What to Know About Cove Lighting | A Complete Guide

What is Cove Lighting?

Cove lighting refers to the installation of lights in a ceiling recess or concave. Whether enhancing a cove built into your home, completing a DIY project, or elevating your business, strip lights are the ideal product. Cove lighting is often found in various applications, including in homes, movie theaters, hotels, and more. This blog provides the information you need to know about choosing the right strip lights for your cove lighting, why you should use LEDs, and how to begin the installation process. 

How to Choose Strip Lights for Cove Lighting 

Various factors affect the best LED strip light for your cove lighting application. 

• CCT/Color: Determine the CCT or color of strip light you want. Single-color strips come in several options, including red, green, blue, and amber. Our white flexible LED strip lights are available in CCTs ranging from 1800K to 6500K based on the shade of white needed. Color-changing LED strips feature tunable CCT and RGB options, letting you choose between dynamic color-changing and single-color modes with adjustable brightness and speed control. Your color option might also depend on the space's purpose. You might choose a warm CCT strip light for cove lighting in a living room, while you might prefer an RGB strip in a home theater. 

• CRI: A light’s CRI measures how accurately it depicts colors. CRI has a measurement of 0 to 100, with 100 indicating perfect color rendering. Refer to the graphic below to understand the different ratings. Cove lighting in retail stores, art galleries, broadcasting studios, and other areas where accurate coloring rendering is important, should have a higher CRI. We carry strips with a 98 CRI and a 99 TLCI rating. 

• Length: Measure the installation area to decide the appropriate length of the strip light. Check a strip's max run to verify how long it can run before experiencing light loss.

• Intensity: Determine the light intensity you want from your strip lights. For example, someone installing cove lighting in an office space might opt for a more intense light than cove lights in a living room or home theater. If you want a light with greater intensity, we recommend our COB strips or high-density SMD strips with more LED chips per foot, which provide even more powerful light.  

• Control Options: Our strip lights have different control options depending on your lighting needs. Some of our popular control options include remote, smart app, smart home ecosystem, and wall dimmer. 

Strip Light Options: 

White Strip Lights

Single Color Strip Lights 

Color-Changing Strip Lights

Benefits of Using LED Strip Lights for Cove Lighting

Using strip lights for cove lighting has many benefits, one of the biggest being the ease of installation and increased customizability. You can cut strip lights to the needed length or connect them together. These strips usually come with an adhesive backing, allowing you to simply attach them along the ceiling and peel them off when you want to remove them. However, you normally won’t be able to just pull them off without removing paint. 

Since these are installed in the ceiling recessed, you typically won’t see marks where the strips have been, but if you’re worried about paint peeling,  we suggest applying heat to the strip to soften the adhesive before peeling.  

Choosing LED strip lights has its own advantages, including: 

• Energy-Efficiency: LEDs consume very little energy, especially compared to other lighting systems. 

• Longevity: Most of our LED strip lights last up to 60,000 hours.

• Reduced Costs: Although the upfront costs of LEDs are usually higher than those of traditional lighting, you will save money over time. Part of this is due to their longer lifespan, which leads to fewer replacements and maintenance. Similarly, their high energy efficiency reduces your electricity bill. 

How to Install LED Cove Lighting

Materials: 

• LED Strip Lights

• Flexible LED Connectors

• Power Supply

• Controller

• Power Wire 

• Cable Management & Mounting Supplies (foam pads and electrical tape)

Steps for Installation 

1. Measure the length of your cove ceiling to determine the number of strip lights necessary. For example, a 16-by-16-foot room would require four runs of a 16-foot LED strip light.

2. Choose a compatible power supply to ensure your strip lights function properly. The voltages should match, and the power supply's wattage must be 20 percent higher than the strip light’s wattage. You can also use the formula below.

3. Select a controller that is compatible with your strip. This means using an RGB controller with an RGB strip, a single-color controller with a single-color strip, etc. 

4. The controller type and dimming capabilities of the power supply will affect the order in which they’re connected to the input power. Refer to this blog for assistance in choosing the right controller and power supply, and the installation order, or look at the graphics below. 

5. Use connectors and pigtail adapters to attach the LED strips to the controller or power supply. 

6. Install the strips along the cove. We recommend using masking tape to hold your strips in place before removing their adhesive backings. This will enable you to achieve your desired cove lighting effect. 

7. If you have textured or popcorn ceilings, getting the strips to stick with just the adhesive backing may be difficult. Attach double-sided foam tape to the strip for extra support. 

8. To connect multiple strips, you can use solderless connectors, solder them together, or connect them with amplifiers to minimize light loss if the strip exceeds its max run. However, solderless connectors are often the simplest solution. 

9. If the strip is too long for the application, simply cut on the labeled cut points. 

NOTE: We recommend having a certified electrician wire your strip lights after you set them up. Do not attempt to connect to power until the installation is complete.

The image below shows what a cove lighting installation would look like using pigtail adapters to connect two strips to the controller. 

How you install the strips or the number of strips used might vary depending on the cove size, style, and shape. The steps and materials needed for this installation could be used in a room with a standard L cove, crown molding cove, or recessed ceiling/tray ceiling cove. The photos below show several different cove types.

If you’re ready to start shopping for your application, check out our products at Super Bright LEDs. If you need assistance or help shopping for your project, reach out to us by calling 866-590-3533 or filling out our contact form. Our customer service hours are Monday through Thursday from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. CT or Fridays from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. CT.