NEWS: Illuminaire adds ambient lighting for all flatscreen televisions

It can help reduce eyestrain, comes in modular form to suit any size of screen or room layout, and is scalable to add extra modules when required – oh, and it looks pretty cool, too!

This is the Flat TV Ambient Lighting system from California company Illuminaire, now available in the UK through distributor The Path Group. It uses LED 'light wands' with user-controllable dimming and colour control, and is available to suit TVs from 17in all the way up to 60in.

The system is based around a range of wands, available either with full-spectrum colour-changing or a choice of blue or white, and these are designed to fit behind plasma or LCD screens – or indeed your speakers, should you wish! – to give a 130-degree wash of light.

The system can be used to reduce eyestrain while watching TV in a darkened room, or just to create moods, and features include remote control dimming and colour selection in all but the simplest models.

There's also a night mode to mute the effect, a 'breathe' mode to fade a colour in or out, and a sleep setting to turn the lighting off automatically.

You can custom-build a system by buying separate 'wands', available in 14in or 23in lengths, or you can buy a starter pack, to which extra light wands can later be added.

Prices start from £50 for the simple one-colour system suitable for 17-32in TVs, in blue (PL112BL) or white (PL112WH) and comprising two 14in bars, a power-pack and simple on/off switch.The 23in PL118BL/WH versions, for TVs up to 60in, are £10 more.

More sophisticated single-colour remote control systems run from £70 for the 14in PL212 to £90 for the 23in PL218, and the full-colour systems start at £125 for the 14in PLX312, with the 23in PLX318 at £170.

The power-packs on all the remote control systems can accept two extra colour bars, and these extra wands are £20 each for the 14in single colour and £30 for the 23in, with full-colour versions at £40 and £60.

Technorati Tags: ambient lighting, home cinema lighting, Illuminaire, LED lighting, Path Group

Andrew has written about audio and video products for the past 20+ years, and been a consumer journalist for more than 30 years, starting his career on camera magazines. Andrew has contributed to titles including What Hi-Fi?, GramophoneJazzwise and Hi-Fi CriticHi-Fi News & Record Review and Hi-Fi Choice. I’ve also written for a number of non-specialist and overseas magazines.