Signify – the company behind the colour-changing Philips smart light bulbs – announced on CES 2023 that it will bring its Ambilight light sync technology to select Samsung TVs.
If you own a Samsung QLED TV model from 2022 and it is also a Q60 model number or higher – such as Samsung Q60T QLED TV or the Samsung QN900B Neo QLED 8K TV – you can download the Philips Hue Sync TV app. You can then use this service to synchronize your TV with Philips Hue smart bulbs and LED arrays to let you enjoy a more colorful home entertainment setup.
The only downside: the app costs $130 — and that’s on top of the hardware you’ll need to buy to enjoy Philips’ reactive color experience.
Now a gimmick or a gimmie?
Ambilight TV are like nothing else on the market. Rather than confining its color to just the screen, the TV cleverly uses an LED array arranged around its sides to illuminate the wall with colors synchronized with what’s on screen (be it from film, show or game).
Admittedly it all sounds a bit gimmicky, but in our experience this feature really increases the immersion of watching content on the Ambilight TVs. Just look at the GIF above, Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse color seems to explode off the screen. What’s more, you can also sync your TV with your other Philips Hue smart bulbs, so the TV’s color floods your entire room instead of just bleeding it out behind the display.
However, Philips TVs haven’t always impressed us as much as Samsung and LG in standard metrics – like screen, audio and picture quality. Thanks to this new app, you can now enjoy the best of both worlds by getting a superb Samsung display and the amazing light show of Philips technology.
If you have an LG or Sony TV, you don’t have to miss out on the benefits of interactive Hue lights either – it’ll just cost you a bit more. Instead of an app, you can buy the physical one Philips Hue Play HDMI Sync Box for $229.99 / £229 (around AU$335) and enjoy the same immersive entertainment benefits. We’ve given the box a four-star rating because while it doesn’t come cheap, you almost certainly won’t be disappointed with what you get.
Assuming the Samsung app works just as well as the Sync Box, then its cheaper price makes it an add-on that you should definitely consider if you have the budget and desire to upgrade your current home setup to update.
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