How do you make separate under-cabinet light strips behave as one kitchen zone?

A common kitchen layout problem: two or three runs of cabinets separated by a window or a doorway, each with its own outlet, and no clean way to run one light strip across all of them. People burn hours trying to figure out how to cut a single smart strip into pieces and power each piece separately — but a cut-off piece of a smart strip is just passive LED tape with no radio or controller, so each separated location needs its own powered, controllable strip.

Once you accept that, the real question isn't hardware — it's behavior: three physical strips that act as one kitchen light. The fix is to stop treating them as three gadgets and make Rhythm the source of truth for the room.

What this solves

• Multiple strips that each need adjusting separately, three times a day
• One strip on last night's scene while the others are on today's
• Under-cabinet light that's task-bright at 9pm when you wanted the kitchen winding down
• Voice commands that catch one strip and miss the rest

Before you start

• One smart strip per cabinet run, each with its own power supply and controller — buy per location rather than planning to split one strip across the room
• LightHub powered and on the same local network as your phone
• Each strip visible to Rhythm (paired via Matter, a Hue Bridge import, or a Home Assistant import — whichever path your strips use)

Do it in Rhythm

1. Open Rhythm and confirm all the strips are visible.
2. Assign every strip to the same room — Kitchen. This is the whole trick: in Rhythm, the room is the unit of behavior, so three strips in one room are one light as far as the daily curve is concerned.
3. Open the Kitchen room profile.
4. Set the brightness range first: bright enough at midday for counter work, low for the evening.
5. Set the warmth range second: neutral-to-cool during the day for task light, warm in the evening.
6. Preview morning, midday, evening, and bedtime. All strips should move together — same level, same warmth, same time.
7. Save and let it run for a day.

Avoid double automation

• Remove per-strip schedules or scenes in the vendor app (Hue or otherwise) — one leftover scene on one strip is exactly how the mismatched-strip look comes back.
• Point voice assistants at the room, not at individual strips.
• Don't build a separate HomeKit or Google Home automation for the same strips — one room, one source of truth.

When this is actually a device problem

If one strip won't pair, drops offline, or flickers, no amount of grouping fixes it — sort the device out first. And if you're still at the shopping stage: check the manufacturer's documentation for cut and extension rules before planning to cut anything. Cutting is for adjusting a strip's length at its installed location, not for multiplying one purchase across the room.

Good Rhythm settings to start with

• Morning: medium brightness, neutral
• Midday: bright, neutral-to-cool — this is task lighting
• Evening: low-to-medium, warm
• Sleep: off, or very dim and warm if the kitchen doubles as a night path

Kitchens differ from bedrooms: err brighter during the day, and let the evening drop be noticeable — it's a useful cue that the kitchen is closing.

Let the room run

Once the room is stable, let Rhythm run the daily curve and keep the vendor app for firmware or special effects. Three strips, one kitchen, zero daily fiddling.