Dreamscreen

OU812

Came across this, this morning. Turns any TV into an ambilight type tv & has Hue integration. Will be upgrading my TV in the new year (current one is ten years old and has problems coming on), so this pens up the possibility of a different brand - was going to get Philips.

http://www.dreamscreentv.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1ETrzc0VdQ

stesaurus

I miss my Philips Aurea from a few years back so this could be a great replacement.

Now when you say Hue integration do you mean it will work alongside the hue and have the Hue output based on what you're watching? Or it just acts like a Hue and can be controllable manually?

I would love for my room lighting to respond to what I'm watching. Like living inside an ambilight!

OU812

It was a kickstarter product and one of the stretch goals they had was Hue integration I've not got this myself but am interested in it.

If you're watching stuff on a mac. there's a free app called screen bloom that controls your hue bulbs in the room

OU812

I emailed them about more than one hdmi source & it doesn't support it presently:

The splitter shipping with DreamScreen has one input and two outputs - one for the TV and another for the DreamScreen Stick. There are many ways of connecting multiple sources to DreamScreen, such as:


1. A splitter like amzn.to/1nwvGx2 or amzn.to/1U6MJAf can be used to consolidate multiple HDMI inputs to one output and then connect to splitter. The ones listed here have been tested with DreamScreen and they are CEC compatible.
2. Alternately, an HDMI matrix such as amzn.to/1OEbS1s can be used to bring in multiple inputs and provide a direct output to TV and one to DreamScreen stick. In such a setup, the provided splitter is not used.
3. A receiver with multiple inputs such as amzn.com/B00V5VJ3TM can be used to consolidate multiple HDMI inputs to one output and then to splitter.
4. A receiver with multiple inputs and multiple outputs can allow for use without splitter.

Without using a device such as one of these, DreamScreen will only react to the device is it directly plugged into.

Rowley Birkin QC

Did you take the plunge?

Saw a mate's ambivision set up recently and was well impressed, aside from the VGA input.

OU812

Waiting until is supports more than one input.

What do you mean about the vga input?

Roen

I got mine just before Christmas, got it more as a novelty item than something I'd like to integrate with home automation. It's bluetooth anyways so you might struggle to get it talking to the rest of your stuff.

I don't watch a lot of TV so one input is ok with me. Once the hols are over I'll go back to watching my two TV shows a year and the once a month movie.

Works well, very bright so I have it toned down to about 15-20% brightness in my normal evening lighting set up. My TV is about 30cm from the wall on a unit, the TV sides are chamfered and I found the only place I could sensibly stick the light strip was on the slope. This is good in that it throws the light out to the sides and behind instead of just behind.
TV positioning is important as having your TV crossing the angle of a corner like a lot of people do wouldn't be ideal.

Colour of your wall is also important as you'll need to spend a few minutes dialling in the saturation to suit the area around the TV.

In terms of an overall concept I think it suits some content more than others. Worked well for a few episodes of Stranger Things, but it distracted for more serious moments of other movies and shows.

I found myself looking at the wall more often than the TV initially as it was such a novelty. Once you forget it's there though it's a nice little thing to have. Not sure about the health benefits or any of the other stuff they go on about on their site.

It's fed from the NUC I have running Kodi and Home Assistant with my normal Sat input bypassing it altogether and going straight to the TV.
So in mentioning integration earlier I do have Kodi integrated into HA, so I can trigger room lighting scenes or automations based on whether Kodi is playing something or not. I'll still have to switch on the Dreamscreen, but as soon as I start playing a movie or show I can have the room lights dim or change colour etc. It's not integration as such but a small bit of automation to remove me having to manually dim or colourise the lights.

In answer to some earlier questions, it can be controlled manually, set to play random colours, timed to music. You can switch off each of the sides depending on your set up (bottom side is almost useless in my set up so I could switch it off if I fancied).

In short: Nice fun gadget to have for no brainer super hero movies with lots of colours.
Lightberry might be better suited to automation/integration but I wasn't arsed reading up on it.

spongerobinson

I have a similar setup using Kodi on a Raspberry Pi 3, running Hyperion. Bought all the LEDs, power supply, etc, myself and then there are many tutorials out there to finish the setup. A great project for anyone who thinks they could take it on themselves.

It works with anything playing through Kodi, and then it's possible to use a USB video grabber to sync to external sources.

Also works out significantly cheaper!

BobbyT28

Sorry for bringing up an old thread, but did anyone ever buy this?

I see they have released the 4K version.

OU812

Ended up getting a 55" Ambilight in the Argos price drop earlier this year