“Ambilight” for retrofitting: Govee WiFi LED TV backlighting for $57.99

Philips already achieved a small stroke of genius years ago with the Ambilight series. The intelligent RGB color adjustment behind the TV creates atmosphere in the living room. The manufacturer Goovee supplies a kind of Ambilight retrofit kit with the WiFi LED TV backlight, for those who don’t want to reach for Philips.

• Govee WiFi LED TV Backlight
  • US: at Amazon for $57.99
  • DE: at Amazon for 75,99€ 

What is Ambilight?

Philips itself also calls Ambilight “surround for the eyes”, as the intelligent LEDs on the back create a mood that matches the picture content. This is not only supposed to simply look good, but also serves to relax the eyes, as the TV is thus no longer the only light source in the room. In addition, it is supposed to improve the viewing experience. Philips has been offering this technology since 2004, but Ambilight wasn’t as smart back then as it is today. Ambilight doesn’t necessarily have to be expensive, but the technology is reserved for Philips TVs.

The Govee WiFi LED TV backlight

The smart LED TV backlight from Govee wants to offer this experience for other TVs, such as the Xiaomi Mi TV 4S. For this, one directly uses four LED strips, two with a length of 120 cm and two with a length of 70 cm for the respective short and long sides of the home TV. They are attached to the back of the TV with adhesive strips. The set is suitable for TVs from 55 to 65 inches. The LED strips display up to 16 million colors and offer an RGB light effect.

But in order to analyze the picture content appropriately, you have to attach the included 1080p ColorSense camera to the top of the TV. It captures the colors on the screen and forwards them to the LED strips via the control box, which is also connected to the back. Since the individual LED strips are equipped with an IC chip, different colors can also be displayed and you can control the LED strips in segments. To start, you need to calibrate the camera once.

Along with this, of course, comes an app, the Govee Home app. It enables further settings and customization options as soon as the LED TV backlight is connected to the 2.4 GHz network at home. You can activate music synchronization, choose from different scenes or set a timer. In addition, there is support for Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. We know this from the Yeelight LED Strip 1S as well, if you can do without the camera and the intelligent adjustment of the image content.

Assessment

The Amazon reviews are mostly positive, although not everyone likes this retrofit kit. That is certainly also related to one’s own expectations, a fixed integration on the part of Philips is native and thus simply better. But not everyone wants to go straight for a new TV, which is why the Govee WiFi LED TV backlight sounds quite exciting. Personally, the camera at the top of the screen would bother me. Do you guys happen to have any experience with it? If not, we’d give it a try!