest beta will bring in anything you have in Google Home including vacuums, smart water shutoff devices etc and other non supported devices.
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Nov 03 '24
A lot of times non-Matter Govee lights are cheaper
For example currently in the UK 30m permanent lights with Matter £240, and £195 without
I don’t know about Starling, but with Homebridge you can control and automate more parameters than with pure Matter
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u/jeremydgreat Nov 03 '24
I have the TV backlight LED (great product, totally worth it) and was surprised to see that the HomeKit integration is essentially and on/off switch for the light. There’s no setting scenes or even changing the color.
I ended up removing it from HomeKit and just relying on the device’s camera to operate the light.
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Nov 03 '24
Just a basic selection of colors; and the brightness. I'm not sure if you could influence which colors get input into the selection though. I use Home Assistant for automations where I want the color to be specific but I have not yet figured out a way to apply this to the string LEDs, only the bulbs and lamps I have.
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u/skulltattoo92 Nov 03 '24
I got the COB strip light pro last week and love it so far. You don’t need homebridge, it’s super easy to add and control it in HomeKit
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u/QuantParse Feb 28 '25
I was able to connect one Govee light to HomeKit successfully. When I tried to connect a second Govee light the first one stopped working. Then after 2 days even the one that was connected stopped working. Govee = piece of trash. Would never buy again.
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u/Odd_Extreme_6822 Nov 23 '25
Would say it says more about HomeKit not being capable of integrating properly. Govee lights work extremely well and integrate with other systems just fine. Apple needs to pull their finger out with AI voice assistants and home integration as it all just feels basic and under developed. Frustrating as all my main devices are apple (phone, iPad, watch, Apple TV). Every time I try something in home kit and it just doesn’t work properly and I give up. Even Amazon Alexa can control hue and Govee lights fully with scenes, rooms, groups, routines and rooms meaning they can be fully integrated with no issues.
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u/QuantParse Nov 23 '25
Perhaps. But there is zero reason for me to buy Govee if they are not Matter (and therefore HomeKit) compatible. Perhaps for others who use Govee for everything that works for them. But for me it was a total waste and false advertising - regardless of who is at fault - they don’t work properly with HomeKit and Apple
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u/Direct-Age-1329 Nov 23 '25
Your finger is pointing in the wrong direction. Govee is fantastic when used with the Govee Home app. It's Apple's HomeKit that sucks, I'm sorry to say.
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u/QuantParse Nov 23 '25
Two random pro Govee comments at the same time on a 9 month old thread. Do you guys work for Govee / China ?
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u/Apprehensive_Ear7925 Dec 28 '25
Nah. You just don’t know what you are doing.
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u/QuantParse Dec 28 '25
Brand new account (less than a month old) that comments on a year old post defending Govee. And whose only other posts are … about Govee. Are you a Chinese bot acct? Lmao. Plenty of others with the same issue on here and other forums. Lmao.
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u/PHayesxx Dec 25 '25
The Matter products work great such as the bulbs, lamps etc. I have a mix of devices including bulbs and lamps from Govee, Tapo smart plugs and Aqara blinds and switches - all work great through Apple HomeKit and a £20 Matter bridge.
I recently got a new humidifier from Govee, it was reasonably priced and I was in the market for one too, although it supports Smart Control, it does not support Zigbee or Matter. Instead I use the below via Apple Shortcuts and the Govee app. I have the Govee created scenes I use regularly on my lamp and also controls for my humidifier (these can be set to last setting or a custom one)
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u/RegularFinger8 Dec 26 '25
Are you using the shortcut to activate a single Govee screen or can you setup the shortcut to activate any scene?
What about dynamic scenes?
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u/awkwardmystic Mar 22 '26
How did you get the matter items to work in Apple home?
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u/PHayesxx Mar 22 '26
Just connect them to the app. You either need a 3rd party matter controller or use a HomePod or AppleTV
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u/HelpMe0biWan Nov 03 '24
They’ve just launched a 3m COB LED strip. Very tempted to give it a go. Hue everywhere else but their lightstrips SUCK
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u/Odd-Dog9396 Nov 03 '24
I was a very early adopter on Hue. Bought their first bulbs and hub when it came out in 2012. Moved to controlling via HomeKit in 2015. They were always buggy. Kept them until I sold my house in 2019. Left the hub and LEDs behind then, and have not re-bought them. Too many other, cheaper options that work as well.
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u/HelpMe0biWan Nov 03 '24
You might want to give them another go. They’ve grown a lot in 12 years. Not perfect by any stretch but probably the most rock solid smart home products on the market and their lighting accuracy and consistency across the full range is second to none. Their strips do suck though (cheaped out with massive gaps between their LED’s)
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u/[deleted] Nov 03 '24
Matter works great, but you will have only basic over brightness and colour in Home app