The Govee Flow Plus Light Bars are one of my favorite lighting accessories. They are powerful LEDs in a diffused housing ready to cleanly shine pretty much any color around your room or desk setup.
Today we’re going to walk through the setup process for the Govee Light Bars so you can start enjoying them ASAP.
If you have similar Govee lights, the process will pretty much be the same. Let’s get started!
Step 1: Choose Light Bar Locations
First, choose where you want to put your lights. The flow plus light bars come with two mounting methods. Either a vertical bracket or an adhesive back flat bracket.
Most people use the adhesive back brackets and stick them behind their monitor or TV. The vertical brackets are for a simpler setup where your light bar faces a wall in the upright position.
If you want to experiment with different setups, don’t stick them on just yet. I found it’s best to wait until they are powered up so you can see the light spread in any given location first.
For this step, we just want to eyeball the location. We touch on more specific placement locations in a dedicated article on the best placement for Govee Light Bars.
Keep in mind that we want the light to be facing a wall so the light can spread over a larger area.
The further your light is from the wall, the greater the light spread. Though you get more light spread, the brightness decreases over that area because it’s spread much more.
Find a happy balance between the distance from your wall and the desired brightness. Also, as we touched on in our Govee Light Bar Review, the RGB colors are significantly dimmer than the white colors.
Here are some popular locations for light bars.
- Behind your computer monitor
- Standing upright on either side of your desk
- Standing upright behind desk plants or other items
- Laying flat towards the back of your desk angled upwards
I place my light bars behind my monitor as you can see in the image below:
Placing the light bars behind my monitor gives me the following desk appearance:
Step 2: Choose Control Box Location
The next step is to choose where you want your control box to live.
You don’t actually need the control box to be in an easy-to-reach location. These lights can be fully controlled by the app on your phone.
However, it is still a good idea to have the control box in a convenient location for the moments when your phone is in another room. Also, I’ve noticed the Govee app has the occasional connection issue with the Govee lights.
One tap of the control box power button can be much more convenient in many ways. Accessing the various light settings and color choices on the other hand is much easier on the Govee Home app.
The control box comes with an adhesive tape back. If you are not super sure where you want the control box, save the adhesive back step for last.
One note, the control box’s backing tape is pretty poor, I recommend using a stronger tape alternative. I recommend one in my Govee Light Bar Review.
Choose a location for the control box that makes the wiring process clean and simple.
Because I have my Govee Light Bars behind my monitor, I placed the controller on the right edge of the monitor.
This way I just reach back and tap the button to turn them on. I only go to the app to change colors.
Step 3: Wire Up Govee Control Box
Finally, let’s connect it all up.
First, connect the light bar’s USB Type C connection to the right side of the control box. Then plug the included Govee power supply into the other side of the control box.
It’s hard to get these connections wrong as they only fit one way.
Finally, plug the power supply into your wall outlet. Viola, we’re all hooked up.
If you are like me and hate wires hanging around, manage all of the excess cables. You can see how I did it in the image above.
If you want to cable manage like a pro, check out our dedicated cable management article here.
Step 4: Power Up The Light Bars
Make sure everything is working by hitting the power button on the control box. Both light bars should be illuminating.
If nothing happens, make sure all of your connections are fully seated, including the wall plug. You should see a little red light on the control box.
Test the middle button which changes the light colors. There are nine different colors this button cycles through.
The bottom button doubles as a sound-sensitive (music) mode and as a dimmer switch.
Hold this button down to dim or brighten your light bars. Press it once and it becomes sound reactive and dances with your music! You can physically tap on the control box with your finger and see the lights react to the vibrations.
To exit the music mode, press the middle color button. You are officially up and running!
Step 5: Install The Govee Home App
If you want a ton of control of your light bars, do yourself a favor and install the Govee Home app. It has almost too many features that we talk about more in our full Govee Light Bar Review.
Here are some of the main features you get when using the app:
- Power on/off
- Control light bars individually
- Control each of the 6 segments of a lightbar individually
- Set a timed lighting schedule
- Select between 16 million colors
- Adjust the color temperature of white lights
- More…
Here are the links to the Govee app for iPhone and Android.
Step 6: Add Light Bars To Govee App
There are a few quick steps to connect your lightbar to the Govee App.
Selecting Your Light Bar
The first screen you see when you open the Govee app is a big plus sign for adding a new Govee device. Press this plus sign.
Once you hit the plus sign for adding a new device, you will have to choose which device you want to add. You will find Govee light bars in the Indoor Lighting category.
Scroll past the LED bulbs, and you will see a ton of different light bars. If you have one of the Dreamview light bars, choose between the P1 and P1S. Your manual should specify which model light bar you have.
The Dreamview version comes with a little camera that sits on your display, as seen below.
If you have one of the normal light bars, it will either be H6053 or H6056. The H6056 has a blue icon next to it meaning it has Alexa voice command. If your light bar is the non-smart device enabled, then you likely have the H6053.
An easy way to check is to simply tap the icon that looks correct, and you should see it listed right away if your light bar is powered up. If no light bars are found and listed, try the next model.
I get the following screen when I select the correct light bar. I don’t see anything show up for any other models.
Just make sure your light bar and control box are wired up correctly and powered on. Also, ensure the light bar is not paired with anyone else’s phone app.
Tap your device when you see it listed.
Finishing Steps
Next, name your light bar. I like to keep the model number in the front, and just change the name after the underscore.
For example, I called mine H6056_TV. We only have one TV in the house, so I always know which Govee light bar I am controlling.
Connecting to Wi-Fi is optional. It is only needed for controlling lights from outside of your house and using smart assistants.
The last step here is to confirm your lightbar positions. Ensure the left and right side controls match where you placed your light bars.
When you press the power button on the app for the right side light bar, the right light bar in your setup should light up. If the left one turns on, then you need to switch positions.
Once you’re done, press the Position Correct button.
Step 7: Set Your Light Bar Colors!
Now your light bars should be fully functional! Take some time to explore the various features of the app; there are a ton.
A quick pro-tip, the white colors on the light bar are much brighter than any of the RGB colors. Just keep that in mind in case you want to crank out the most brightness.
The app lets you select from 16 million colors and lets you base them on pictures and a ton of other things.
Govee really gives the user everything they could possibly need. That’s making them a huge player, and just making them a great LED light brand and ecosystem.
You can also play with the music mode which has your lights dance with music. Scene modes can keep your lights lively in other creative ways as well.
Or you can just do what I do and simply choose your favorite color.
Step 8: Finalize The Location & Manage Cables
Now that we have everything wired up and connected, you can make a better choice of where to place your monitor light bars.
Use the provided brackets and adhesive back solutions to stick your light bars and control box exactly where you want them.
Finally, clean up all the extra slack cables. I like to tie up the slack with the included wire cable ties.
That’s it! Enjoy your brand new Govee Flow Plus Light Bars.