Shopping for LED strip lights? There’s an affordable option available on Amazon from Aimengte for a 1M, 2M, or 3M strip light with a wireless controller. The controller is battery-powered (4x AAA’s) and has both light and motion sensors. I purchased an Aimengte wireless LED light strip to automatically illuminate the shelves in my new linen closet whenever you open the door or walk past. It works great – I’ll review the details with you below.
Aimengte Wireless Motion Sensor LED Strip Lights
After finishing my recent linen closet build, I wanted to install LED’s to illuminate the shelves. I wanted to avoid having to run wiring through the wall, so I wanted a battery-powered option. Lastly, I wanted a kit with a motion sensor so that when you access the linen closet, the light turns on automatically.
I chose the Aimengte 3-meter LED strip light with motion sensor because it fits all of the requirements above, and because it was very inexpensive. This kit comes with the following:
- 1 meter, 2 meter, or 3 meter LED light strip (depending on which you purchase)
- Wireless controller
The LED Strip Light
The strip light itself is your “typical” modern LED light strip. It has an LED every inch or so on the strip. The light is described in the product listing as “warm white”. My strip came rolled up on a little plastic spool which you can discard. One end of the strip terminates with a white connector that you plug in to the controller.
Like most LED strip lights, there is adhesive on the back of the strip that you use to adhere the strip to the intended mounting surface. In my case, I mounted the strip to the inside of the door frame in my linen closet so that the light would shine on all of the shelves. Mounting the light strip is simple. To do so, you simply peel off a few inches of the protective paper at a time and press down firmly on the light strip for a few seconds.
This strip has a mark after every LED at which you can make a cut. That’s a nice feature if you want to modify your LED strip light, as I did. I cut my strip and then soldered in some extra wire to get more light to my bottom shelf and less light over the top of my top shelf where it wasn’t needed. Some light strips only have a mark every 2-3 LED’s, so if you do want to modify this strip, it’s convenient that it’s marked after every LED.
The Wireless Controller
The battery-powered (4x AAA’s) wireless controller permits several modes of operation:
- Always on
- Light sensor with motion sensor (“Moon” setting)
- Motion sensor without light sensor (“Sun” setting)
Always On
Always on is self-explanatory; the light strip will stay on until you turn it off or the batteries run out.
Basically, if you press the button shown above, a little red light turns on and then the LED strip will stay on until the batteries die. I’m not really sure why you would want this setting, but the capability is there.
Light Sensor & Motion Sensor (“Moon” Setting)
If you press the button above a second time, the red light will turn off. The controller is now in motion-sensing mode. There are two motion sensing modes. To choose the motion-sensing mode, there’s a little black switch on the side of the controller that you can throw. With the switch in the “moon” position, the controller uses both the light and motion sensors.
You can conceptualize “moon” mode as “night-light with motion sensor”. If there is light in the room, the controller will not turn on the LED light strip. When the light sensor is inactive – meaning, if it’s dark in the room – the controller will turn on the LED light strip when motion is detected.
If you wanted to use this kit to illuminate someone’s night-time walk to the bathroom, or something similar, “moon” would be the preferred setting. The light would only turn on when it senses motion at night or when it was otherwise dark. For my purpose, I wanted the light to turn on whenever someone opens the door to the linen closet or walks past, regardless of the time of day. With these requirements in mind, I set my controller to the “sun” setting.
Motion Sensor Without Light Sensor (“Sun” Setting)
With the black switch in the “sun” position, the Aimengte wireless LED light strip controller ignores the light sensor. In other words, it works solely off of the motion sensor. This was my desired setting for a closet light.
With this setting, the light turns on whenever I open the closet door. It also turns on if I walk within about 15′ or so when the closet door is open. After motion stops, or after the door is closed, the light turns off after about 20 seconds. The duration for which the light is kept on is adjustable. To adjust this, set the rotary switch closer to the “+” or “-” positions as desired.
I tested the controller in several positions to find what worked best. At first, I tried hiding the controller on the side wall of my linen closet, approximately even with the front of the shelving. It worked ok there, but I found that I had to essentially be in the closet before the light would turn on.
I wanted a more responsive effect, so I chose to mount the controller forward-facing. Using the supplied 3M mounting tape, I attached my controller to the front face of the bottom shelf. In this configuration, the motion sensor picks me up about halfway across the room (15′ or so).
In Summary
For the price, and for what I wanted to accomplish with lighting inside of my linen closet, I think the Aimengte wireless LED strip light kit was a great choice. I think I would be happy to go with this kit for any similar application, or if I wanted to do something like give my kids a night-light under their bathroom cabinet for when they need to get up and use the restroom. It’s easy to install in just a few minutes; no wiring in the walls, no setup with an outside controller. Just slap in a few batteries, flip the switch to the right setting, adhere the strip, and you’re done.
Thank You For Reading!
I hope this review has been helpful. If you have any questions or any stories to share from your own experience with this or similar light strips, let me know in the comments below. If this was informative for you and you’re considering purchasing this kit, you can support this blog by using the banner below. Doing so won’t cost you anything extra, but it will help me to keep the lights on (har-har).
Thanks again for reading, and best of luck on your LED lighting project! 🙂