Philips announces Hue Play box - Ambilight HDMI box

[Geoff]

I was just given permission my my significant other that I can purchase this, but this isn't going to work with built in Smart TV apps is it?

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Oh yeah. Good point.I really want to want this but just too many niggly draw backs (having to use an app to switch sources, poor HDR support, not being able to use TV apps and instead having to use console apps, which is way more annoying) plus my wife won't enjoy the product itself so it will only get used when I'm alone.

It would be much better if they could engineer a solution that worked with the TV output somehow, rather than the inputs. Not sure if possible.

 

[Fliesen]

Oh yeah. Good point.I really want to want this but just too many niggly draw backs (having to use an app to switch sources, poor HDR support, not being able to use TV apps and instead having to use console apps, which is way more annoying) plus my wife won't enjoy the product itself so it will only get used when I'm alone.

It would be much better if they could engineer a solution that worked with the TV output somehow, rather than the inputs. Not sure if possible.

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Anything's technically possible, but i don't think TV makers would agree upon some kind of standard interface that would allow smart-light makers to connect their lights / bridges to the TV.

Like, if anything it's gonna be highly proprietary and exclusive to certain manufacturers of smart lights and certain manufacturers of SmartTVs. At that point, you might as well just buy a Philips OLED :P

A manufacturer agnostic solution would be some kind of tiny optical sensor (i.e. camera) you put behind your sound bar that is pointed at the TV and averages a color for the currently displayed frame, which it then outputs to your smart lights.

Essentially, what this box does, just not by looking at the signal, but the actual image.

 

[Wackamole]

I never understood the ambilight thing. I just want to watch what is on screen.
But this must be great for people who do like it.

 

[Winstano]

I love my Ambilight TV and want hue for it but I cannot afford that nonsense

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If you already have a Philips ambilight TV, you can just buy the Hue bulbs and hub, you don't need this add-on. We've got an ambilight OLED and it's the best thing I think I've ever bought. Absolutely love the effect, and I'm contemplating upgrading our existing smart bulbs to Hue ones to have them sync with the TV

 

[Quantum Leap]

I own a DreamScreen 4K but i'll probably buy this once the price goes down.

I also find this promo photo hilarious, she's going to get dumped for sure

 

[AshGambit]

If I had the disposable cash I'd love something like that, I just settled for these LED's for £10. They look pretty cool and definitely help with eyestrain playing in the dark.

 

[Geoff]

Anything's technically possible, but i don't think TV makers would agree upon some kind of standard interface that would allow smart-light makers to connect their lights / bridges to the TV.

Like, if anything it's gonna be highly proprietary and exclusive to certain manufacturers of smart lights and certain manufacturers of SmartTVs. At that point, you might as well just buy a Philips OLED :P

A manufacturer agnostic solution would be some kind of tiny optical sensor (i.e. camera) you put behind your sound bar that is pointed at the TV and averages a color for the currently displayed frame, which it then outputs to your smart lights.

Essentially, what this box does, just not by looking at the signal, but the actual image.

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I think you can already do that with an iphone but it doesn't work very well

 

[Deleted member 4976]

This looks cool. I wished I liked bias lighting but I hate how it ruins the mood of darker scenes in general.

What color do the lights typically change to when there's a dark scene with only one or two lights?

 

[Winstano]

This looks cool. I wished I liked bias lighting but I hate how it ruins the mood of darker scenes in general.

What color do the lights typically change to when there's a dark scene with only one or two lights?

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On an actual ambilight set, they dim to a very, very dark grey, depending on the setting you use. If you've got lights on in the room as well, it's barely noticeable. Not sure about additional lights though

 

[R0987]

Cant they come out with a system that uses a camera im always hesitant to use hdmi passthrough due to being paranoid about image degredation and input delay.

 

[Lkr]

I just put a hue strip behind my tv and called it a day. The lighting isn't dynamic, but I don't like this solution. Too much money for a premium product that isn't gonna fit in well with other premium AV products. I mean $200 and I can't do DV and lights at same time? Just give me an Apple TV app that works like the windows app and I'll be content

 

[Bad_Boy]

Way overpriced like the rest of the Philips Hue lineup. And this is coming from someone with about a dozen lights. 100 bucks would be more like it.

 

[tokkun]

What would I need to buy? Have never purchased anything Hue related

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You need a hub and some lights. They sell starter pack bundles that contain both.

 

[tokkun]

Cant they come out with a system that uses a camera im always hesitant to use hdmi passthrough due to being paranoid about image degredation and input delay.

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Smartphone apps that do that have existed for many years. Needing to process the camera data introduces lag between the lighting and what is on screen that can be very distracting. The ones that operate directly on the video signal work much better.

 

[Socivol]

Way overpriced like the rest of the Philips Hue lineup. And this is coming from someone with about a dozen lights. 100 bucks would be more like it.

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The price and lack of built in app support (yeah I get it but....) I'll wait until a sale. I think this would be best used for gaming but I'm not going to pay the price of a console to have the lights change. I'll wait on a sale for this one.

 

[Hoo-doo]

Ambilight is absolutely amazing, I've had it on my last two TV's and it was hard to move on from it. Since then I have switched to a projector setup though, so I don't really miss it.

If i'd go back to a 'regular' TV though, i'm definitely getting an ambilight or this workaround. Curious to see footage of it in action.

 

[Pargon]

I've had Ambilight TVs before, and personally I found it to be very distracting rather than enhancing the experience - no matter what mode it was in.
But I also don't like to put a light behind the TV. I prefer to have lights in the room which are placed so that you get nice warm ambient lighting, but they don't reflect directly onto the screen. I love the BenQ ScreenBar at my monitor setup instead of placing a light behind the screen for example.
I find that placing a light behind the TV makes the bezel stand out (though that matters less with the latest TVs where it's only a few mm) and it makes the screen feel smaller in actual use.

I won't deny that it looks really cool in videos.
Even after owning a couple of Ambilight TVs and finding it distracting in use, I still see videos of their Ambilight OLED or fully kitted-out Hue Sync rooms and want to buy one. But then I fire up the Hue Sync app and remember that I hate using it.

I don't think the logistics of this work particularly well either.
It's HDMI 2.0 - so it's already outdated. At best, I suppose you might be able find an HDMI 2.1 splitter and feed one of the inputs to this? I don't know if that'd work at all. You might also need a device to downgrade the output - which makes an already expensive device even more expensive.

The next issue is latency. Hue Sync is not that fast. Unless this box is also delaying the video signal, you're unlikely to get perfect sync unless your TV happens to have just the right amount of latency that they coincide.
So you'll probably either end up with the lights being out of sync, or lag in games.

As a reminder for people who already own Hue lights, but may not be aware of it, you can use Hue Sync on your PC / Mac right now without any external boxes:

https://www2.meethue.com/en-us/entertainment/hue-sync

That's probably how the video below was captured.

Forgot that bodine1231 had posted his setup in the OT, found the video.

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This is the problem with external solutions compared to having Ambilight built into the TV:

That lag on the lights is really distracting to me; even beyond what perfectly-synced Ambilight built into the TV is like.

I'm more interested in it as a reasonably capable HDMI switch that doesn't look like trash. (Sticker price is a bit high for that, but on sale, might be worth considering.)

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Hide it out of the way. An HDMI switch is not meant to be seen.

Ambilight is absolutely amazing, I've had it on my last two TV's and it was hard to move on from it. Since then I have switched to a projector setup though, so I don't really miss it.
If i'd go back to a 'regular' TV though, i'm definitely getting an ambilight or this workaround. Curious to see footage of it in action.

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If you didn't black out the walls and ceiling near your projection screen, you get a free "Ambilight" anyway!

 

[Dache]

For someone who would only have lighting behind their TV, what's the benefit of this over something like Lightpack? I backed the original Lightpack that only supported PCs a long time ago (and tbh I haven't bothered to keep it going), but the newer 'generic connection' Lightpack model that works with any HDMI input has been out for a while now.

I realise the Philips Hue stuff can interface with other lights that aren't necessarily tied to the TV, but that sounds like an expensive investment beyond this box if you need to buy a bunch of those too? Are there any other benefits aside from that option?

 

[Illusion]

Forgot that bodine1231 had posted his setup in the OT, found the video.

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I'm so getting this now. I wanted more things for my current hue set up.

 

[TheSilentCircus]

This is awesome! I'm really happy on my PC with my custom Arduino setup, but since I set that up I've been thirsty for having something like that on my TV. Will definitely pursue this when my wife and I find a home.

 

[DarkMagician]

Forgot that bodine1231 had posted his setup in the OT, found the video.

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This latency is trash though.

 

[Pargon]

For someone who would only have lighting behind their TV, what's the benefit of this over something like Lightpack? I backed the original Lightpack that only supported PCs a long time ago (and tbh I haven't bothered to keep it going), but the newer 'generic connection' Lightpack model that works with any HDMI input has been out for a while now.

I realise the Philips Hue stuff can interface with other lights that aren't necessarily tied to the TV, but that sounds like an expensive investment beyond this box if you need to buy a bunch of those too? Are there any other benefits aside from that option?

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The benefit is that the Hue Play Box lets you use existing Hue lighting and can do whole-room setups.
But Hue lights are wireless (lag) and don't have light strips with individually addressable LEDs. You will get ambient lighting -maybe one or two lights behind the TV- while the Lightpack kit and real Ambilight TVs can do highly directional lighting behind the TV.

This setup seems to combine Lightpack with Hue (driven by a PC, I assume) but there are still latency issues despite claims of "no lag" which I would find distracting beyond the lights themselves.

Caution: loud.


The Hue kit on its own can get you effects similar to the room lighting, while Ambilight/Lightpack is required for the highly directional lighting behind the TV.

As I said in my earlier post, I really recommend that anyone considering this tries out the Hue Sync app on a PC/Mac before buying it if they can, to get an idea of what the experience is going to be like.
I like how this looks in many of the videos out there, but really dislike it in person because I find it very distracting rather than enhancing the experience.

 

[SlipperyMoose]

Hmm. This is the simple solution I have been waiting for with my entertainment setup. I am bummed it doesn't support Dolby Atmos or HDR10 though. Is that something they can release an update for?

 

[Deleted member 4034]

I shouldn't, but I'm probably gonna get this. Hopefully theres a worthwhile black Friday discount on this and lights.

 

[8byte]

Gonna order one of these and two of the Play light bars.

 

[Laserdisk]

If you already have a Philips ambilight TV, you can just buy the Hue bulbs and hub, you don't need this add-on. We've got an ambilight OLED and it's the best thing I think I've ever bought. Absolutely love the effect, and I'm contemplating upgrading our existing smart bulbs to Hue ones to have them sync with the TV

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I know, that's what I cannot afford.
The hub and bulbs in the UK are insanely priced.

Yep huge delays, glad I have a real ambilight tv

 

[Deleted member 4034]

This latency is trash though.

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That's laggy to you? I really dont see it.

 

[GrinWithoutaKat]

Can you use the current Sync app to position lights above or below your TV? Every time I see video of it, it looks like a top-down view where you can play light either side of your screen, but don't see how easy it would be to do above and below.

Was going to get a new TV around Black Friday with the plan to get a Hue lightstrip and a couple of extension to go around the back of it, but might be cool to just have one strip along the top and then play bars on each side.

 

[MrBS]

This was on display on the weekend at PAX Aus. I pressed the staff member for details for a release date but its coming 'later' for local release. It was set up with God of War playing which had long stretches of people playing in the same area of mostly the same colour so who knows if it was working properly. In other news my hue play set arrived today so time to give that a whirl on PC.

 

[lint2015]

A manufacturer agnostic solution would be some kind of tiny optical sensor (i.e. camera) you put behind your sound bar that is pointed at the TV and averages a color for the currently displayed frame, which it then outputs to your smart lights.

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I've been looking into an Ambilight-type system for a while know but never found a solution that I thought was priced decently and would be easy to set up.

Several months ago, I found that there was a solution out there that uses a camera pointed at the TV, which means you don't have to worry about input sources and HDMI passthrough. I didn't really have the money to spare back then and forgot the name of it so I'd have to look for it again.

This Hue solution is ridiculously expensive, especially since you have to spend several hundred more to get the lights to make it work.

 

[sangreal]

Mine came in today. The box itself seems to work well enough (dolby vision aside) but the hue sync software could still use some work. Like, I can't get the minimum brightness setting to work -- it's really distracting when the lights turn off then back on

 

[8byte]

Mine came in today. The box itself seems to work well enough (dolby vision aside) but the hue sync software could still use some work. Like, I can't get the minimum brightness setting to work -- it's really distracting when the lights turn off then back on

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I need to check out some impressions of this, I'm trying to convince the wife to get it, but it'll be a tough sell. Might have to wait until after we've gotten a house, lol.

 

[Elfotografoalocado]

Also helps black levels bia bias lighting, and looks cool.
This was when mine was delivered before I set it up.

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That's actually kinda cool.

 

[No Depth]

Mine came in today. The box itself seems to work well enough (dolby vision aside) but the hue sync software could still use some work. Like, I can't get the minimum brightness setting to work -- it's really distracting when the lights turn off then back on

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Also am curious if audio passes through ok? Like Atmos or other high quality audio?

 

[sangreal]

Also am curious if audio passes through ok? Like Atmos or other high quality audio?

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Right now I only have it connected to an HDMI splitter so I don't even have an output hooked up but I'll try it out later. There is basically no info in the manual other than "plug it in" and various warnings. They do mention in the app that there is support for ARC on 1 port which I know some people were asking earlier in the thread

Some other random thoughts:
-It uses the same 3-port power-supply as the hue play lights
-It has a USB port but you can't use it for power -- it is only used to tell if TV is powered on
-You can use HDMI CEC for the above and auto-input-switching
-Power button looks like an IR receiver but there is no remote (included, at least)
-It uses WiFi, not just zigbee (or maybe instead of zigbee but it still uses bridge so idk) -- but no 5ghz support (like most IOT devices)

 

[Afrikan]

Preorder here:

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/philips-hue-play-hdmi-sync-box-black/6371722.p?skuId=6371722

$229. October 20th.

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$229 huh?

Anyone remember how much Microsoft was thinking of selling their own TV background enhancement thing?

Edit- never mind, much different effect.

 

[xbhaskarx]

Cool. I have a Dreamscreen 4k - which I love and works well with my current setup - but I'm a little worried about the support and backing from the company.

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A little worried, didn't Dreamscreen announce they're shutting down?

 

[Laserdisk]

That's actually kinda cool.

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It's amazing how quickly you forget it's there and it just works

 

[Dr. Lucien Sanchez]

A little worried, didn't Dreamscreen announce they're shutting down?

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Oh shit, thanks for giving me the heads up. That's awful, and they way they announced it (via their forums?) is even worse. What a joke.

I was in the beta test for the connect and was wondering why there hadn't been any updates in ages. So I guess this makes sense. Hopefully they open source the software or something at least, though I doubt that will happen. Seriously love ambient lighting and the hue box doesn't really compare yet.

 

[0ptimusPayne]

not to derail but anyone who has the hue play lights how are you enjoying them? I have two gos in my game room that I'm thinking about putting in the living room, and replacing those with play lights and maybe eventually getting this box.

 

[No Depth]

The box just released today, seeing sone impressions online, mostly positive, though plenty of troubleshooting issues. Some can't get it to sync Bluetooth, some say Atmos passes thru, other don't. Some have flickering and sync issues depending on connection.

Really like Hue Sync on PC and would love this for my TV, but it's crazy how back and forth impressions are as people guess their way to make it work with so many unique setups. Gonna hold off for now until things stabilize.

not to derail but anyone who has the hue play lights how are you enjoying them? I have two gos in my game room that I'm thinking about putting in the living room, and replacing those with play lights and maybe eventually getting this box.

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I have Play lights behind my gaming monitor with the Hue Sync app in windows. I really dig them, as they feel just the right size to handle ambient lighting for a monitor. Bright and the sync can be real effective at times, even if I barely notice outside extreme instances. (Destiny 2 is incredible with them given all the extreme light sourcing and color palette use in that game)

Not sure how they will do on a big TV though. They do disperse lighting well but the are perfectly sized for a monitor, not so much a giant TV.

I guess you could mix them with the Go lamps to provide strong coverage.

 

[Dr Doom]

Just got mine today.
Easy enough set up. Everything is controlled with phone app (of course). I wish you can switch HDMI through the APP instead you have tap the actual button on the system.

I tried Control on my PS4. It's responsive. I didn't detect any lag. Maybe if I fired up a fighting game.

 

[Maxim726x]

Anyone here using this with a receiver?

 

[WordsintheWater]

Anyone here using this with a receiver?

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I am, worked well so far, I was a bit worried in the beginning, but I haven't had issues.

 

[Deleted member 15447]

Noob questions, but how many lights do you need to look the best?

And can anyone suggest or link or recommended set of lights? Is it possible to have it sync with the led strips you can put behind your tv or is it better to get a couple big standing lights?

Thanks!

 

[Kyuuji]

Just realised this isn't in the UK? Wuh..

 

[GrinWithoutaKat]

So you can plug three of the 'Extension' Play Bars right into this thing's power adaptor? I know it's not out in the UK til next year, but still going to look out for some Play Bars during BF.