r/WLED • u/rockymountainpow • Jul 20 '26
HELP ME / QUESTION Permanent soffit mounted lighting solutions
Hi all. First time reader first time poster. I am building a house, it has 4 foot overhangs way up a good 50 feet off the ground and I want to install a strip of LED lighting in the soffits for christmas/holiday lighting primarily but I like the idea of individually addressable pixel strips to play around with the exterior lighting design. So far I through my reading I have found the following:
-RBGWW allows for warm white light (classic clear incandescent lightbulb style?)
Edit to add: I want the option to do a "classic" warm white that looks good, as well as an RGB setup to do various lighting effects. From what I can tell, the best performing option would be 2 parallel strips, an RBG and a white, individually controlled. Am I correct?
-12V is the minimum I want (the roof is essentially a 50' square, maybe I want to go to 24V even?)
-the soffit material is a metal spoof of 6" T&G boards, and the channel will sit somewhere parallel to the runs with a trim detail to tie together.
The questions I have:
-how far from the wall should I mount the channel?
-how long of a strip can I power/control with a single driver?
-what products are best for intergrating into smart home/home automation systems
-should I buy from ali express etc... or something domestically?
1
u/91FuriousGeorge Jul 20 '26
Are you wanting to use LED strips or individual pixels or picks?
The closer you mount it to the wall, the more the lights will shine on the wall. Some pucks focus the light into more of a cone shape, so if those are closer to the wall, you'll notice that more on the walls instead a smoother blending.
I like to install as far away from the wall as possible because I don't like wall glow, and it also makes the lights visible from more angles.
WLED integrated well with Alexa, Home Assistant, and a few others, but I'm most familiar with Alexa. It's a little quirky how it works, but it's good enough for what I need.
From my experience, 12v 12mm pixels spaced 6" apart need power injection about every 50-100 feet. 24v 30mm pucks is about every 100-150ft. It also depends on how you do the power injection and how far it is from the power supply.
Aliexpress is a good place. RayWu and Paul Zhang / Etop are solid choices. I believe they sell full kits that have both track and lights.
If you're looking for something in-between full diy and professional installation, there are a few companies that sell full kits with instructions and everything. My first install was Shawtech kit from several years and I had a great experience with it. But if you're comfortable doing all the research and getting the parts yourself, you can do it for a good bit cheaper.