You might have seen LED bias lighting solutions for the back of your TV that actually sync to the colors of whatever you are watching. Some of these lead to a wonderful experience that really adds a whole new level of immersion to movies, games, and more. However, these systems are typically expensive and proprietary. They typically don’t work with other lighting options in the room.
But, what if you already have a Philips Hue system running? Those bulbs are supposed to be smart. So why wouldn’t they be able to do something like that? Philips seems to feel the same way, and thus they are bringing their new Philips Hue Play HDMI Sync Box to the market this month, which will allow you to do just that.
It connects inline between your TV and whatever device is feeding it (ie: Blueray, Xbox, AVR, etc) via HDMI. So your source device will run to this new box, and then out of this box into your TV. It simply intercepts and passes on all video being fed to the TV (you can connect up to 4 devices). It won’t affect your image any, but it will communicate back to your Philips Hue bridge what it sees, allowing your lights to do exactly what those fancy bias light systems do.
Of course, like anything fun like this, it is also a little pricey at $229.99, in addition to having to have the Philips Hue Bridge and lights already. Philips Hue is one of the more expensive consumer-level smart lighting solutions, however, it is also one of the best. So chances are, this may look pretty cool.
It isn’t available just yet, but it will be launching sometime this month. Currently, you can at least pre-order it if you don’t want to wait too long to get your hands on one. If we find out more or get our hands on one, we will be sure to let you know what we find!
