Roku is making its grand entrance into the smart home world. The TV operating system company, in partnership with Walmart, has launched a series of new smart home devices. Some of them, like the light bulb and smart switch, are necessary additions to any smart home. Others, like the Smart Light Strip SE, round out the new offerings to make for a relatively complete basic smart home.

The only hitch? You’ll have to buy into Roku’s budding smart home ecosystem in a world where the smart home is radically changing. Now, in theory, Matter could help solve this, assuming Roku supports Matter — as it will allow customers to add all kinds of different devices to their smart homes.

In the meantime, the Roku Smart Light Strip SE offers a great smart lighting strip at a decent price. Here’s how it performs.

Roku Smart Light Strip SE

The Roku Smart Light Strip SE offers solid, customizable lighting at a reasonable price, but you’ll have to buy into Roku’s ecosystem to get it.

BGR may receive a commission

Pros

Good design
Customizable length
Inexpensive

Cons

Roku ecosystem is new

Walmart

$22.88

Roku Smart Light Strip SE design

The Roku Smart Light Strip SE comes rolled up with a small control remote that attaches to the strip and a power cord that attaches to the remote. The strip is thin, with adhesive on the back, and looks much like many other smart light strips — especially the cheaper ones.

One of the best things about this light strip, as opposed to some others, is the fact that you can customize its length. This isn’t the first to offer this by any stretch of the imagination, but it is a nice touch for a light strip this cheap. On the back of the light strip, you’ll see scissor marks that allow you to cut it to your desired length, so it’s perfect for your needs.

The control remote is relatively basic and has a single button on it to turn on and off the light strip. Most of the time, you’ll likely control the strip from your phone, but it’s nice to be able to control it manually, regardless.

The overall design of the Roku Smart Light Strip SE is fine. It’s not all that unique, but given its price, it does the job. That’s especially true, given the fact that you’ll likely hide it out of sight regardless of how it looks.

Roku Smart Light Strip SE features and performance

Like Roku’s other new smart home devices, the Smart Light Strip SE is a little basic in features — but it does all the basics the right way, which is always handy.

For starters, you can easily control the brightness of the strip, along with the color. You can choose from a color-wheel or select from more neutral colors, if you want it to look a little less out there. That’s about all there is to it.

Roku does provide some smarter ways to control the light. For example, you can manually select the color, or you can set up “scenes,” which you can edit. This will save colors to your presets for quick and easy access. And you can even set the light strip to sync to music.

Roku’s new smart home devices can integrate with Google Assistant and Alexa too, which is handy for those who may want to use the devices with others ecosystems.

Generally speaking, I found the Roku Smart Light Strip SE to get more than bright enough, and the colors were vibrant too. Most will be happy with what the Roku Smart Light Strip SE can output.

Roku Smart Home app

You’ll set the Roku Smart Light Strip SE up using the new Roku Smart Home app, which is a little light on features, but is generally quick and easy to use. The app is split into a few different tabs, and lets you easily control your devices straight from the home screen.

Tap on a device, and you’ll get deeper settings and features. Here, you can control brightness, create scenes, and so on. And you’ll be able to set up automatic routines, timers, and more.

The Roku Smart Home app also offers some automation support. From the app, you can create and manage so-called “Rules,” which can run automatically or manually depending on user input. It’s not the most advanced system, but it definitely gets the job done.

Conclusions

The Roku Smart Light Strip SE is a great way to get modern lighting in your home without paying more than necessary. The light strip may not be the fanciest out there, but it does offer some helpful features.

The only hiccup is the fact that you’ll need to buy into Roku’s ecosystem to take advantage of it. I don’t necessarily recommend customers do so. But if, for some reason, you’re into Roku’s new products, the Smart Light Strip SE is a solid device.

The competition

There are other smart light strips out there, but this is currently the only one that “works with Roku.” If you want that, this is the way to go. If not, consider something from Philips or Govee.