Govee Ambient RGBWW Portable Table Lamp review

The Govee Ambient RGBWW Portable Table Lamp is a small and versatile smart lamp which has access to 16 million colors. It provides up to 350 lumens of brightness, which we found to be more than enough, and the app offers an abundance of features including timers and scenes for different moods. 

We found the battery to be a bit lackluster, as you only get four hours of illumination after a four hour charge. However, considering the low price tag and the personalization this lamp has to offer, it’s still a great deal and will keep the kids entertained for hours.

Govee Ambient RGBWW Portable Table Lamp review: Price and availability

The Govee Ambient RGBWW Portable Table Lamp is available in two models — one with Bluetooth and one with both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. The Bluetooth model is available from Amazon for $52.99 and directly from Govee for $49.99. The Bluetooth and Wi-Fi model costs slightly more, available from Amazon for $65.99 and from Govee for $65.99.

Govee Ambient RGBWW Portable Table Lamp review: Design

The Govee Ambient RGBWW Portable Table Lamp features a sweet and simplistic bowl-shaped design, very similar to the Philips Hue Go Portable Table Light. It has a plastic finish, which feels solid and sturdy, making it a safe option around kids. While made of plastic, the appearance is attractive enough that it could replace your bedside lamps. The design does not draw attention to itself, but looks smart, sophisticated and compact, measuring just  6.1 x 6.1 x 3.7 inches. 

It’s lightweight, at just 1.65 pounds, and is portable due to its cordless design. This makes it very versatile — you could seat it by your bed for reading, or next to your TV to amplify the colors of your favorite films. While you will predominantly control it via the Govee Home app, there’s a single button for operation on the base of the lamp. This can power it on and off as well as cycle through the basic color options. There are also two feet on the base, so you can either stand the lamp at an angle or lie it flat in use. The microphone can be found next to the charging port. The charging cable measures 71 inches, which is a good length.

Govee Ambient RGBWW Portable Table Lamp review: Performance

You can’t ask for more color options, with there being 16 million to choose from. You can pinpoint the color you want using the color wheel on the app and it’s easy to adjust between them using this too. 

If you’re in a hurry and just want a basic color, you can also access it from the single button on the base. It’s also nice that you can save your favorite colors when you find them on the app, to quickly access later. However we did feel some colors could have more definition to them. Bold colors such as red and orange could be stronger and we noticed the standard yellow had a hint of green to it too. Otherwise the colors were vibrant and sufficiently matched the description on the app.  

The brightness is dimmable from 1-100%, which is very useful when it gets late into the evening, and at full brightness (350 lumens) it’s very intense and you couldn’t need more. My partner actually asked me to dim it down most of the time! The dimming also comes in use for the Sleeping Timer in the app as well as the Wake Up timer. Using this, you can schedule when you want the lamp to gradually brighten or dim to fit your routine. We particularly liked how precisely you could set the Wake Up timer, right down to which weekdays, the wake-up duration (from 10 mins up to an hour) and the final percentage of brightness.

The only thing we were disappointed by was the battery life. A four hour charge gives four hours of illumination. In practice, if you use this lamp every night, that means it will need to be plugged in most of the time. There’s more than enough cable length for convenience, but you can tell the charger isn’t meant to be on display and it doesn’t add to the aesthetics. When on standby, we also noticed the battery drained much faster than when it was switched off completely, so we were spending about 10 seconds holding the power button every morning to turn off the power. Govee recently introduced a Battery Saver Mode on the app which is designed to extend the standby time by switching off the Wi-Fi connectivity until the lamp is plugged back in. This is a useful addition, but again suggests the lamp really needs to be plugged in to make the most of it. 

The lamp responded quickly to the app, adjusting its color efficiently. We did find the app sometimes struggled to find it when powering the lamp on however. This was the case on more than a few occasions, so we ended up using the physical power button at such times.

Govee Ambient RGBWW Portable Table Lamp review: App

Govee’s app was easy to navigate and intuitive to use. Some of the available functions, such as DIY, could be better explained, but little guidance is needed on the whole. It comes with four modes to choose from: Music, Color, Scene and DIY. There’s also an effects lab, which contains 19 categories of color. These can really vary, from emotions, to fruits and animals, and there’s colors available in each to suit different topics — a fun feature for the kids to explore. From the home page, you can also access the timer, the battery saver mode and the brightness level.  

Using the Music mode, you can change the color of the lamp based on sound and rhythm which is heard through the phone’s microphone or through the lamp’s microphone. You can also adjust the sensitivity and the mood, from Calm to Dynamic and even Party. On top of this, the lamp can automatically set the color, or you can do it yourself. We found this to be an interesting feature, but in practice it was a little delayed. As we listened to music, it was just a little too slow to prove effective, even on full sensitivity. We also noticed that the calm setting was quite fast in tempo. Consequently, we wouldn’t buy this lamp for this feature alone. 

The Color mode gives you the option to select between the eight basic colors as well as adjust the tone of the whiteness, from a cold white to a warm white. You can also find the color wheel on this mode as well as access to My Colors, where your favorites will be saved. The Scene mode is particularly interesting as it offers an array of experiences to set a scene. This includes settings such as festivals, candlelight and fireworks. It adjusts the color and tempo depending on what you select — another great setting for the kids. It comes with useful settings as well including reading and work, which preselects the whiteness levels to suit the task.   

Using the DIY mode, you can essentially create your own light experience. You get to name it, set the speed and effect and choose which colors you want to feature. You can even use Smart Color Picking which will use colors from your phone’s photo album. The app couldn’t offer much more from a smart lamp perspective. Our only qualm with it was that you can’t control more than one lamp at the same time.

The Govee Ambient RGBWW Portable Table Lamp with bluetooth and Wi-Fi works with Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa for ease of control. This means it’s compatible with the main brands of voice assistants, but won’t work with Apple Homekit. 

Govee Ambient RGBWW Portable Table Lamp review: Verdict

Ultimately, the Govee Ambient RGBWW Portable Table Lamp is a cute and fun product to use, with a simple and effective design as a smart lamp. With so many features and options, the app offers everything and more than you could hope for, and this means it would keep the kids entertained as a bonus too. 

It’s versatile, but we would have liked the battery life to be better. In comparison, the Philips Hue Go Smart Light can run for 18 hours in its candle-effect mode. So you might need to plug in this Govee lamp more often than you would expect. Having said that, Govee’s lamp is half the price of the Hue Go, and looks nice enough that it would blend in on your bedside cabinet.