Renter-friendly LED strip lights

LED strips are the most renter-friendly lighting there is on paper: no wiring, a plug-in adapter, and adhesive backing instead of screws. Plenty of renters light a whole apartment with them.

The catch is the adhesive. Stuck to painted drywall and pulled off at move-out, a strip can lift a line of paint with it - and a strip of missing paint is exactly the kind of damage that comes out of a deposit.

So for a renter, choosing a strip is only half the decision. The other half is where it goes, because the surface decides the risk far more than the product does. The general adhesive technique is in no-drill lighting.

WOBANE COB strip - the pick for functional light. CRI 90+ at 3000K with a continuous emitting surface that shows no dots. Under a shelf or inside a cabinet it gives useful, good-color light, and a COB strip hides cleanly behind a lip. It runs from its own adapter.
Cons: no published lumen figure, and it is fixed white with no color.

Govee M1 - for color and effects. Multi-color along one run plus dedicated warm and cool white LEDs, so it works as plain white on the days you want that. For behind a TV or a headboard, where the surface is yours, it is a low-risk way to add color.
Cons: no lumen figure published.

Nanoleaf Essentials Matter Lightstrip - the brightest, and not tied to one app. A stated 2,200 lumen maximum and Matter support, so it joins a smart home without depending on one company. The smart-strip comparison is in best smart light strips.
Cons: no CRI published.

LIFX Z TV - for behind a TV. 1,500 published lumens, built for the one application where a strip sits entirely on your own property: the back of a television. Zero deposit risk.
Cons: designed around the TV use case specifically.

Stick to surfaces you own first. The underside of a shelf, the back of furniture, a TV and the inside of a cabinet give you almost every strip effect with no deposit risk at all.

If it must go on a wall, test first. Stick a short offcut somewhere hidden for a week, then remove it. If it lifts paint, do not run a long strip there.

Clean the surface. Adhesive holds on clean, dry, smooth surfaces and fails on dusty or textured ones. A strip that falls down is a nuisance; one that holds too well on fresh paint is a deposit problem.

Remove it warm and slow. Warm the adhesive with a hair dryer, then peel slowly, pulling parallel to the surface rather than outward. Cold, fast removal is what takes paint.

Hide the adapter and cord. The strip is the easy part; the power brick and its cord to the outlet are what look untidy. See how to hide a plug-in fixture cord. Strips dim at their own controller rather than a wall dimmer - see dimming LED strips and light bars.