Philips Hue’s new Play gradient lightstrip promises a big upgrade for home entertainment spaces

Smart lighting company Philips Hue has a new product in its home entertainment catalog that should make a smart TV lighting setup much easier and more powerful. The new Philips Hue Play gradient lightstrip features individually-addressable full-color LEDs, meaning each one can be tuned to a different color independent of the rest for a more immersive color-matching experience when using it in tandem with the Philips Hue Play HDMI Sync box, or the sync software for PC or Mac.

The new gradient lightstrip is custom-made in three different size settings, for 55-inch ($199.99), 65-inch ($219.99) and 75-inch ($239.99) TVs respectively. The company created them in these settings for easy mounting and installation, but you can also use them with larger or smaller sets with just a bit of tweaking. They're available for pre-order now, and will ship on October 16 in the U.S.

Using the Hue Sync mobile app, users can tweak the position and height of the gradient lights (and any other compatible Hue products) in their entertainment area, and the lights will tune their color and brightness to match what's being displayed on screen. Prior versions of Hue's lightstrip products were only able to switch entirely from one color to another, meaning they weren't nearly as good at matching specific to particular areas of the screen. The gradient lightstrip looks to be able to provide a much more natural and immersive color matching experience as a result.

Image Credits: Philips Hue

Alongside the new gradient lightstrip, Philips also introduced a number of other new products, including a redesigned Hue Iris table lamp that now has increased brightness, better colors, and a lower dimmed floor. It's got Bluetooth onboard, for use with out a Hue bridge, too. Likewise for the company's news Philips Hue E12 candelabra bulbs, which all have Bluetooth on board.

Image Credits: Philips Hue

The Hue collection also now includes vintage-look filament bulbs in two new form factors, ungluing a large globe and. large Edison design, and the Hue Ensis pendant light is available in a new black colorway. Finally, there's a new Philips Hue White buster E14 bubble, which is a tiny adorable little bulb for use in itty bitty sconce lights and other small fixtures.