Govee Floor Lamp Pro and Floor Lamp 2 Review: My Favorite Way to Add Ambiance

7.5/ 10
SCORE

Govee Floor Lamp 2

Pros

• Great light dispersion
• Lighted base is a nice touch
• Good color saturation
• Matter support at launch

Cons

• Fewer preset scenes
• No Bluetooth speaker
• Glossy plastic base

Generally, when we think of a smart light, we think of a bulb or a strip. While Govee makes those more traditional smart lighting products, the brand does a great job of stretching the perception of smart lights and lighting in general with various designs. Govee recently updated the original Lyra Floor Lamp with the Govee Floor Lamp Pro and Floor Lamp 2.

These floor lamps are designed so that the light faces the wall — corners work really well — and the light can “paint” your wall with a glow of any of the 16 million-plus colors available, including a range of whites. The way these lamps add illumination to a room is pretty unusual. However, there are some drawbacks and differences between the two models. And I don’t just mean the price.

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Design and hardware

In the most basic sense, these two lamps look the same as the first model. The light source is an LED strip in a silicone casing that acts as a diffuser, which snaps into an aluminum tube. The tube is attached to the circular base, and you get a metal clip that mounts to the metal part of the tube, and the included remote magnetically attaches to it. 

Govee upgraded the light strip quality and the base of the lights. The technology used is still RGBICWW, which means the light strip can show multiple colors simultaneously and has dedicated white LEDs, but Govee has put more nodes per strip. This allows for better color representation and means the lamps are brighter than before. The Govee Floor Lamp Pro is about 7 inches taller than the Floor Lamp 2 and 375 lumens brighter. 

The Floor Lamp 2 is available only in black, but silver is coming. The base and aluminum frame that holds the LED strip are color-matched with the base, getting a glossy finish. But as you reach the bottom of the base, the black finish fades away and becomes clear. This is where the upgrade comes into play, because Govee added LEDs to the base, so it also glows. Within the Govee companion app, you can control the base independently from the main lights if you want.

Govee added more flair to the base of the Floor Lamp Pro with a fabric covering in gray or black. You’ll still get the new lighting effects in the base as you do on the Lamp 2. However, the Floor Lamp Pro has an extra trick that’s missing from its counterpart: a Bluetooth speaker in the base.

The speaker can act like any other Bluetooth speaker you’ve used by pairing it to your phone to play audio. The audio gets quite loud and is clear at lower volumes, but it can start to distort as you pump up the volume. But Govee has also built some preset white noise sounds into the app for things like rain, nature, rivers and more. Some of the preset lighting scenes — we’ll get more into that in a later section — have sounds that match up with the lights for a more immersive experience.

Both of these lamps are well-built and offer a clean, minimalist style that looks good in almost any room. The upgraded LED strips and the illuminated bases are great additions to the new lamps.

Making it glow

One area Govee has always impressed me is its app and its customization options. Aside from simply turning the light on and adjusting the brightness, the app allows you to choose the color of the lamp and the base. While you can pick from over 80 different preset scenes with names like Glacier, Sunset, Moonlit Night, Birthday and Romantic, keep in mind that the Floor Lamp Pro does offer more preset options than the Floor Lamp 2.

These preset scenes offer color changes and motion to paint your walls with vibrant light. But aside from passively providing ambiance to your room, some of the scenes also react to music by utilizing the microphone in the lamp’s base or your phone’s microphone, depending on your choice. If you don’t like any of the scenes, the app lets you create your own with different lighting effects and lots of colors.

Controlling your lights with the app is only one way to manage the lamps. Govee’s floor lamps also integrate with Alexa and Google Assistant for voice control, and the Floor Lamp 2 is Matter-ready out of the box. The Floor Lamp Pro will pick up the feature in a future update. You can always use the included remote if you don’t want to use voice or your phone to control the lamps.

But you can go even further in lighting controls by using another helpful smart home device, a motion sensor or the app to set your lamps to power on and off automatically at certain times of the day.

Should you buy a Govee Floor Lamp?

If you’re looking for ways to add more light or some unique ambiance to your home with a less traditional-style fixture, you absolutely should. Govee has been making some of my favorite smart lights for years, and the original Lyra floor lamp has been a staple in my home. These upgraded lights are better in every way, with improved LED strips that provide better color reproduction and brightness. 

The new lamp base brings improved styling, and the added LEDs are great. With the Govee Floor Lamp Pro, the Bluetooth speaker in the base is a nice touch and does bring some fun features, but it may not be a big selling point to some. It really depends on your use case and where you plan to place the lamp in your home. Overall, both of these lights are great and would be an illuminating choice for your home.