Review: Philips Hue Play gradient lightstrip – absolute game-changer

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If you ever wanted a cheap way to add ambient lighting to a room, one of my top suggestions is light strips. You can put them anywhere.

Whether it’s under a desk, the back of a monitor, or in most cases, the back of a TV. There are tons of options to choose from, and they’re relatively cheap and easy to find.

But as the saying goes, you get what you pay for.

Most of these basic light strips are great and all. But they only perform a few functions. The only thing they’re capable of is displaying lights to a set of programmed commands.

Sometimes you get a remote control that lets you shuffle through colors if you’re lucky. But that’s pretty much it.

Again, there’s nothing wrong with them. I’ve just been recently spoiled, and I blame Philips’ new Play gradient lightstrip.

We covered it when it first launched, but if you aren’t familiar, the new Philips Hue Play is a gradient lightstrip that mimics the content of your screen.

Instead of displaying a programmed set of colors, the Play gradient lightstrip is capable of matching the colors that are on your screen to the lightstrip.

If you aren’t familiar with what we’re talking about, don’t’ worry, we’ve got you covered with a GIF of the lightstrip in action, which you can find below:

Insane, right? Well, I’m here to tell you it is. So let’s dive into this and see everything this thing has to offer.

READ MORE: Philips Hue announces new table lamp, track lighting, and more

Alright, now, before you go ahead and try to buy this lightstrip, there are a couple of things you’ll need first (if you don’t have them already).

You’re going to need a Hue Bridge ($59) and the Play HDMI Sync Box ($229). Not to mention, the lightstrip ranges from $199 to $239, depending on the size of your TV.

So yea, it’s quite an investment just to get started. But trust me, it’s totally worth it. Ok, moving on.

Once you have everything, getting set up is pretty straightforward

Philips makes the installation process easy, and I was able to get the lightstrip attached to my TV in under 10 mins. As to how it’s attached to your TV, it’s pretty simple.

Instead of taping on the light strip to the back of your TV, you mount the strip through four brackets placed at the corners of the TV. The lightstrip is pretty thick, so this makes it a much better mounting option.

Adding the light strip to my existing ecosystem of Hue lights was also pretty straightforward. Philips makes it easy with its app. The only thing that will take some time is getting the Hue Sync Box up and running.

There are a few extra steps that you’ll need to take physically and in the app to get the lightstrip up and running. For the sake of word count, here’s a quick rundown of what it entails in a short, simple video.

The Philips Hue Sync Box is a required add-on

Since the lightstrip works through the Hue Sync Box, you’ll have to connect an additional HDMI source to the box as well.

Whether it’s a video game console, streaming stick, or streaming device – you’ll have to plug it into the Sync Box. The Philips Gradient light strip will not work with your TV’s default OS.

For me, this was kind of a bummer because I heavily rely on my TV’s OS. I don’t use a streaming stick or streaming device, so the only thing I had to test this on was my PlayStation 4 (and now, the PlayStation 5).

When I finally got Gradient Lightstrip up and running, man, my jaw dropped. It’s absolutely insane

I powered up my PlayStation 5, and just seeing the colors of the PS5’s interface illuminating my wall had me giddy as a schoolboy.

And when I scrolled through different menus, different colors would display on the wall as I scrolled.

Now, keep in mind this is just for a simple game menu. I haven’t even gotten into its full capabilities yet.

So you can imagine my excitement when I launched a game and saw what this puppy was fully capable of. Short story, it’s intense, and I can’t believe we’ve gone this long without something like this.

It’s really good. Colors are displayed beautifully and accurately to whatever is on your screen. Like, it’s seamless.

If one side of the screen is a certain color and the other side a different color, the light strip emulates that.

If there are explosions, the light pulses and flashes to match the explosions, regardless of where they are on the screen.

It’s absolutely wild. And not to mention, it makes your TV feel a whole lot bigger than it is.

Final Verdict

The Philips Hue Gradient Light Strip is an absolute home run. No question about it. After testing this for a few weeks, it’s hard going back to a TV that doesn’t have this. It just feels empty without it.

But with all its perks, it has its costs. Literally. Buying one of these puppies and then having to get the same setup for an entirely different TV is going to set you back financially. 

There’s a huge upfront cost investment, but if you don’t mind paying, it’s worth the price of admission.

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Just a heads up, if you buy something through our links, we may get a small share of the sale. It’s one of the ways we keep the lights on here. Click here for more.