Philips Hue adds more affordable options for syncing smart lights with your TV

There are two new ways to sync your lights, both under half the price of the old 8K sync box.

There are two new ways to sync your lights, both under half the price of the old 8K sync box.

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Philips Hue is slashing the steep entry price of its entertainment sync offerings. The new stripped-down Sync Box 4K starts at $150, compared to $385 for the 8K model . The brand also launched its first camera-based solution, the Play Screen Sync , for $119.99. Both were on display this week at the IFA tech show in Berlin and are going on sale right away.

The sync systems connect to Philips Hue’s color-changing lighting to make your lights move along with the content on your TV, whether that’s games, movies, or cable news. The Sync Box models use HDMI to pull visuals from any device connected to the TV, such as a streaming box or game console, while the camera model works with any content on screen. The camera pairs a fisheye lens placed at the top of the screen with automatic calibration and color-matching technology.

Signify, which makes Philips Hue, says the HDMI sync boxes are more accurate than the camera-based Screen Sync. But there are advantages to the camera version, too, since the HDMI models can’t sync with content played through apps and services built into your TV. The Sync Box 4K only supports one HDMI input, too, compared to the four on the 8K model. It also uses HDMI 2.0 instead of 2.1 and supports 4K at 60Hz.

Several competitors already have cheaper camera-based sync options; Govee’s start at $90 . Philips Hue’s head of technology, George Yianni, says Hue’s solution is different because it’s simple to install. The team built algorithms that auto-detect the TV panel type, ambient room lighting, and white-balance correction — plus automatic detection of the screen corners, he said.

“With other devices you have to go through quite some steps to make it work well, and people don’t,” Yianni said. “So they don’t get a great experience out of the box. That’s not the case with ours.”

All three Hue Sync solutions now have a new option to work directly with one of the brand’s Play strip lights without requiring a Hue bridge. This lowers the cost of entry further and also makes setup easier. If you decide you want to add more lights, you can add a bridge later.

Signify also launched a new line of Hue Play gradient strip lights to go with the sync options, and it will sell starter kits with a bundled strip. The strip lights are now cuttable to fit more TV sizes, and there’s a new Pro version with black housing and Hue’s uniform OmniGlow technology that can fit TVs up to 100 inches. It starts at $179.99 for 65 inches and is available September 15.