The Hue Play Sync Box comes with presets allowing you to change the preset lighting effects (Video, Music, or Game) for a certain input, and remembers the last used preset, but won't automatically change according to what's being played. When you also want to switch between two active sources, you have to either use the app on your phone or press the button on the front, which is bothersome when you're juggling multiple remotes and trying to decide what to watch. There's no workaround the design requires that you plug a source into it. Further, everything needs to be plugged into the box, so if you have a smart TV and rely on the apps built-in, the Hue Play Sync Box won't work. There-in lies one of my biggest complaints. I would love to be able to set up certain inputs to automatically sync lights.
APPLE TV HUE SYNC ANDROID
Source: Nirave Gondhia / Android Central (Image credit: Source: Nirave Gondhia / Android Central) Philips Hue Play Sync Box What I don't like about it
It's also possible to change the source using the Hue Sync app, which you'll need to open every time you want to start syncing your lights to the content on screen. It's largely reliant on the source itself so the Apple TV is faultless at auto-switching, while the Xbox often has me reaching for the TV remote. I've got an Xbox One, Roku TV, and Apple TV 4K plugged in, and it handles the auto switching fairly well. Instead it auto-switches between the different sources you've got plugged in. The Hue Play Sync Box doesn't come with a remote, and isn't compatible with universal remotes like the Harmony line. I do wish Signify, the company behind Philips Hue, made a version of the LIFX Beam (opens in new tab) that I enjoy so much, but overall, there's a lot of ways to get Hue lighting into your entertainment area. There's also the Signe Hue range (opens in new tab), which gives you incredible amounts of light and enables endless creative possibilities. I've currently got three Hue Play bars set up beneath my TV beaming light up behind the TV, but these can be mounted in numerous different ways. The Hue Play Sync Box is so good, it's replacing the LIFX setup behind my TV. This is where the Hue shines: You can connect up to 10 lights to the Hue Play Sync Box, allowing you to build your theater area exactly how you like. If you have lighting on either side of your theater area (I do on the right in my kitchen), you can also get really creative. There's a large variety in the way the lights adjust to what's on screen, and the effect is mesmerizing and much more immersive than anything else I've tried. Watching it in 4K is great, but watching it in 4K with lights constantly adjusting around it is on another level entirely. I just don’t know if the sync is capable of splitting the signal due to the description of arc support being “passthrough.Take Avengers: Endgame as an example. Then all video would run through sync to the tv and maybe PS5 signal will split at sync sending video up to tv and sound down to Apple TV HomePod?
In this set up it seems that the sync would work for the Apple TV, and the Arc would work for sending the PS5 audio to hp.īut it doesn’t seem like the sync would work for the PS5. Meaning there wouldn’t be video for the sync to process and change colors to. My thinking is that the PS5 video feed would stop at the tv and only the audio would exit the tv and go through the hue sync to the Apple TV to HomePod.
Apple TV to hue sync (arc passthrough) to Arc hdmi input on tv