Review: SYLVANIA 34971 ZEVO Interior LED Strip Kit with Remote

Josh · June 1, 2015

Review: SYLVANIA 34971 ZEVO Interior LED Strip Kit with Remote

Josh Merva

GM-Trucks.com

If you're like us, then you probably get envious when you see other companies like Ford including customizable ambient lighting as a standard feature in their vehicles. Maybe you’d like to add some excitement to your truck’s interior, or maybe you just want to be able to see better in the dark. Either way, aftermarket LED lighting offers a simple and cost effective way to add this functionality to your truck. In this review we take a look at a new interior ambient lighting kit from Sylvania.

Products Reviewed
Sylvania 34971 ZEVO Interior LED Strip Kit

Sylvania 34972 ZEVO 6" Interior LED Strip Extension Kit

Sylvania 34973 ZEVO 12" Interior LED Strip Extension Kit

Cost: $35 (Starter Kit), $20/$25 (6-inch & 12-inch Extension Kits)

What it is: An expandable LED Lighting kit that plugs directly into your 12-volt socket. Color and brightness can be customized to suite your mood with the included remote.

Product Features/Specifications:

16 different colors
Adjustable brightness
5 operating modes(Flash, Strobe, Fade, Smooth, Solid).
Wireless Infrared Remote
12 volt car adapter
Easy Installation
Expandable

Tested On

2011 GMC Sierra All-Terrain SLT Extended Cab

What's included

The starter ZEVO kit includes two 12-inch led strips, a controller unit, a remote and enough wire to light our front foot wells. The kit can be easily expanded on with a 6-inch and 12-inch add-on sets. We used the 6-inch expansion kit to light the rear foot wells and the extra 12-inch expansion to light the under seat storage. Sylvania includes more than enough wire and splitters for most installations.

Basic Installation

The first goal is to mount main control unit. It needs to be in a location where the infrared sensor can point up towards the cabin. Next, we plugged in the splitter and ran the power behind the lower console to the passenger foot well. Once the wires were run to their general locations we test fit the LED strips and plugged the car adapter in to make sure everything worked before we mounted lights and hid wires.

It's important to carefully consider where to mount these LED light strips as they can be very bright. Make sure to locate them in a spot where you won't directly see them while driving. We placed our strips facing down towards the floor. To mount, we just peeled off the adhesive and stuck the light strip to a flat surface while firmly pushing them down. That's it! You're done.

Expansion Kits
If two 12-inch light strips isn't enough for your project, Sylvania offers two optional expansion kits to bring even more light into your vehicle. The 6-inch kit comes with two 6-inch LED strips and additional wiring and splicing. Ditto for the 12-inch kit but you get two 12-inch LED strips.

Adding the additional expansion kits to the mix was slightly more interesting because we needed to run the wires to underneath the front and rear seats. We took off the door kick panels so we could pull up and run wires under the carpet.

We used the 6 inch add on kit under the front seats to light rear seat passenger's feet. Since the front seats move, make sure to leave some slack in the wire. We used the 12-inch kit to illuminate our rear bench storage divider. Both are powered by the same control unit that feeds the front lights so the entire truck always matches color and brightness.

Hardwire it in
Optionally, you can simply cut off the power adapter and hard-wire your ambient lighting kit into your vehicle for a cleaner look.

Once you've stripped the power wire, use a jumper to tie the wire into the accessory fuse. We used a simple wire stripper and cut as close to the 12-volt plug as possible. We than ran the power wire to the internal fuse block located in the driver's side door jam. We use a simple fuse jumper and tapped into our accessory power. Since this is always on battery power, these lights will work no matter if the engine is on or not. That can be both a good and a bad thing. In the future we'll search for a keyed power source to prevent accidental battery rundown.

Video

*The flashing while dimming is an artifact of our video camera's shutter. The actual dimming is smooth and pleasant to the eye.

Conclusion
Considering we used six different LED strips, the installation was easy to complete. Sylvania includes plenty of wire and all of the parts needed to install this ambient LED lighting kit correctly the first time.

In our Sierra it was sometimes hard to find a flat place 12-inches long to stick the LED strips to. We had to get creative and in some locations (like the front driver's foot well) we used zip ties to mount the strips instead of the tape.

Our only complaint was that the physical connections between the wires and strips sometimes come loose. We easily fixed that problem by putting electrical tape around the connections and since then it hasn't been an issue.

The actual functionality of the LED strip kit exceeded what we expected. Choosing between 16 colors and multiple brightness levels make daily use a functional experience, not just for show. We loved that the lowest brightness setting was actually dim enough to allow us to drive with the LEDs turned on at night. The flashing "party" modes are a fun feature but clearly a novelty for when you are showing your friends what your interior lighting can do.

After a few days of trying every combination we could find on the remote, we settled with a nice green that almost perfectly matches our gauges. We dimmed it all the way down and now that's where it stays 99% of the time.

The remote works well however we couldn't stop thinking how great it would be if we could use our phones to control the lights via bluetooth. That would certainly add cost, but if you lose the current remote you can't operate the unit. Luckily, any remote works for any unit, so buying a replacement wouldn't be impossible.

The Sylvania ZEVO LED kit did exactly what it promised to do at a super affordable $35 price tag. Extension kits are reasonably priced too with our entire installation coming in at $85 MSRP. We loved all the features Sylvania crammed into such a small simple package. Better yet the kit is versatile enough to fit any kind of vehicle or situation. Sylvania does have some room to improve their offering, but the ZEVO ambient LED lighting kit is a simple way to update your pickup's functionality and fun factor without breaking your wallet.

Editor's Note: This product was provided at no cost for the purposes of a review. We only publish our honest opinions and give no consideration for the gratis product.