Govee’s Newest TV Backlight Produces Vivid Colors in the Light and the Dark

I’m not a big LED person, but the idea of a backlight that reacts to what I’m watching and playing was too cool to ignore. I wasn’t sure how well the Govee TV Backlight 3 Pro would perform, but I came away very impressed.

9/10

Connectivity

2.4GHz Wi-Fi

Brightness

337lm/m

Monitor Size

55-65 / 75-85in TV

Multicolor Capable

Yes

The Govee TV Backlight 3 Pro features an industry-first HDR triple-camera system that precisely captures on-screen colors. Its LuminBlend upgraded light strip delivers 30% more brightness than the previous generation for a full, even lighting effect. Integrated Govee AI automatically adjusts white balance and saturation to match the content’s atmosphere.

Pros & Cons

• Easy to set up
• LEDs do a great job of replicating colors on the TV’s screen
• Camera takes in the room’s general surroundings and adjusts the colors and brightness to match

• Some features may not work well depending on your setup
• Govee app can sometimes be clunky to use

Price and Availability

The Govee TV Backlight 3 Pro is available in two sizes: one for 55- to 65-inch TVs and one for 77- to 85-inch TVs, costing $179.99 and $209.99, respectively. You can pick it up on Amazon or through Govee’s online store.

Lights, Camera, Calibrate

The first thing I noticed about the Backlight Pro 3 was that the setup was incredibly straightforward. As I pulled the gear out, I could guess what nearly everything was for before even looking at the manual. It’s so simple that it can even be summed up in a sentence. You place your TV down somewhere where the screen won’t get scratched, stick the LED strips on it, plug it all in, and set everything up in the Govee app.

Of course, there’s more nuance to the process than that, but it’s still straightforward, especially if you’ve used other Govee products before. The most finicky part of the setup is using the orange calibration foam to line your camera up properly with the TV’s screen, but it’s necessary for the step to be that way, or the Backlight Pro may not pick up the right colors.

Once you go through the process, have the camera scan a light grey screen, and make sure the strip orientation matches the colors on your screen, the Backlight Pro 3 is good to go. But, you’ll want to play with the myriad customization options first.

Plenty to Customize

Once you’ve finished the initial setup, you can review the settings in Govee’s app to adjust the lighting to your liking. There are four main settings—Solid, Vivid, Smooth, and Delicate—and each refers to how granular the camera will go in reading the colors on screen and applying them to the backlight. Solid will pick the predominant color on the screen and use it, while Delicate will replicate as many ‘zones’ as possible to provide the most accurate color replication as seen on-screen.

I preferred one of the two middle settings, depending on what I was watching and playing. Solid was fine, but I felt it didn’t utilize the features of the backlight all that well. Delicate, meanwhile, was almost too granular for me, with the colors changing constantly with nearly everything I tried. Vivid often worked best for me when I was playing video games that changed the screens (and thus the colors) relatively frequently, and Smooth was great for everything else.

There are other interesting features, too. If you’re watching a letterboxed movie, you can activate a setting, so the backlight ignores the black bars automatically. I also activated a setting that would have the light also react to the sound from what you’re watching—but when I learned that the ‘sound effects’ also included the ambient noise in my room, I turned it off. It’s a setting that can work great with movies, I’m sure, but my TV was too close to me, and I play my media too quietly for it to be effective.

In addition to all these options, the Backlight 3 Pro also features a toggle to indicate whether a movie or video game is playing on the TV, allowing the lights to adapt accordingly. That said, I often forgot to switch to the ‘game’ mode when booting something up, and didn’t notice a tangible difference between the two when I did remember. But it’s still worth playing with the two to see what looks better to you.

Vivid and Visible

All of the above is great, but it doesn’t mean much if the backlight isn’t working as you think it would or if the lights are more distracting than immersive. Thankfully, that is not a concern in the least.

No matter what I was doing, the backlight always responded quickly, and the way it changed between colors was smooth and never jarring. If I watch a YouTube video with a relatively static background, the LEDs would properly replicate the colors and not flash or do anything to distract me. If I play a game, the colors would quickly change, but not to the point that I’d always notice it.

Credit: Kris Henges / How-To Geek

Also, the TV Backlight Pro 3 didn’t just react to whatever was on the screen—the camera reacted to its general surroundings, as well. It was more obvious when the TV was off, but in the daytime, I would see the LEDs respond to the sunlight coming in from the window, or if I put my hand near a sensor, it’d change the strips on one side to a pinkish red. When I turned off all the lights in my apartment to go to bed, the backlights were still technically on, but the light was so dim I would never have noticed unless I actually looked at them.

That means that the backlight itself will be as bright or as dark as it needs to be, depending on the lighting you have around the room. If it’s dark, the LEDs’ relative brightness will go down so as not to hurt your eyes; if you have the lights on, the brightness will go up so that you can actually see the colors. It’s a very smart feature on Govee’s part, given how finicky it might have been to work with the lights otherwise.

In short, I often forgot I even had the Backlight 3 Pro on, and to me, that means it was doing exactly what it was supposed to. The lights enhanced my viewing experience, but they never stole the show, so to speak.

Unexpected Benefits

Credit: Kris Henges / How-To Geek

One thing I really didn’t expect the Backlight 3 Pro to do is to make my eyes feel better. I don’t suffer from eyestrain often anymore, given that I keep my apartment relatively well-lit and take time away from my computer screens. But at one point, I was testing the backlight when I returned to my PC to type something, and the white screen of the document suddenly felt so stark and gave me a familiar feeling that was the beginning of eyestrain.

I wasn’t looking at the computer screen in the dark, and the game I was playing right before loved fading to white instead of fading to black between scenes (for who knows what reason), so it wasn’t because I wasn’t looking at a bright screen before then. It was just that the backlight made the lights on the screen less stark and easier on the eyes.

For anyone who’s looked into reducing eyestrain, this doesn’t really come as a shock—good lighting that blunts the glare of sudden bright lights on screens is one of the main ways to curb the pain. But I didn’t quite understand the full extent of my lighting setups until the Backlight 3 Pro came into play. Now, I’m considering getting some low-brightness white LED strips to attach to my monitors to help alleviate the potential for eyestrain.

Should You Buy the Govee TV Backlight 3 Pro?

There isn’t much to dislike about the Govee TV Backlight 3 Pro. It does exactly what you want it to and more. There are a few small pain points, such as some clunkiness with the Govee app or some features working better than others. But if you’re in the market for any sort of backlight for your TV, this is, hands down, the product to get.

9/10

Connectivity

2.4GHz Wi-Fi

Brightness

337lm/m

Monitor Size

55-65 / 75-85in TV

Multicolor Capable

Yes

The Govee TV Backlight 3 Pro features an industry-first HDR triple-camera system that precisely captures on-screen colors. Its LuminBlend upgraded light strip delivers 30% more brightness than the previous generation for a full, even lighting effect. Integrated Govee AI automatically adjusts white balance and saturation to match the content’s atmosphere.