Philips Hue Play light bars sync RGB lighting to your computer, and that's pretty much it

The first thought that came to mind after the reveal of the new lighting gizmos by Philips is that nobody, absolutely nobody, will find them necessary. 

The second thought that came to mind was damn, they look pretty as heck and I sure would love to have a pair of them on my desk. 

Don’t get me wrong — the Philips Hue Play light bar has its merits despite being what amounts to be an inessential purchase. An expensive one too at $209 for a pair that aren't packaged with the Philips Hue Bridge needed to run the smart lighting system. 

But! They’re just so, so cool. File this under Things You Don’t Actually Need But Are Nice To Have. 

Okay, so what exactly is the Philips Hue Play? They’re basically ambient light lamps meant to face a wall behind a screen to illuminate the environment with colours (16 million colours, to be exact) synced to video and/or audio. They’re just fancy mood lighting meant to jazz up what’s behind your TVs or monitors for a more immersive, dramatic viewing experience. 

Philips Lighting — now redubbed as Signify — launched it overseas late last year but only released it for the local Singapore market earlier this month. For those who already have Philips’ smart lighting system at home, installation is a cinch. The Play light bars simply have to be plugged into a power outlet and hooked up to a Philips Hue Bridge to be controlled wirelessly via a smartphone app or verbally via your virtual assistant of choice.

A pair of them is enough for a full-fledged experience, but there’s always the option of purchasing more (it’s $99 if you’re just buying a single stick) to get more complex chromatic patterns. Download a Hue Sync app on your computer (PC or Mac), and you can start flooding your wall with bright lights that pulse and strobe to music, video or games. You can just let it run as a lamp that throws light according to your chosen combination of colour, but I find having a personal rave party a lot more enjoyable. 

Where it really shines (literally) is when you start gaming with the Hue Play. It’s an absolute blast to have your walls light up accordingly when you’re gaming, especially in vibrant, fast-paced shooters like Fortnite or Overwatch. Things really get dazzling when the lighting system gets connected to Razer Chroma-enabled devices — nothing beats the awesome feeling of having an entire gaming set-up (including mouse mats, mice and keyboards) explode with RGB hues of light from triggering ultimates in Overwatch.

That’s pretty much it though. The light bars work great with computers and nothing else — there’s no native support for smart TVs, entertainment consoles, or even gaming consoles. Most of my Netflix bingeing or gaming sessions are done in front of my big-screen TV in the living room, and the Philips Hue Play simply doesn’t sync with anything without a Hue Sync app. Which is an utter tragedy if you ask me, considering its potential as an essential entertainment gizmo. 

Local Philips reps who spoke to AsiaOne recommend a workaround of hooking up TVs to laptops via a HDMI cable, and the Hue Play will strobe accordingly to what’s on screen. But that’s an extra step to take just to have a bit of immersive ambience. Not to mention that it’s pretty impractical to keep the TV hooked up to the laptop all the time. Philips execs weren’t able to confirm either if native Hue Sync support is coming to other devices. 

Still, if you’ve got the change to spare and a desktop set-up ready to get all glowed-up, by all means splurge away. Philips Hue Play is available for purchase right now at various Challenger, Courts, and Gain City outlets, as well as Tangs Orchard, and a couple of smaller retailers. 

ilyas@asiaone.com