Philips Hue Play sync box and gradient lightstrip review: wholly unnecessary, totally delightful

Am I incorrect for considering our TVs needs to be quite a bit cooler by now? We will fake 3D TVs didn’t occur as a result of they have been dangerous, and curved TVs have been a gimmick at finest. Yeah, image high quality and type issue has improved quite a bit because the Nineteen Eighties, but it surely’s 2022! The place’s my superior sci-fi TV?

All that’s to say that once I lastly bought an opportunity to check Philips’ Hue Play HDMI Sync Field and Play gradient lightstrip, I used to be hopeful that it could elevate my TV expertise. It claims to sync the color-changing backlight (and another color-changing bulbs you might need) with the content material in your TV for a extra immersive expertise. It’s a “encompass lighting” idea to go together with the encompass sound we’ve identified for years.

This encompass lighting expertise isn’t fairly sci-fi, but it surely’s nonetheless fairly cool. And after utilizing it almost each evening for the final couple of months, I’m bought on it. I do know, I’m shocked, too.

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Let’s break this method down into its part components. The $250 Play HDMI Sync Field is the brains of the operation. It’s, because the identify suggests, a roughly 7 x 4 x 1-inch field. On the again are 4 HDMI inputs and one HDMI output. That is how the system is aware of what’s in your TV display so it might probably coloration match your lights; all the imagery is routed by it. It’s a intelligent design that significantly reduces lag so your lights keep tightly synced, although there may be one main flaw to this technique, which we’ll get into in a second. It was considerably restricted when it first launched, but it surely now helps Dolby Imaginative and prescient, Atmos, and HDR10 Plus, so your packages ought to look and sound simply nearly as good as they usually do.

The opposite main piece is the Play gradient lightstrip, which varies in worth relying on the dimensions wanted on your TV ($250 for the 55 inch, $270 for the 65 inch, and $300 for the 75 inch). It is a versatile strip of LED lights that affixes to the again of your TV. The 65-inch strip I ended up with contained roughly 80 particular person LEDs, however they don’t all should show the identical coloration on the similar time, which is how they can create a illustration of the numerous colours being displayed on the sting of your TV display. The concept is that the colours form of bleed off of the display and onto the wall behind it, making the display really feel bigger.

There’s yet another obligatory part (yup, that is getting costly) in addition to another nice-to-haves. The obligatory piece is the $60 Philips Hue Bridge, which connects on to your Wi-Fi router and acts because the central hub for all issues Hue. That’s how the sync field will inform the gradient strip which colours to show and when.

The great-to-haves are another color-changing Hue lights round your front room. These can all be looped into the sync field’s stream so the colours in your display can prolong not simply behind your TV but in addition throughout your room, which turned out to be manner cooler than I assumed it could be.

Organising the system was easy, however I had a head begin as a result of I already had Hue lights scattered round my house (accounting for all the lights in my front room), which meant my Hue Bridge was already arrange with my Wi-Fi and account.

That completed, my first activity was so as to add the gradient strip to my TV. The system features a few plastic guides with double-sided tape that you simply affix to the again of your TV. Then you definately simply slot the versatile gradient strip into the groove within the guides. This was made barely extra difficult for me as a result of I’ve a 55-inch TV, and Philips by chance despatched me the 65-inch strip. Fortunately, as a result of the strips bend, I used to be ready so as to add some curves to the straightaways, and every part match and aligned as supposed. (Although I’d advocate getting the fitting measurement strip on your TV.) From there, you simply plug it right into a wall outlet and add it to your property system through the bridge and the Hue app.

Organising the sync field was even simpler. You simply take the HDMI cables coming out of your streaming gadgets, online game consoles, Blu-ray gamers, and many others., and as a substitute of operating them into the TV, you run them into the sync field after which join the sync field’s HDMI out to the TV and plug within the energy.

From there, you must set up a separate Hue Sync app in your telephone. That is the place you’ll arrange and management your impending mild present. When you’ve got a number of Hue lights across the room, you’ll place every of them in a 3D diagram of a room. That is so the sync field is aware of what coloration to show which mild and when so every part flows easily. You can too create a number of “leisure space” setups in case there are occasions if you solely need the TV to be backlit.

At this level, you’re mainly good to go. Begin taking part in some content material by the sync field and begin tinkering with the settings within the Hue Sync app to make the system work such as you need it to. On the app’s primary display you may change between video, music, and sport modes, regulate the depth between delicate, average, excessive, and excessive, and regulate the brightness with a slider.

I discovered in a short time that I actually favored tailoring the expertise to the precise content material I used to be watching. For instance, if I used to be watching a film like Every part In all places All At As soon as, I’d need it in video mode on excessive depth with the lights round 65 p.c brightness. For motion pictures that have been at a slower tempo, I most well-liked the average depth. If I needed it to have abrupt, near-instantaneous reactions, I switched to sport mode and excessive depth. If I needed to play music by my TV and have a celebration vibe, I’d flip it to music mode, which doesn’t actually have a look at the colours on the TV however as a substitute makes the lights pulse together with the beat.

Every of those modes labored shockingly properly as soon as I’d tweaked them to my liking. As a cinephile, I actually thought that I wouldn’t wish to use this method for motion pictures, assuming that they’d be a distraction, however I didn’t discover that to be the case in any respect. So long as the brightness and depth have been set correctly, it didn’t overwhelm the movie. As an alternative, it introduced me into the world of the film. It felt extra like I used to be sitting in the identical room with the characters somewhat than viewing them by the window of my TV.

Watching The Simpsons crammed my front room with the intense pastel colours of Springfield, and it was a pleasant feeling. Whereas I don’t at the moment have a gaming system setup, I watched a ton of gameplay movies whereas in sport mode, and it was a blast with my house lighting up with explosions, laser fireplace, or bucolic grassy greens relying on the sport. Whereas music mode in all probability isn’t one thing I’d use except I have been throwing a celebration, I’ve to say that the beat matching was distinctive, and I beloved seeing my house pulse together with beats in Anderson .Paak, Beyoncé, and J. Cole’s music. (It labored properly with music movies, too.)

It’s value noting that whereas I’ve eight Hue lights in my front room to play with, I spent plenty of time utilizing the sync field with solely the gradient strip on the again of the TV and all the opposite lights turned off. That alone labored extraordinarily properly. It places out a major quantity of sunshine (1,100 lumens, roughly the equal of a 75W bulb however distributed in a protracted ring), and I usually have it on even when the TV is off as a result of it provides extra mild to my front room and may be managed like another mild with the common Hue app. Nature documentaries actually popped. When watching motion pictures, I felt prefer it decreased eyestrain, but it surely didn’t pull me out like having regular lights on would.

For gaming, the response time is lightning-quick and makes it really feel much more immersive. Final 12 months, when our Thomas Ricker reviewed the (massively cheaper) Govee Immersion TV Backlight, he discovered that it was liable to falling behind the content material on-screen, however that wasn’t a problem for me with the sync field, particularly in gaming mode. For motion pictures, the slower transitions of average depth made the impact extra delicate and really feel mushy and pure.

Integrating the opposite Hue lights in my front room wasn’t as clean of an expertise, although. Once I was watching a film or a TV present, I found that I actually didn’t like seeing any of my lights straight or they’d change into distracting. The way in which round that is to create an “Leisure Space” within the Sync app that doesn’t embrace these lights. Creating a brand new space is a little bit of a ache, and for some cause, the app doesn’t allow you to edit the areas you’ve already made.

The larger downside is that when you begin syncing content material with the TV, these lights that you simply’ve now excluded stay in no matter state they have been in beforehand. So in the event that they have been on, you must exit the Sync app, open the common Hue app, and switch them off manually. It’s only a few clicks, but it surely’s actually annoying which you can’t do all of this from only one app. The sync field works with Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, however whereas it responds to some voice instructions, I’ve but to have the ability to get that course of automated. I’d additionally prefer to see the power to change between leisure areas added on to the homescreen so I don’t should dive into the settings as usually (although that gained’t be a problem if the gradient strip is your solely Hue mild).

Now to the most important flaw within the system. Because the identify HDMI Sync Field suggests, this complete factor solely works for content material that’s coming in by an HDMI cable. That implies that when you use the built-in app in your good TV or perhaps a digital antenna to choose up native broadcast, you’re out of luck as a result of the sync field won’t work with that content material in any respect. Even the $90 Govee system talked about above can try this. (Although it requires inserting a small digital camera in entrance of your TV display, doesn’t work as easily, and doesn’t play as properly with different good lights.) Personally, this was not a problem for me as a result of I hate my TV’s built-in apps, so I take advantage of Chromecast with Google TV for every part. The identical could be true when you use a Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fireplace TV Stick, Xbox, PlayStation, or cable field that runs by HDMI. Nonetheless, there are tons of individuals (a few of my shut relations included) who simply use the built-in apps on their TVs, and when you’re one among them, you do not need this product.

It additionally should be stated that, collectively, the sync field and gradient strip price greater than $500 (greater than $600 if it is advisable to buy the Hue Bridge, too). That’s greater than the price of plenty of very respectable TVs, and that places this within the realm of luxurious merchandise. Amongst good residence merchandise, Hue has a status for being polished, working properly, steadily including options, and taking part in properly with different good residence gadgets, and its lighting usually prices greater than the competitors consequently. Lots of people have already purchased into the Hue ecosystem (as I’ve), and for them, whereas this nonetheless isn’t low-cost, it provides a complete new dimension and bag of methods to your property lighting system.

Pictures by Brent Rose for The Verge