The overall experience of watching and playing with such an immersive setup blew me - and my preconceived notions of the value of such things - away. It almost makes up for the fact that we don't have flying cars yet… You can use Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant to control things via voice commands or, as I do, use an app to turn all the lights around the house off and on and lock my door. If you've got more smart gadgets in your home, then there are even more advantages. It's secure and takes just minutes to get in place - but make sure you get the right size for your television as you can't cut them yourself. There are five plastic mounts that attach to the back of your television, and the flexible strip easily pushes into them. The physical installation of the lightstrip was very easy, the technological side less so (more on that in a minute). If you want something gentler and a little different, you can even choose to switch the lights to behave as if a fire was flickering behind the television for added warmth on these cold nights. I had them turned right up but that might not suit everyone. That should keep you going for a few seasons of binge-watching your favourites.ĭepending how much you enjoy the experience, you can select from four different intensity ranges, as well as using a slider in the smartphone app to get the brightness just right for your room. It will also output up to 1100 lumens of brightness and has an expected lifespan of around 25,000 hours according to Philips. What does that mean? The strip supports up to 16 million distinct hues - which is WAY beyond my eyes' ability to differentiate. The colour-changing LEDs deliver a range right across the visible spectrum. I'm sure there's a scientific explanation, but I just allowed myself to be absorbed. I know my television didn't get any bigger, but the lights definitely did something to my brain, tricking it into believing things had changed significantly.

I plugged in my Xbox and it was equally as fun. I kept switching movies and loving the experience. It was joyous and immersive, and I loved it. The lights work independently of each other, so you get a pretty accurate representation of the different colours all around the screen being projected behind the television at the same time. I put on Pierce Brosnan's first outing as super spy James Bond - Goldeneye - and was utterly absorbed by the experience of the gradient lights synching to what was on the screen.ĭuring the familiar opening credits, where Bond shoots and blood drips down, the lights on the right hand side of the screen turned to red, making it feel like my television was suddenly twice the size it actually was. Yes, it's a cliché, but that was the first word I uttered once I got everything set up as it should be.

Hue play gradient lightstrip