The biggest challenge facing Philips is the smart TV app platforms and I actually wish there was a lighting standard for this built into non-Philips TVs, that could be leveraged by solutions like this to leverage the HDMI pixel information, at least colour sampling of it. At the time, they used light strips, adding to the complexity of setup, while Philip’s solution is now more elegant and easy to setup. I first saw the concept many years ago with a Kickstarter project that I invested in and at the time it suffered many limitations that made it wasn’t practical for most households. It is difficult to say that anyone actually needs this in this life, but there’ll be plenty that wants it. If you found a great deal on a TV leading into Christmas, maybe you have some extra money burning a hole in your pocket and this will be a great present for yourself. This certainly isn’t cheap and if you buy it at retail will be the best part of $1,000. This means the total solution that I reviewed (the 55″ version), could be yours for A$840.97 if you shop around. Some of you may already have this if you’ve bought Hue lights previously, but if you’re new, you’ll need to add another A$86.61 to the price. To make the Light strip and the HDMI Sync box play together and be able to control it with your phone, you’ll also need the Philips Hue Bridge. The Philips Hue Play HDMI Sync Box costs $499.00 at JB Hi-Fi, or $398.46 at Amazon. If you step up to the 65″ Gradient Strip, you’ll pay $382.90 at Amazon, while the standard price is $439.95 RRP.įor the largest version, supporting 75″ displays, you’ll pay $449.90. The 55″ version of the Philip Hue Play gradient lightstrip has a standard cost of A$399.95 at stores like JB Hi-Fi, but I found it on Amazon for $355.90. If there were delays in the changes to colours and the content on screen, it would really break the experience, but thankfully Philips has done a great job of dealing with any latency in the HDMI chain. I was pleasantly surprised with the performance of the light changing, particularly when on Game mode and set to the highest intensity. The effect really is quite spectacular, something not possible with a basic light strip on the back of your low-line entertainment unit. With the Sync activated on the HDMI switcher, the light then responds to the HDMI source, be it gaming with an Xbox, or video content through a set-top-box or even a phone or camera connected via USB-C to HDMI.
You can also select the brightness on the light strip and I can tell you the max, is really bright, I found around 80-90% to be the best setting, but this will depend on the ambient light in your room.
These translate to different levels of intensity, although this can be overwritten. Essentially you have a choice between 3 modes to choose from, Video, Music and Game. Naturally being a smart connected light system, there’s a mobile app to interface with the switcher and light strip. Once you work through the light setup, you’ll connect it to the power and let the HDMI switcher perform its magic, syncing with a control module at the end of the light strip to do the magic. Once you have the black plastic supports in place, you can route the light strip which is really thick, which can make bending it around the corners a little tricky. If the size of your TV falls in between these recommendations, use the next size down (for example, a 62-inch TV would use the 55-inch lightstrip). The 55-inch lightstrip is recommended for 55 to 60-inch TVs, the 65-inch lightstrip for 65 to 70-inch TVs, and the 75-inch lightstrip for 75-inch and larger TVs.
These light strip does come in different lengths to suit different sized TVs, and while I have a 65″ and 75″ wall-mounted, I fortunately also had a 55″ 4K TV that was perfect for this review. First, you start by attaching 5 black plastic strips on the back of the TV. The design of the switcher is fairly subtle and could easily be at home in your entertainment unit, there to function, device is fairly lean in size, black in colour, easily fading into the rest of your home entertainment system.Īttaching the light strip to the back of the TV is an interesting process. This provides an experience that goes beyond the size of your TV and provides a greater, more impactful experience. What Philips is able to do here is capture the RGB values of the pixels sent to the outside of the display, then multiple them through their lighting technology. The HDMI switcher from Philips offers 4x HDMI inputs from your devices and a 5th HDMI port which output from the switcher to your TV.