Can LED grow light strips replace hanging light kits or do we need to use both? It actually depends on your arrangement and on the plants you want to provide grow lights for.
An example I can give you is that, if you’re growing smaller plants on shelves or on grow racks, buying some of the best LED grow lights strips is going to work really well.
I am well aware that some people might not need those big, hanging LED or fluorescent grow lights so it’s only natural to look for LED grow lights strips to see if they would be a good match for your plants.
The undeniable truth is that we need some kind of grow lights for our plants if we’re growing in a place that doesn’t have access to hours of direct sunlight per day or if we grow during the winter.
Whether we grow our plants in pots or in hydroponic systems, the need to use grow lights is just as crucial if our systems or containers don’t receive the much needed daily sunlight hours to help our plants grow and thrive.
Moreover, if you are looking for smaller and more affordable options, check out my recommendations for the best grow lights for cactus. In that article, I also review bulb grow lights that are very cheap, efficient and extremely easy to use.
If LED grow lights strips don’t exactly work out for you, using a bunch of LED grow light bulbs is the perfect alternative both in how affordable those bulbs are and how easy they are to use no matter what types of plants we need the lights for.
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Best LED Grow Lights Strips Reviews
LED grow lights strips can be the perfect lights if we’re growing on shelves or in narrow spaces that don’t offer us enough height for any other types of grow lights to be installed.
Hanging grow lights, both LED or fluorescent, remain my favorite because I grow in hydroponic systems that are built out in the open. But if you have your plants situated on shelves that are not very high, then it’s perfect to look for amazing LED grow lights strips for your plants.
The only thing that remains, besides looking for the best strips of LED grow lights, is to determine how many strips you need to buy depending on the number of plants that need your love.
1. Barrina LED Grow Light Strip – Overall the Best LED Grow Lights Strips
Besides being incredibly popular and having a decent price, these LED grow light strips from Barrina also don’t have all that many negative reviews.
Still, you should give those negative reviews a perusal because it’s always best to be prepared for anything that might go wrong.
Overall, these strips from Barrina are my top favorite. The price is very good and the quality is top-notch.
3 LED grow light strip options
Among the first few things that you’re going to notice is that we have three options to choose from:
- 2ft-pink
- 2ft-pinkish white
- and 2ft–yellow
As we can see, we get the same length no matter which option we choose. And the price is just slightly less expensive for the 2ft-pink option. Still, the prices are quite similar, identical for the pinkish white and yellow.
Let’s understand what makes these three different so that you can decide which would be best for your plants or seedlings or microgreens, etc.
Each type includes the same accessories and everything else, including how many LEDs we get to use for those 2 feet of grow lights multiplied by 8 strips. And they’re all full spectrum.
We couldn’t even say that the difference is made by the plants we grow. There’s actually not much that sets these strips apart, except the 3 different colors their LEDs emit: pink, pinkish white, and yellow.
The strips that emit a pink light provide full-spectrum sunlight replacement and they’re used for indoor gardening, flower shots, pot and container gardening, greenhouse lighting, sowing, breeding, farming, etc.
The strips that emit a pinkish white light also provide full-spectrum sunlight replacement and they’re used for indoor gardening, flower shows, pot and container gardening, greenhouse lighting, sowing, breeding, farming, etc.
Last but not least, the strips that emit a yellow light provide full-spectrum sunlight replacement and they’re basically used for the same purposes.
Features
I’m totally satisfied that for that price we receive 8 strips, each amounting to 2 feet of grow lights.
That’s a good deal for this quality. Maybe you’ll be able to find something even better but I couldn’t.
In total, we get 400 LEDs that consume 80W.
That’s an impressive number of LEDs and they’re quite energy efficient. I’m satisfied with both numbers.
The components are:
- 8 strips
- 4 power cords with on/off switch
- 7 connecting cords
- 8 small connectors
- 16 installation clips
- 24 double-sided tapes
- 24 cable ties
2. Lxyoug LED Plant Grow Light Strips
Lxyoug offers 3 grow light strips, full spectrum for a quite affordable price. It’s also my second favorite choice.
Each strip measures 15.7 inches. That’s a fairly good length for each strip.
If we have small plants on a shelf in pretty small containers, then we’re going to be able to cover quite a lot of plants with a single Lxyoug LED Plant Grow Light Strip.
Each light emits full spectrum light, which the manufacturer compares to providing sunlight for plants. While nothing can replace sunlight, full spectrum LEDs are our best substitute.
We have a bunch of options for installing them.
Each strip comes with a double sided tape.
Or we can use the zip tips that are included, we get 16 of them.
Another option is to use screws to install the strips, there are 16 screws included.
Another accessory we get is a controller that allows us to adjust the brightness, allows us to switch which lights are on or off, and allows us to select the time (3 hrs, 6 hrs, 12 hrs).
We can choose to turn on 1 light, 2 lights, 3 lights. We are not forced to keep them all on at the same time if we don’t want to.
The Lxyoug LED Plant Grow Light Strips are made in a waterproof design, being covered by epoxy.
It’s also mentioned that these lights have a 50,000 hours lifetime and they are high efficiency LED chips. It’s pretty much what we’ve come to expect from LEDs.
As all strips, the Lxyoug LED Plant Grow Light Strips are certainly more suitable for smaller plants, like succulents, herbs, leafy greens, lettuce, flowering plants, etc.
3. Lvjing LED Plant Grow Light Strips
I think these might be some of the most affordable LED grow light strips that we might be able to find.
For a really affordable price we receive 8 strips, each measuring 15.7 inches. That’s a good deal.
We could provide the needed sunlight replacement to plenty of plants, which is nice.
In total, we get 384 LEDs, which is not bad at all for this price range.
We can choose between 3 timing modes: 4H, 8H, and 12H.
There are also 10 level brightness to choose from.
And each of these 8 lights come with independent control.
There are also different installation modes to choose from: fix with included screws, fix with included double sided tape or use cable ties to tie up the strips.
4. Monios-L T8 LED Grow Light Strip
These ones from Monios-L are the most expensive option on this list. Frankly, I’m far from impressed by that really high price so they’re not exactly my favorite.
We get 6 strips that in total consume 144 watts, each representing 2ft of grow lights.
They also have a 4ft size option for those who need 48 inches of LEDs per each strip.
The package includes:
- 6 LED grow light strips
- 12 reflectors
- 3 power cords
- 6 connecting cords
- 6 connectors
- 6 pairs of clips & screws
- 24 double sides pads
- 12 cable ties
Thus, we are once again offered 3 installation modes.
Monios-L mentions that their strips are suitable for: plant shelves, plant tents, hydroponics growing rooms, greenhouses, etc.
5. GE Grow Light LED Bulb
I know that we’re here to talk about the best LED grow light strips so you might not be interested in this substitute but I wanted to let you know that we have some pretty impressive alternatives to strips.
This alternative comes in the form of LED grow light bulbs. These are among my favorite types of grow lights for those who don’t want to or don’t need the power that light hanging kits provide.
Bulbs are perfect and they’re usually pretty affordable.
You only need to provide the lamp for the bulb and you’re done. You can choose whatever lamp you want and maybe you already have a few lamps that you can use for the GE BR30 or the GE PAR38.
LED grow light bulbs are full spectrum and they provide high-quality plant light.
A single bulb is pretty powerful, that’s what I love so much about them.
The problem I have with some LED grow light strips is that they’re not as powerful as we need them to be. In some cases, we could say that a LED grow light bulb can be as powerful as two strips combined.
That’s one of the main reasons why I wanted to review at least one bulb in an article that focuses on reviewing the best LED grow light strips.
If you feel that strips are not actually what you need, I wanted to let you know that you have other very affordable options that you can pursue.
Features
The GE grow light bulbs provide a pleasing, natural light temperature that integrates with any design.
They manage to be low energy (9 watts), low heat, and long-lasting.
We can use them for a variety of plants, including for seed starting, microgreens, flowering plants, herbs, leafy greens, strawberries, and even for bigger plants like tomatoes, etc.
I recommend the GE PAR38 if you plan on growing bigger plants. It’s powerful and it has a big spread.
I would say that grow light bulbs are certainly more versatile than LED grow light strips, which is another major reason why I wanted to review them.
LED grow lights strips buying guide
The most important things to consider when you’re looking for the best LED grow light strips are: what types of plants you need the lights for and the space the lights need to cover.
The lights need to cover your plants entirely.
Thus, if they’re on a long shelf, you’ll need to fix multiple strips in a line until the entirety of your plants are all bathed in grow lights.
On the other hand, if you have wide shelves, then you’ll probably have to fit strips in parallel rows.
In theory, all strips are very easy to install and use.
Most will come with multiple installations, like fitting the strips in a light bar with screws or fixing the strips with double sided tapes or fixing the strip with zip ties on the plant shelf.
If you have your plants on shelves, it’s very easy to fix them with zip ties directly on the plant shelf. It’s my preferred option for shelves.
In terms of which plants do very well under LED grow light strips, I would say that seedlings, microgreens, succulents, flowering plants, herbs, leafy greens, and any smaller plants in general.
I wouldn’t solely use strips to grow bigger plants like tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, etc. I would use strips together with brighter and larger bulbs for these types of fruit producing plants.
However, if you have smaller plants in your home that need some additional light source during the winter or you want some lights for your seedlings, microgreens, leafy greens, herbs, etc. then you’re going to benefit from the power that strips have.
Benefits of LED grow lights strips
Let’s see why you should be glad that you thought of looking for the best LED grow light strips.
Replace sunlight
Since they are LED grow lights, the first benefit of LED grow light strips is that they take on the role of sunlight. Obviously, sunlight is king but if we can’t provide our plants with the needed daily sunlight hours, then our next choice should be LEDs.
LED grow lights are the most efficient, effective and easy-to-use tools to use for all types of plants.
It doesn’t matter whether we’re growing herbs, microgreens, succulents, leafy greens, tomatoes or I don’t know what other plants. If we can’t provide them with the sunlight ours they need, LED grow lights should be our replacement.
These are the ones that provide the light spectrums that plants need and that is true for light strips, bulbs, and hanging lights.
The fact that they provide a broad spectrum of light wavelengths is the main advantage of using LED grow lights.
Flexibility
LED grow light strips are perfect if we’ve placed our containers on shelves. Thus, if we don’t have enough space and we want all containers to enjoy the benefits of growing lights, buying some in the form of strips is great.
They are also perfect for seed starting. According to this article, the natural light from windows is seldom enough for good, strong seedling growth.
If you don’t want to spend a lot of money on growing lights for seed starting, strips can be a nice option.
Another good option for seed starting is to use fluorescent lights, T5 tubes, which are also perfect for growing microgreens. But strips are definitely easier to use since we can adapt them to any space, no matter how small.
All in all, LED grow lights strips are among the most flexible growing lights that we could buy.
They can be used in almost any position and in almost any area. We can hang or mount them in any position.
We can apply the strips to deliver the much needed light to our plants from almost any angle.
Plus, they require little energy and their lifespan is totally impressive, well worth the investment.
And LED grow lights produce less heat, which means that water doesn’t evaporate fast.
All in all, we can get healthier plants if we’re looking for the best LED grow light strips for our homes but we should also remember that bulbs are a fantastic alternative to strips.
