LED Smart String Fairy DIY Lights with Bluetooth and Remote - USB Powered

4 years ago I installed 3 runs of individually addressable LED fairy lights (the wire kind) under my thatch in my braai area. I connected these to a DigQuad running WLED. Recently, one of my 10m strings started giving issues and I needed to find a replacement and stumbled upon LED Addict and this one specifically. But what I stumbled upon was a lot more than I had bargained for. The wires are plastic coated which essentially would reduce the risk of rust which I suspect was the cause of my one run giving issues - it is as if these were an evolution to the ones I was using. I ordered the 10m run.

As I didn't need the USB controller, I snipped that off, but before doing so, I opened the case which revealed the pinouts which was really convenient. Separating the 3 wires was a bit of a mission because they are packed together, but eventually split them up and exposed the bare wires. Armed with Wago connectors, I managed to connect the wires up and the lights were lit up although the colours were not correct. More about that later.

These were a lot easier to work with when stringing them up. I had to wind them around a cross-beam along the top of my thatch. The "wire" ones are a lot more delicate and I felt that I didn't need to worry about the wires snapping with these ones. It was such a pleasure to string these up.

In WLED, I had to change "Color Order" to BGR and the colours were 100%.

In life there are always compromises. I did find that the brightness went down towards the end of the 10m line and the reason is that the resistance of the LEDs or wiring - not sure really - was a bit more than the "wire" ones that I am using in my remaining 20m and 10m runs. It is advised to inject power from the other end if it is possible to do so. In my case, that was not possible, but I am satisfied with the result regardless. My current 20m run is power injected from both sides so when I replace that one day with these, and it is going to happen sooner than later, I'll have to continue to inject power from both sides.

But furthermore, I'm very happy with these. I think the run I had replaced with these is going to last due to the plastic coating of the wires and LEDs.