The Best LED Lights for TVs in 2023

A smack of color from LED lights for TV screens can amplify the mood in any room, even one with an outdated home entertainment system. Color that glows from these lights surrounds whatever you’re watching and adds an extra layer of awesome, just like every other kind of smart light. This goes double whenever you’re hosting a movie or game night with friends, and can turn even low-key get-togethers into rave-tastic dance parties. These lights pack quite a few surprises and are well within any budget, even if you decide to splurge on the best of the best. Here’s a selection of the best LED lights for TVs. 

— Best Overall: Govee Envisual TV LED Backlights with Camera
— Best Color: Lrodu WiFi Smart LED Light Bars
— Best for 65-inch TV: Nexillumi LED Lights
— Best for Large TVs: EppieBasic LED Light for 85-inch TV
— Best Budget: Govee TV LED Backlight 10 Ft.

How We Picked the Best LED Lights for TVs

Smart lighting is having a bit of a moment right now, from lightbulbs to neon glow strips. These lights offer a wide spectrum of color, brightness, and effects. There’s an entire subsection of smart lights designed to provide accents to televisions and computer monitors. LED (light-emitting diode) lights are far more energy-efficient, glow brighter, and last longer than traditional light strips. This means that you can enjoy their immersive properties for longer, which makes them a fairly good value. Here are the aspects we considered when picking the best LED lights for TVs.

Color Spectrum: In general, you want a set of LED lights for TVs that allows you to choose between a wide variety of colors. Better yet, an LED light strip should be able to display more than one color at once, to make eye-catching gradients and effects.

Brightness: What good are lighting effects if you can’t see them? The best LED lights for TVs should be bold and bright, especially when viewed in dimly lit rooms. A fair amount of brightness settings is also a good feature.

Easy Controls: LED lights for TV, and in fact, many smart lighting systems, operate one of two ways: using a small remote control or a smartphone app. Some devices use both. Both have their place and depending on your lifestyle, you may gravitate toward one control style. Whichever one you choose, it should be responsive, quick, and most of all, easy to use. 

Best LED Lights for TVs: Reviews and Recommendations

Best Overall: Govee Envisual TV LED Backlights with Camera 

Why It Made The Cut: Govee’s Best LED Lights for TVs aren’t just the best and brightest, but the smartest. 

Specs:
— Length: 12 feet, enough for 55 to 65-inch TVs
— Weight: 1.32 pounds
— Number of Light Sources: 150

Pros:
— Segmented color and brightness settings
— Enhanced music mode
— Integrated camera for color optimization

Cons:
— Expensive

Govee is one of the most popular smart light brands, with countless offerings in its line. Its Envisual TV LED Backlights integrate a camera for some seriously immersive color.

The 1080p camera mounts to the top of your television and focuses on whatever you’re watching. Whether you’re streaming “The Great British Baking Show” or enjoying a few rounds of “Super Smash Bros. Ultimate” on your Switch, the lights automatically sync up to the content, to match and amplify whatever is on screen. It truly must be seen to be believed, but it’s a very intuitive feature to be sure. The Govee app (available on App Store and Google Play) provides tons of built-in customizable effects and colors to choose from, and you can control them from your smart device from anywhere. This includes the music mode, which matches color intensity and effects to whatever tunes you’re listening to, so you have the makings of a disco in your living room. All in all, the best overall LED lights for TVs, as long as you don’t mind spending a little more to tap into all these features. 

Best Color: Lrodu WiFi Smart LED Light Bars

Why It Made The Cut: An alternative to strip lights that works with most entertainment centers and game room desktops. 

Specs:
— Length: Two 12.2-inch bars
— Weight: 1.43 pounds
— Number of Light Sources: Two

Pros:
— Control with remote, app, or voice
— Two lights, one power supply
— Incredibly easy installation

Cons:
— Not very bright

There are lots of smart lighting options available for TVs and while strip lights are popular, these light bars are also fairly good at integrating a splash of color into your TV watching.

Instead of lights that you place behind your television, the Lrodu WiFi Smart LED Light Bars mount on either side of a screen, where its colors and effects can flash to bookend whatever is happening on TV. You can control the light colors, effects, and brightness in two ways: a small remote control or an app (available on iOS and Android). If you opt for the app, you can sync these lights to Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa for incredibly user-friendly customization. There’s no need to install these, just place them on either side of a screen and plug them in. They even share a power source. You can have the lights face the viewer, or point them at the wall behind the television, depending on the effects you’re looking for. That said, these lights run a little less bright than the other best LED lights for TVs in this roundup. 

Best for 65-inch TV: Nexillumi LED Lights

Why It Made The Cut: For reliable LED lights for 65-inch TVs, we highly recommend this affordable option.

Specs:
— Length: 13.2 feet, enough for 65 to 75-inch TVs
— Weight: 4.6 ounces
— Number of Light Sources: 120

Pros:
— Operates at a lower voltage
— Dual-control options
— 16 million available colors

Cons:
— Cumbersome remote control

One of the most popular sizes for televisions is 65 inches, and Nexillumi LED Lights are perfect for them. 

Setting them up is fairly simple, and can be done in about five easy steps. Because these lights operate at a lower voltage, you may be able to power them up directly from a USB input inside your television, without the need for a secondary power source. Operating these lights is easy,  whether you opt for the remote control or the app. And while the remote control does offer a fair amount of customization options, users have reported that using it is less than ideal. Remote inputs are laggy, and occasionally completely unresponsive. That said, the app (available on iOS and Google Play) makes the control of these lights incredibly easy, especially when it comes to cycling between the 16 million available colors and several handfuls of effects including ones that make lights twinkle and cycle at different intervals. These are advertised to work with 65-inch TVs, but these LED lights will work with televisions as small as 60 inches to as big as 75 inches. 

Best for Large TVs: EppieBasic LED Light for 85-inch TV

Why It Made The Cut: A big screen is great, but add Eppie Basic Lights into the mix and you have the makings of a home theater. 

Specs:
— Length: 19.4 feet, enough for 82- to 95-inch TVs
— Weight: 7 ounces
— Number of Light Sources: 150

Pros:
— Accommodates massive screens
— Incredibly bright
— Syncs to gaming sounds

Cons:
— Occasionally won’t sync to TV power

How do you make the immersive qualities of a massive television even better? By surrounding it with color from the EppieBasic LED Light, of course.

The EppieBasic LED Light accommodates big 85-inch screens but works with devices as big as 95 inches. The brightness levels are high here to accommodate the size and scope of these LED lights for TVs. Aside from bold color and intense brightness, there are plenty of fun modes to play with, especially if you enjoy gaming on your big screen. Lights sync to music, to flash along with the beat, but they also amplify action when you’re gaming. As powerful as these lights are, this is sometimes to EppieBasic’s detriment. The lights are supposed to sync to your television, but occasionally, they don’t. This means they stay on when the TV is off, or stay off when the TV is on. Aside from this, it’s a fairly stellar set of lights, especially if you do opt for a larger TV size. 

Best Budget: Govee TV LED Backlight 10 Feet 

Why It Made The Cut: A fantastic entry-level TV LED backlight that suits small screens and monitors. 

Specs:
— Length: 12.5 feet, enough for 46 to 60-inch TVs
— Weight: 5.3 ounces
— Number of Light Sources: 90

Pros:
— Reliable app
— Sound sync capabilities
— Tons of built-in effects

Cons:
— Less bright around corners

Govee not only makes our best overall LED lights for TV pick, but it makes the best budget pick as well. 

The value of these Govee lights can’t be oversold. Despite being an inexpensive set of lights, they work with screens as big as 60 inches. Like pricier models, there are plenty of great features here. Lights can sync up to sounds including music, to provide a little more ambiance to whichever room they’re in. Through the Govee app (available on App Store and Google Play) there are tons of available colors and effects that you can switch through at will, and you can even customize your own. The app is incredibly responsive, not to mention easy to set up. And while the lights are fairly bright, expect them to run a little dimmer around the corners. Still, if you’re looking to dip your toes into smart lighting, this is an incredibly easy splurge for most budgets. 

Things To Consider Before Buying LED Lights for TVs

Measure Twice, Install Once

Do you know how big your television screen is? If you purchased it a few years back, you may have forgotten if you purchased a 45-inch screen or a 55-inch screen. Like amateur carpentry, you want to be sure that you know the measurements of your screen before you make any moves, including buying a set of LED lights. Many of the choices in this round-up accommodate at least a couple of different television screen sizes, which could also work well with certain computer monitors as well.

When it comes to installation, cleanliness is in fact next to godliness. The back of your television screen gets mighty dusty, which is a major detriment to installing LED lights for the long haul. We recommend cleaning the back of your screen with a lightly moistened cloth, just to remove surface dust. If there are any grimy stains back there, consult your TV manufacturer for recommended cleaning instructions. Allow any surface moisture to dry completely before installing your light strip, and ensure that there’s a power source within reach.  

Picking the Right LED Light Style

The most popular LED lights are strip lights that mount behind your television and emit light at the wall behind your TV. However, there are countless popular LED light styles that would work into any living room or home theater TV setup. All of these are made by Govee, which also makes our overall best pick.

Wall Scones: These scones are mini-spotlights, and can be placed on the wall where your TV is, right above the main seating area, or just about anywhere in the room. They emit light upwards or downwards, depending on how you mount them.

Glide Wall Lights: If modular design is more your thing, this six-piece wall light set provides quite a few different possibilities. These individual strips can be placed behind the TV just like standard LED lights for TV, or slightly above the screen.

Neon Rope Light: For those that are creative (and patient) this neon rope light provides more freedom than any other LED light for TVs. These lights are bendable, and can be molded into a myriad of different designs and then mounted anywhere near a TV. Granted, if the design is interesting enough, it may distract from the main screen.

FAQs

Q. What is the best LED light color for watching TV?

For immersive TV watching, we recommend the light behind your TV be dark. This allows for colors to come in a little clearer. 

Q. Are LED lights for TV worth it?

Whether LED Lights for TV are worth it or not depends on what you want out of your viewing experience. Adding effects can also amplify your viewing experience when watching movies, TV, or gaming. 

Q. Are LED lights for TV bad for the eyes?

Placing LED lights for TVs provides ambient light behind your screen that can help reduce eye strain. This is known as bias lighting, and can help protect your eyes from strain. 

Q. How do you stick LED strip lights to a TV?

Installing LED lights for TVs depends on the product you opt for, but in general, these light strips attach to the back of your television screen. 

Q. Can I cut LED strip lights?

Many different LED strip lights have spaces that you can cut to accommodate different screen sizes. You should never simply cut through a light strip before consulting your user manual, especially when the lights are plugged into a power source. 

Q. How do you keep LED strips from falling off the TV?

LED strip lights shouldn’t fall once installed. To ensure that they stay attached, ensure that the spot on your television where they are installed is clean and dry. 

Final Thoughts on LED Lights for TV

Adding one of the best LED lights for TVs to your entertainment center adds a smack of color to just about everything that you watch. The Govee Envisual TV LED Backlights with Camera is our overall best pick, because it’s smart enough to respond to live content on your TV. If you’re not looking to splurge, the Govee TV LED Backlight 10 Foot is incredibly affordable and packs many of the same features as its more expensive counterpart.

Futurism may receive a portion of sales on products linked within this post.