Permanent Holiday Lighting Compared: Trimlight, Jellyfish, Gemstone, Govee and DIY Kits

Permanent roofline lighting has gone from a niche product to something most Canadian homeowners have seen on a neighbour's house, usually a smooth line of colour along the eaves that flips between a subtle warm glow on a weeknight and full colour for a holiday or a game. The confusing part for anyone shopping is that the options come from three very different corners of the market: franchise install companies, consumer smart-home brands, and DIY parts suppliers. They can look similar in a photo and cost wildly different amounts. Here is how they actually compare.

The professional-install category: Trimlight, Jellyfish, Gemstone

Trimlight, Jellyfish Lighting and Gemstone Lighting are the three names most homeowners run into when they search for permanent lighting in Canada. All three operate on a dealer or franchise model: a local installer buys into the brand, and homeowners book that installer to measure the house, supply the hardware and mount it. The hardware across these brands is broadly similar in concept, low-voltage RGBW pucks in an aluminum or channel track, controlled by an app, though each brand has its own proprietary controller and its own track profile, which means parts are not interchangeable between brands and you are tied to that installer for future service.

The appeal is straightforward: someone else measures, orders, climbs the ladder and wires it up, and you get a finished product with a workmanship warranty from the installer. The cost reflects that. Professional installs in Canada typically run $25 to $40 per linear foot installed, which puts a modest bungalow eave in the $3,000 to $6,000 range and a larger two-storey home with gables well past that.

What you are actually paying for

That per-foot price covers the hardware, the labour, the ladder work and liability, and usually a service visit or two if something needs adjusting. It is a reasonable amount to pay for a fully hands-off experience, particularly on a tall or complex roofline where a homeowner would need a scaffold or would rather not be on a ladder at all. It is worth knowing, though, that the underlying hardware category, sealed low-voltage RGBW pucks in aluminum track with app control, is not exclusive to these franchises. It is the same category of product available directly as a kit.

The consumer smart-lighting category: Govee, Eufy and similar

Govee, Eufy and a handful of similar brands sell permanent-style outdoor light strips through big box retailers and online, generally priced around $2 to $4 per foot. These are adhesive-mounted strips, not screwed-down track, and they connect to an outdoor-rated controller over WiFi or Bluetooth with an app that offers a wide range of colour scenes and music sync effects.

The lower price comes with real trade-offs. Adhesive mounting works well on a clean, dry surface for a season or two but is less certain as a permanent, multi-year fixture through freeze-thaw cycles, and the wiring typically runs exposed along the surface rather than concealed in a rigid channel, which shows in daylight more than a track-mounted system. Most of these strips are also RGB rather than RGBW, meaning there is no dedicated white diode, so the white light is mixed from the red, green and blue channels and tends to read slightly blue or pink rather than a true warm white. For a shorter accent run, a porch, a window frame, a tree, this category is a reasonable and inexpensive option. For a full roofline meant to look clean in daylight and hold up for years, it is a step down from track-based systems.

The DIY kit category: where Permanent Lighting Direct fits

DIY kits sit in between, using the same style of hardware as the professional franchises, aluminum track, sealed RGBW pucks, a WiFi WLED-based controller, a dedicated 12V power supply, but sold as a kit you install yourself rather than bundled with installation labour. Our 100 ft kit, for example, includes 32 strands of 5 RGBW pucks, 31 pieces of 42-inch 5-hole aluminum track in your choice of black, white, wicker or brown, one WiFi controller with 16 million colours plus a dedicated warm white channel, a 150 W power supply, and the full set of connectors, power-injection cables and colour-matched soffit screws needed to finish the run.

• 50 ft kit: $1,265
• 75 ft kit: $1,485
• 100 ft kit: $1,729.20
• 150 ft kit: $2,240.70
• 200 ft kit: $2,648.80
• 250 ft kit: $3,157

Against a $25 to $40 per foot installed price from a franchise, a comparable DIY kit at roughly $13 to $22 per foot in materials makes the maths straightforward for anyone reasonably comfortable on a ladder for a weekend. The pucks in our kits carry the same specifications you would expect from a professional-grade system, roughly 46 lumens and 0.3 W each, a 50,000-hour rating, IP68 sealing, tested to -40 C, and built to CSA Class 2 low-voltage standards, all backed by a 5-year parts warranty.

Comparing the categories side by side

• Franchise install (Trimlight, Jellyfish, Gemstone): $25-40 per foot installed, hands-off, proprietary hardware tied to one installer.
• Consumer smart strips (Govee, Eufy): $2-4 per foot, adhesive mount, visible wiring, mostly RGB rather than RGBW, best for shorter accent runs.
• DIY 12V kits (Permanent Lighting Direct): roughly $13-22 per foot in materials, self-installed in a weekend, RGBW with dedicated warm white, aluminum track, standard connectors, 5-year warranty.

Warranty and long-term ownership

Warranty terms are worth comparing as closely as price, since permanent lighting is a multi-year purchase either way. Franchise brands generally back their installs with a workmanship warranty from the local dealer, which is only as durable as that dealer staying in business and continuing to operate in your area; if a franchisee closes or the territory changes hands, getting warranty service can become more complicated. DIY kits carry a manufacturer parts warranty instead, five years in the case of our kits, which follows the product rather than a specific local business. Neither approach is wrong, but it is worth asking a franchise installer directly what happens to your warranty if they stop operating, since it is a real scenario in a growing industry with a lot of new dealers.

Serviceability and future changes

Houses change. A homeowner adds a sunroom, builds a fence with a gable end worth lighting, or simply wants to extend an existing run to the garage a couple of years after the original install. With a franchise system, that means calling the same installer back, since the track and controller are proprietary to that brand and are not something another company can service or extend using off-the-shelf parts. With a kit built on standard aluminum track, extension connectors and T-connectors, extending a run later is straightforward with the same tools used for the original install, and it does not depend on one specific company remaining available or willing to take on a small add-on job. This is a genuine advantage for homeowners who expect to be in the house for years and may want to adjust the layout down the road.

What none of these options change

Regardless of which category a homeowner chooses, the fundamentals of a good permanent lighting install do not change. The track needs to be fastened into solid material, every connector needs to be fully seated, long runs need power injection planned in from the start, and the controller needs a stable WiFi connection to work reliably. A franchise installer handles all of that as part of the service; a DIY kit puts it in the homeowner's hands, which is exactly why our install guide at /diy-kits walks through each of those steps in the order they actually happen on a ladder, not just as a parts list.

Which one actually fits your house

If the budget supports it and the roofline is tall, steep or otherwise not something you want to climb, a franchise install buys convenience and a workmanship guarantee, and that is a legitimate reason to pay more. If you want a short, low-commitment accent on a porch or a tree, a consumer strip is an inexpensive way to try the look before investing further. If you want the full roofline look with professional-grade hardware, RGBW colour, a track-mounted finish, and you are willing to spend a weekend with a drill and a ladder, a DIY kit gets there for a fraction of the installed price and leaves you owning parts that are easy to extend later rather than locked to one brand's proprietary system.

Getting started with a DIY kit

Measuring the roofline correctly is the first step regardless of which category you choose, since it determines kit size, connector count and whether you need power injection on a long run. Our step-by-step install guide, linked at /diy-kits, walks through planning the run, mounting the track and setting up the app, and the full lineup of kit sizes and pricing is available at /shop. For a deeper look at how the system components fit together, see /how-it-works.