Review: Cync Dynamic Effects Neon-Shape Smart Lights

Every single person who has walked into my home has commented on my desk setup—or rather, the colorful strip of lights behind my desk. Rather than a true light strip that would attach on the back of my PC, Cync’s smart lights form a long rope of customizable lights that I positioned on the wall in a fun squiggle that catches everyone’s eye.

Thanks to the bendable design and included mounts, you can essentially create any shape you want on the wall with these 16 inches of lights (there’s also a 10-inch version). The power strip includes a control box with a microphone so your created shape can react to any music or gaming sounds it picks up. Unlike other setups, you don’t need a hub or software—and at $120, it’s a little cheaper than other light strips we like.

Photograph: Cync

A friend of mine once lovingly described me as “seems crafty, but isn’t.” I test tabletop electronic breast pumps for a reason; anything with a complicated setup or building process tends to go haywire in my hands.

But setting up the Cync lights was painless, even for a craft-challenged individual like myself. The lights come with a large installation map that you can use to map out Cync’s preplanned designs, like a moon and star or a martini glass, plus 20 mounting clips to hold up either Cync’s design or your own. The mounting clips come with 3M sticky tape on them, and holes for the included screws if you want your design to be permanent. Cync also makes recommendations for using the tape or screws based on your wall material.

Originally, I chose the sun and moon design. I ripped holes in the installation map to guide the placement of mounting clips using the tape. Looking back, it might have been easier to use screws with the map. But after completing the installation, I wasn’t in love with the shape. The rope lights couldn’t form crisp corners for the moon or stars, and when I texted friends photos of the setup, they thought the lights were cool but didn’t realize they were looking at a moon.

So I took the design down and reapplied the lights in a freeform swirl behind my desk. That was much easier than trying to perfectly follow the map design, and it looks better as a fun squiggle that fills in empty wall space behind my desk monitor.

If you’re buying these lights to recreate a specific neon shape, the lack of clean corners and edges could be disappointing. But if you’re open to playing with rounded edges, this is a fun design element to add to your wall.

Photograph: Cync

The smart light aspect makes it easy to play with hues. You can use these lights the way you’d use a smart light bulb: customizing the colors within the app, choosing various rainbow shades or variations of white, and pairing it with an Amazon Echo or Google Nest speaker to request colors by voice. The Cync app also lets you control the light strip by modifying its 24 individual segments if you want super granular control over the light and color combinations.

Cync lights also have options called Light Shows, which let you choose a handful of colors and an effect (such as a wave or flicker) to blend them together. You can already do this with our favorite light bulbs from Cync, but applying those same effects to the Neon-Shape Smart Lights creates a much cooler experience that lights up the entire light strip with your chosen combination.

If you’re already a Cync user and have designed Light Shows, you can apply those to the Neon-Shape Smart Lights. Cync’s app includes nine premade Light Shows you can use—the Candle combination is a personal favorite for the evening.

Cync also has a Music Shows feature with a built-in microphone to pick up surrounding music and sounds to match the lights to. The smart lights have a microphone built into a panel on the power strip, along with a couple of basic buttons to let you control the lighting.

I found that this feature works best with loud music. The volume of music or video games playing at my desk wasn’t usually loud enough to generate a great Music Show experience; the colors were muted and only popped brighter when I tapped my keyboard loudly or when Link’s feet slapped on the ground in Tears of the Kingdom. When I sat farther away, as if I were gaming at a TV, the colors were brighter and better, but it still felt reactionary rather than like an extension of the game. It wasn’t a great experience unless I happened to be in a scene with loud music playing. Plus, it can only use the colors you’ve chosen, instead of pulling from the myriad colors in the game like a true gaming light strip would.

If you’re looking for something that’s easy to install and can add a swirl of color to your room, the Cync Dynamic Effects Neon-Shape Smart Lights are a great choice. And the lights are easy to change if you get tired of the design, and simple to pair with smart speakers for quick controls.

If you want an immersive gaming or music experience or have your heart set on angular shapes, you won’t be totally satisfied. Still, at the price point, this is a nice way to get more creative control over your lights while giving your space a cool neon aesthetic.