If you will have a Philips Hue Bridge in your house, or don’t thoughts including one, the Philips Hue Play gentle bars can ship bias lighting to your property theater. They’re even higher as a responsive bias lighting on your PC monitor, although, particularly for those who’re a gamer.
Hue Play gentle bars might be built-in with the remainder of the Philips Hue good lighting ecosystem, after all, which is appropriate with Amazon Alexa, Google Home, and Apple HomePackage. But if that is the primary Hue element in your house, you’ll have to additionally buy the $60 Philips Hue Bridge. You can then combine these versatile gadgets into any lighting scenes you create utilizing different Hue bulbs.
That mentioned, a single Hue Play, plus the price of the required Bridge is almost twice as costly as any of the opposite bias lighting kits I’ve examined (the two-pack reviewed right here prices $130 and in addition doesn’t embody the Bridge). Syncing Hue Play gentle bars to your pc monitor, however, is a a lot better expertise.
Installation and setup
Getting began with the Philips Hue Play package is a surprisingly easy course of. Each gentle bar comes with a six-foot cable that plugs right into a single energy adapter. The energy adapter can accomodate as much as three gentle bars (add-ons value $70 every). And it bears repeating that the required Philips Hue Bridge will not be included within the package.
The first step is to determine the place to put your gentle bars, and right here’s the place you get to be artistic. If you’re utilizing the Philips Hue Play on your TV, you’ll be able to set the sunshine bars horizontally on their sides; the jammed again of the bars goals the lit aspect upwards at an angle, successfully splashing gentle onto the wall behind your set. The rubberized floor of the rear wedge helps to make sure the sunshine bar doesn’t slip.
Another choice is to make use of one of many two pairs of plastic mounting brackets, which you’ll be able to simply connect to the sunshine bars utilizing the included screws and an Allen wrench. One set of brackets permits you to stand the bars up vertically, with the brackets serving as a base, whereas the opposite set permits you to mount the bars on the again of your TV utilizing an adhesive backing.
The included, easy-to-install brackets permits for positioning the Hue Play gentle bars horizontally or vertically, or you’ll be able to stick them to the again of your TV or pc monitor.
Using the sunshine bars along with your TV isn’t the one chance. You may also put them behind your pc monitor (I used the vertical mounting brackets for that function), or artfully organize them close to any wall or floor that wants a vibrant swath of coloration.
Once you’ve organized your Hue Play lights and plugged them in, you’ll want to attach them to your Hue Bridge, after which hearth up the Hue app in your iOS or Android machine. The app will immediate you to find your new lights, after which step you thru the method of making a “Room” wherein to put your lights.
After somewhat testing to make sure that every gentle is on the right aspect in relation to one another, you’re prepared to start out enjoying with “scenes” (mainly coloration and brightness presets) or “routines” (lighting preparations based mostly on the time of day, your arrivals and departures, timers, and different occasions) utilizing the Hue app. If you will have different Philips Hue good bulbs in your house, you’ll be able to add the Hue Play gentle bars to your present scenes or routines.
Setting the scene
While the Philips Hue Play gentle bars clearly have quite a lot of makes use of, let’s focus for now on how they operate as bias lighting for a TV. For this explicit setup, I set the sunshine bars horizontally behind my set, which managed to throw a comparatively massive swath of sunshine on the wall.
One choice is to go along with a primary, static bias lighting setup, with none fancy syncing colours. First, I borrowed the settings of the “Energize” Hue theme, a coloration and brightness preset that comes moderately near the 6500Okay coloration temperature beneficial by video consultants for TV bias lighting. (Anything a lot hotter or cooler than 6500Okay, which is a normal used throughout the video business for what the colour “white” ought to appear to be, can distort the colours in your display screen.) Next, I swiped the brightness slider within the app all the best way down, after which nudged it again up simply sufficient to spice up the obvious distinction on the display screen with out “crushing” black ranges.
Ben Patterson/IDGAfter somewhat fiddling, I created a “scene” for the Philips Hue Play gentle bars that served properly as a static TV bias gentle.
I renamed my new scene “TV Bias” and turned it on and off by flicking a digital change within the Hue app. If I had a Harmony common distant with a Harmony hub (I’ve an older Harmony One IR distant), I may have built-in the Hue Play lights into one among my Harmony “activities.” That could be good for turning the sunshine bars on everytime you faucet “Watch Apple TV” on the distant, for instance.
I additionally tried the Hue Play gentle bars with my 27-inch 4K PC monitor, and I preferred them much more. For use with my PC, I used the included brackets to face the lights up vertically, which makes for a a lot smaller footprint within the cramped space behind my show. The bias lighting scene I created for my TV labored properly with my PC, however I additionally loved syncing the lights with the pictures on my monitor, which I’ll describe in additional element in a second.
Performance
Once all was mentioned and performed, utilizing the Philips Hue Play gentle bars for static bias TV lighting appeared fairly good to my eyes. The lights forged a mushy, impartial tone on the wall that did a commendable job of preserving me from squinting on the display screen, whereas additionally giving the black ranges on my 10-year-old Sony Bravia TV a wanted increase. After expecting a couple of minutes, I tended to neglect the lights have been there, but I discovered myself lacking them after they have been off—at all times a superb signal.
When I used to be completed watching TV, I used different Hue scenes—every thing from the nice and cozy glow of “savanna sunset” to the cool shades of “arctic aurora”—so as to add a gorgeous glow on the wall behind my set, a pleasant change from the darkish shadow forged by my 46-inch display screen. As with different Hue-powered lights, you’ll be able to set the Hue Play gentle bars to change on and off based mostly on a schedule, or whether or not you’re dwelling or away. You may also management them with voice instructions through Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, or Apple’s Siri.
Ben Patterson/IDGThe Philips Hue Play gentle bars can forged a gorgeous splash of coloration onto the wall behind your powered-off TV.
Philips Hue Play gentle bars are form of able to syncing with the colours in your TV display screen, however you’ll want to leap by way of some hoops to make that work. You’ll first have to obtain the Hue Sync program to your laptop computer or desktop pc (each Windows 10 and macOS variations can be found). You’ll then have to mirror no matter you’re watching in your pc onto your TV. It’s a cumbersome setup, to say the least, and I seen a slight however distracting lag because the Hue Play gentle bars struggled to remain in sync with the colours on the display screen. A setting within the Hue Sync desktop app helps to alleviate the lag considerably, however I by no means warmed to the expertise.
I received a a lot better outcome utilizing the Hue Play gentle barss instantly with my PC monitor, which eliminates the necessity to fear about mirroring your pc’s show; you simply click on a inexperienced “Start Light Sync” button and the lights start to sync with the colours in your monitor. I discovered the impact fairly soothing whereas I used to be shopping and dealing with Office apps, and watching Netflix on my pc display screen was lots simpler than mirroring it on my TV, though I nonetheless discovered the lag to be distracting.
Ben Patterson/IDGThe Hue Play can sync with the colours in your PC monitor with assist from the Hue Sync app for Windows 10 and macOS.
On the opposite hand, enjoying PC video games with the Hue Play gentle bars is an immersive hoot. I received an enormous kick out of blasting Dregs on Destiny 2’s Tangled Shore with my controller rumbling, my PC audio system cranked, and the Hue Play popping with each muzzle flash. And whereas the Hue Play lights have been in all probability lagging a bit, as they did throughout my Netflix movies, I used to be too busy taking out Dregs with head photographs to note.
Fancy a light-weight present to go together with your tunes? The Hue Play lights may even sync along with your music, supplied that you just’re enjoying your songs, stations, or playlists in your PC.
Conclusion
The Philips Hue Play package makes for a nifty, if costly, means so as to add bias lighting to your TV or PC monitor. Easy to arrange and able to combine along with your different Philips Hue good lights, the Hue Play’s enticing bias lighting can assist enhance your TV’s image whereas easing eye pressure, or you should use it in tandem along with your pc show for synchronized lighting results. You’ll want a Hue Bridge for the lights to work, nonetheless, whereas the Hue Play’s capacity to sync with the TV in your lounge is hobbled by its reliance on mirroring the picture in your pc.