How much light, where it goes, and how to control it
Guides to curtain lights, tree strings, LED strip, stair and TV backlighting, sunset lamps and projectors.
Curtain light
Six lights, six questions that decide the result
Each guide answers the one question that goes wrong most often: how long, how far, how many, or where.
Curtain lights
Six variants that look identical in the box. Panel size, pixel spacing and which one draws text.
Christmas tree lights
Length by tree height, not bulb count. What a half-dark string tells you before you unwrap it.
TV backlighting
Strip length for the screen size, the corner that always goes dark, and where the sensor sits.
Stair lighting
Under-tread or wall-side, sensor positions, and what must be in place before the plasterer arrives.
Sunset lamps
The distance, angle and wall colour that produce the disc in the photo, and why the room rarely does.
Car ambient lighting
Routing, power from the fuse box, and the reflections you only notice on the first night drive.
What the effects look like at full speed
Three lights running their built-in effects.
Worked out before anything is glued down
Length, power, spacing and fixing, with the figures that the box leaves out.
- LED strip: power and a dim far endWhy the last metre turns orange, and where to inject power on a long run.
- What a light screen can actually showResolution arithmetic, viewing distance, and how many characters of text fit.
- Chaining several panels into one displaySeparate power per panel, data direction, and mapping the order.
- Installing a firework lightHub loading, wall space, tail routing, and the two ways outdoor connectors fail.
- Star projectors: coverage and speedTwo image layers, ceiling coverage at your room height, laser safety.
- Stair running-water lightsSensors, controller channels and the wiring to embed before plastering.
When the light is up and the phone will not talk to it
Pairing, colour order, music sync, voice control and switches.
- Pairing a light for the first timeWhy the device list stays empty, and the order that works.
- Red shows as greenChecking and correcting the colour channel order on strip and string.
- Music sync: three modesPhone microphone, controller microphone or line-in, and why the wrong one feels broken.
- Offline voice controlA fixed command list in the light itself. No account, no network.
- Wireless stick-on switchesA switch where you want one, without a cable to it.
- Frequently asked questionsShort answers on power, distance, water and what happens at the limits.
Products and publisher
Most of the lights covered here are designed and developed in-house across the full stack: the controller inside the light, the client app and the back-end servers.
This site and the related products are published by Long-Term New Media Limited.