These LED's use about 7.2 Watts max per meter. The max rating is assuming all the LEDs are on full white,
usually the actual current for colorful design is about 1/3 to 1/2 the max current.
To make the strip thin and easier to manufacture, the controller chip is inside the LED,
the chip only uses a single pin for input and a single pin for output. The protocol used is
very timing-specific and can only be controlled by microcontrollers with highly repeatable 100nS timing precision.
The way the pixels are controlled by an Arduino, the entire strip must be buffered in memory
There are 30 RGB LEDs per meter, and you can control each LED individually!
this is the digitally-addressable type of LED strip. You can set the color of each LED's red, green and blue
component with 8-bit PWM precision
The strip is made of flexible PCB material, You can cut this stuff pretty easily with wire cutters,
there are cut-lines every 1.3"/3.4cm (1 LED each). Solder to the 0.1" copper pads
They come in 5 meter reels with a 2-pin JST SM connector on each end and separated power/ground wires.