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Many people tend to think that—as I used to do—living in Taiwan will expose me to a lot of technologically advanced equipment. To some extent this is correct. For example, the country's use of contactless cards and online purchase of train tickets is far ahead of most Western countries. However, although some components may come from Taiwan, some more basic smart home products are still difficult to obtain. A typical example is the Trådfri series of smart home devices and related products. Although the company’s Trådfri series has been around for at least a few years, Taiwan’s IKEA is only now beginning to see a trickle of these smart home products on local shelves. Although IKEA is very popular in Taiwan. We now have Omlopp spotlights, IKEA remotes, motion sensors and smart plugs, as well as Trådfri 10w and 30w drives, but strangely, there are not many others. In fact, Trådfri gateway is still not for sale in Taiwan! It is a good job to provide international shipping...

So, with this in mind, today I am reviewing a product purchased from IKEA UK, controlled by a remote control and LED driver purchased in Taiwan, and exposed to HomeKit through a Zigbee gateway purchased in the United States...whoop! The product reviewed in question is of course Myrvarv LED strips.

If you are fully familiar with IKEA, you will know that prices are usually low, but design quality is usually high. This does not apply to packaging, it is simple, non-descriptive, and also follows a theme or pattern. This aesthetic is perfectly reflected in the packaging of Myrvarv. Everything you need to know is in front, including bar length, lumens, power requirements and basic functions, everything is very simple, just like their manual;

There is a manual inside the box, the strap itself, with the power cord connected*, and an envelope containing a set of clips, which can be pasted using the enclosed screws or double-sided tape.

If you are not familiar with Trådfri, then you definitely need some devices to make them smart and expose them to HomeKit. For example, all of their smart devices need Trådfri gateways to make them functionally "smart", which not only allows devices to interact with each other in the IKEA smart app, but is also essential for getting devices into HomeKit. In the case of Myrvarv, not only do you need a gateway, you also need IKEA to describe it as a "steering device", in this case a Trådfri remote control. The steering device acts as a middleman, initially enabling the device to communicate with the gateway. This is a weird setting, but it is just that. If the remote control can use the remote control to achieve functions, it will also be paired with the device you ultimately use.

For Myrvarv, you also need a Trådfri 30W driver, which can power up to 9 independent lights via a bus connector. Finally, you will need to power the above drivers! This is the Fornima power cord, which is provided separately. Therefore, the connection chain is like this;

As you can see, this is much more complicated than the standard HomeKit compatible light strip, which has a built-in transformer, power supply and control device, and can be directly connected to your WiFi network (such as Vocolinc L2) or directly to a hub ( Such as Hue light strips), but there are some advantages, especially if you have several light strips, all in one area, you want to control them as a whole. Trådfri Driver only needs one socket to accommodate up to nine independent light sources, and all lights can be controlled at the same time, because it is the driver that is exposed to HomeKit, not a single light.

Unlike standard light strips, Myrvarv is equipped with a diffuser to "diffuse" the light from a single LED, so the light strip has a more uniform solid line of light. The Philips Hue Outdoor light strip also uses a diffuser, which also helps to protect the light strip and internal electronics from elements. Since the strip must reach the drive, the drive is likely to be located at a considerable distance, the cable that comes with Myrvarv is very long (sorry, I haven't measured it...), so it should be long enough for most cases. At the end of the strip is a lid. If you decide to cut the strip at some point and want to close the diffuser again, the extra items in the box also include a spare lid. The end of the power cord plugged into the drive is a two-pin socket that can be plugged into the external bus that comes with the 30W drive.

The diffuser that contains the LEDs uses silicone rubber, so it is flexible, but also a bit tactile, so it does attract dust and hair easily, although it is not a real problem if the strip is hidden or checked far enough away. The back of the strip has a cutting mark because the strip can be cut. As far as we know, the strip cannot be extended, but if you want a strip longer than two meters, you can buy another strip and plug it into the existing driver. As you can see in the third picture, the strip actually seems to utilize two diffusion layers, one is the inner layer and the other is the outer layer. This makes you wonder what the lumen output will look like after removing these diffusers.

I started to test the strips at various levels and in the brightest case, when I use a blue background, it does look cool white in the image above, although this is only for the brightness level, it is not so Important. If you want to pay attention to the difference in brightness, it is best to pay attention to the illumination level of the background layer in the above image, which represents the brightness levels of 100%, 75% and 50%.

Below 50%, you start to see the warm white color of the bands, set to the following levels in the above case; 25%, 10%, 5%, and 1%. Once below 10%, there is almost no discernible difference in brightness, which seems to be common in many LED lighting products. At about 10%, you also start to see the prompts of the individual LEDs themselves. Whether this is important depends on personal choice, but in terms of the length of the light, it still looks quite "sturdy". So far, the only company I have seen that solves the problem of extremely low brightness is Yeelight. Many of its ceiling lamps, bedside lamps, and table lamps include "night" or "moon" modes, which can achieve super low brightness levels. At least in the case of IKEA Myrvarv, it may never have thought of going down to a very low level, so who knows.

If you have not explored the world of LED strips, you may ask what makes Myrvarv unique. Well, it really just boils down to the "diffuser" that comes with it (not the essential oil diffuser, such as Vocolinc Flowerbud...), it just diffuses the light, making the LED a less obvious point of light. As shown above, the result is a basically continuous light strip, while in the above example, you can see a standard LED light strip, which will show different light spots when viewed directly.

The main LED strips are intended to be hidden, for example behind a TV or sofa, or maybe under a kitchen cabinet or hidden behind a small bay. The result of this type of processing largely eliminates the above-mentioned "spot" problem, because you often only see the reflected light, which is diffused by the surface irradiated by the LED. The only difference with Myrvarv is that you don't need to hide the strips at all to achieve a similar effect. However, some people think that it is preferable not to see the light directly even when using a diffuser, but only to see the reflected light from the environment. So it depends on whether you are looking for something that mimics bar lighting, I guess.

Since Myrvarv is very basic in the type of light it produces-warm white / 2700k-you don't have any option to change the color temperature, so although the tiles in the Home app allow you to turn the strips on or off, a long press gives you access to The slider control for brightness adjustment, you only need to display one color. This is the standard configuration for any lamp set to one color temperature, for example, I have used a warm white light bulb with a basic hue for about four years.

Just a reminder, all lights connected to the driver will be controlled by this tile, because the tile actually represents the driver, even if the slider controls one or more lights. Unlike group lights, different lights connected to a driver cannot be separated.

Installation is very easy, although in my case, I have a few washing machines, which somewhat hinders easy access. Nevertheless, it did not take long to install the clip on the window frame. Since the frame here is made of metal, I did not use screws to install the clips, but instead relied on double-sided tape. For some reason, the laundry room only installed a wall lamp on one end, so it didn't really cover the other side, especially when drying clothes. The light strip is not only placed on the opposite side of the wall lamp, but also covers the area not covered by the wall lamp, which greatly solves the problem of providing sufficient light for the laundry room. Although there are two large windows during the day, it is not necessary in most cases. As you can see in the fourth picture, the strips do not look so bright during the day.

I am happy to say that at night, this is a completely different story, and the strips provide enough light coverage, which was not there before. There is a naked light strip here, which may still be strange to some people, but it is essentially no different from a fluorescent tube, except that it consumes less power and has adjustable brightness, not to mention intelligent control.

As mentioned at the beginning of the review, due to the lack of IKEA smart home products in Taiwan, I am a recent user. With this in mind, I am very afraid of not only adding another Zigbee hub to my setup, but also another ecosystem, basically because I have heard about various issues related to Trådfri products and their reliability. My concerns are a bit misplaced, because the setup is actually much easier and no problem than I feared. I guess when I started to try, IKEA managed to solve a lot of problems.

My first foray into IKEA smart devices deliberately started with lighting, just to reduce costs, just in case it becomes "pear-shaped", so I won't buy Fyrtur blinds at the beginning, even if they are available here now. In any case, Myrvarv is not an exciting device, but it is really suitable for two levels of work; first, it easily solves the lighting problem in my laundry room. Secondly, because the strip itself has a built-in double diffuser, there is no need to hide the strip.

Are there any disadvantages? Well, yes and no. I could just use a spare smart strip (I have a few...) and save myself some money, or I could even use a dumb strip and plug it into a smart plug (I have a few...). Any one of these solutions requires some form of light diffuser, which, in all fairness, is still cheaper than buying the required components—strips, gateways, 30W drivers, driver’s power cords, and "steering gear." It all works together. All in all, I spent more money, so if you want to save money, just follow my advice. However, one thing I am trying to avoid now is to add more WiFi-based devices to my WiFi network, so adding WiFi smart plugs or light bars is no longer suitable for me. In addition, IKEA does provide some interesting lighting solutions and designs, but many do not, so as you add more things, the initial expenditure of the center will decrease over time. The need to buy a separate power cord for the drive may seem strange at first, but since you can daisy-chain these drives, it makes sense to provide you with the option to buy the type of cable you need instead of providing an inappropriate cable. One is needed sometimes, and only one cable running between the two drivers is needed. The demand for the steering device seems strange, although the device I bought doubles as a switch, so it is not a complete waste anyway.

How does it perform? It's really good, basically. I am worried that my gateway and the driver are separated and stripped by the thick wall which will cause immediate problems, but it has been 100% responsive, and so far (2 months as of this writing), neither of them has been disconnected. As I said before, so far, any doubts about IKEA's smart products have disappeared. It would be nice to have the option of extending the strip, but in my special case, the 2 meter long strip is actually too long, and considering that the driver should be able to handle three such strips at the same time, the strip was extended Pointless. One thing I would like is the color temperature option; it is not needed in the laundry room, but if used in a home office, cool white would be more useful. For now, you only have warm white.

If you need such a solution and have already started using IKEA's smart solution, then it is definitely worth it, even if it includes the price of the drive and the power cord, both of which are very reasonable. All in all, for me, getting into IKEA is much less than I worry about, and it's still a bit weird even if the steering device is needed, and it's easy to add straps. All in all, this is a good start for more purchases...

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