I grew up in the the '80sthe golden age of neonso naturally I always dreamed of owning a neon sign from Hot Topic. This week, Govee, my favorite brand for LED light chaos, released its latest version of neon rope, and from all reports, its exactly as fun as youd think.

Weve reviewed a number of Govee products, and they all work fine. In particular, they make a whole variety of LED lights for indoor and outdoor and usually at (comparatively) affordable prices. My complaint lies mostly with the overwhelming app experience for their products. By trying to let the user do absolutely everything, it's a challenge to do almost anything, which is OK if you like their out-of-the-box light color themes. (I find them a little garish and loud, but then, that's precisely what neon demands.)

The rope itself is like a lot of LED strips, except that instead of wrapping the strip around things like shelves and cabinets, you bend it into a shape and then adhere it to the wall with the backing. Bend clips (included) keep the curves you create in place, and this new version has a softer material than the first iteration, so its easier to get into soft curve shapes. The rope comes in 16- and 9-foot lengths, and black or white.

There are lots of competitors in this space, so there are other neon LED light strips, but this is the first entry from a well-known brand. These lights are Matter-enabled, which is great since it means you don't need a hub, but youll need the Govee app regardless.

Credit: Govee Govee offers shape mapping with this releaseyou take a picture of your neon creation and Govee maps the outline, which you can then use to design the lighting theme, assigning colors to segments. The segments will then, apparently, blend into a perfect ombre. Screenshots seem to imply new motion offerings, too, and I will be excited to see if theyre more subtle than previous iterations.