Hello, my name is Patrick and welcome to my review.
I’m a mid 30’s Australian who likes to collect knives, torches and other EDC type gadgets.
As a collector and hobby reviewer, I am always searching for the ultimate “Buy It Once For Life” product that I can genuinely recommend to other people. I am a firm believer in “value for money” which to me means that a product should be something that is reliable, high quality and could potentially last a very long time. A well informed decision is a good decision, so through many hours of research and years of personal experience, I aim to deliver clear, honest reviews that cover the good, the bad and everything in between.
The new Olight Ostrip is very different to the usual things that I test and review. The Olight Sphere was my first foray into the world of ambient lighting and I have since learned a lot about different types of LED lighting solutions across this genre. I really love the Sphere and found it to be such a great solution for a variety of different ambient lighting needs. But what about the Ostrip?
Well unlike the Olight Sphere, the Ostrip isn’t something you can just carry around. It is designed to service a more heavy duty need in a more permanent location. So how does it work? What can it do? What could you use it for? And how does it compare to other LED RGB light strips you can find at a regular lighting or hardware store?
I will endeavor to answer all of these questions and more in the following review. But first, let's take a quick look at the Ostrip and see what it’s all about.
Overview
The Olight Ostrip is a 5 volt Smart RGB LED Strip Light system that comes with a removable USB-A power cable. Inside the box you get the Ostrip, the included USB-A power cable, 8 plastic mounting clamps with accompanying screws and a very well folded instruction manual.
The Ostrip LED light strip itself measures a total of 5 metres (16.4 feet) in length plus an additional 1.5 metres (4.9 feet) of length from the power cable. There are approximately 30 LEDs per metre (30/m) or 150 LED’s in total. This gives you plenty of length to play with and is more than enough to cover the majority of your strip lighting needs as it can be cut down to whatever length you require.
The Ostrip comes with a thin, clear silicon type coating that covers the top face of the LED strip to protect it from small amounts of moisture. How much moisture? Well the manual states the Ostrip has a waterproof rating of IP24 - which essentially means it is suitable for indoor use only.
The LED strip itself has adhesive backing and it is good to see Olight went for the premium 3M brand as that is probably the most highly regarded adhesive backing brand in the industry, so I feel that is a really nice touch.
Being only 5 Volts means the Ostrip won’t break the bank from crazy amounts of power consumption and it also means you can safely run this from a laptop or other powered USB ports including a power bank or portable phone charger. However, for best results I would recommend using a standard USB adapter plugged into a regular wall outlet as that is what I used for the majority of my testing. (Please note I am not a licensed electrician or lighting specialist.)
Now that we have covered what the Ostrip is and what comes with it. Let’s take a look at some of the functions and how it compares to other LED light strips on the market.
Performance
Most other RGB light strips you can find out there require some kind of remote or micro controller - a small programmable device that requires some basic level coding or programming skills to create different light displays or colour combinations. So you would need to purchase your RGB light strip plus a device like a D1 Wemos Mini or an Arduino Uno, then write the code to program in your desired lighting display. This step can be negated by using a program called WLED which essentially has a bunch of preprogrammed displays in it and makes it easier to program your own. Who knew those pretty lights in the background of your favourite twitch streamers bedroom were so complicated?
The Olight Ostrip however, is much easier to set up and use. There is a basic on/off switch which can cycle through the 3 standard colours - Red, Green and Blue. Holding the button in increases or decreases the brightness too. But the real magic happens via the Olight app. To connect it to your phone you just quickly click the power button 3 times and the Ostrip enters pairing mode. This lasts for 3 minutes so you have plenty of time to find your phone, open the app and turn your bluetooth on etc.
Once it is paired you will immediately have access to the 22 preloaded colour combinations and 44 preset colour display types. You can change the brightness and speed settings for all of the displays too which makes finding one to suit your mood an absolute breeze.
If you are feeling creative though and want to design your own specific display and colour combination, the DIY function of the Olight app is a dream come true. You just select what type of movement or style you want, choose your favourite colours, set the desired speed of the display and it’s all done! No programming or code writing is required at all and you can preview it as you go so you can easily make changes before you save it. This makes it so incredibly easy to express yourself with all the creative freedom you can possibly imagine. I was genuinely impressed by how fast and easy it was to create my own one of a kind light shows using the app and the Ostrip performed absolutely flawlessly no matter what I threw at it.
During my research into RGB LED light strips, I stumbled across a fairly common issue that can affect the lights called Power Drop Off. This basically means that the further down the strip you go the duller the LED’s look because less power is getting to them. (It is especially common on lower voltage strips or super long ones.)
This is mostly noticeable when using the RGB LEDs to display white light or when running them at maximum brightness.
One way to avoid this is through something called “Power Injecting” which is where you add a second power supply to the other end of the light strip therefore increasing the overall wattage running through the device. Again, I am not an electrician and so I would highly recommend you don’t attempt this.
The good news with the Ostrip though, is that you don’t have to! During my testing of the Ostrip I specifically tested for power drop off by creating the brightest and whitests display possible and leaving it on for a very long time. To my pleasant surprise and as can be seen in the photos, the power drop off was extremely low. I’m talking super low, like maybe the last 3 feet of LED’s were probably 15 percent less bright than the rest of the strip. For a 5m long, 5 volt RGB LED strip, that is super impressive!
Other brands I have seen show significant power drop off starting about halfway, with generally the last quarter of the strip showing an orange glow rather than a bright white light. Obviously if you are mainly interested in white light then you would probably just purchase a white LED light strip or a WRGB strip. But considering the Ostrip doesn’t have any white LED’s in it and is only running at 5 volts, the minimal amount of power drop off displayed is absolutely mind blowing. This will be a non issue if you decide to shorten the strip to suit your desired space anyway.
Another super cool feature of the Ostrip is the Music Sync mode which syncs the light display up to whatever music you're listening to either via the inbuilt microphone in the power controller or via the one in your phone. This will add some funky flare to your next party!
Final Thoughts
Overall I find the Ostrip to be a very capable and extremely easy to use RGB strip light.
The RGB LEDs themselves seem to be of very high quality - as we have come to expect from Olight and the very minimal amount of power drop off means that you are getting the most value for money possible compared to similar products.
The app is incredibly user friendly and makes it so easy to control and create incredible light displays.
The Ostrip is perfect for providing mood lighting, ambience in a cinema room, epic party lights, streaming setups or even just adding extra light under a shelf somewhere.
The only thing I would recommend to make this product even better would be to invest in some diffuser strips - which are white plastic covers that go over LED strip lights to soften the glow and make the transition effects between the individual lights seem smoother. But that isn’t essential. I highly recommend the Olight Ostrip!
