Screen-matching smart lights are colourful fun

£89.99 (up to 65-inch) / £119.99 (up to 85-inch) FROM nanoleaf.me/en-GB FEATURES Addressable Gradient Lightstrip, Screen Mirror Camera with magnetic privacy cover, Nanoleaf 4D controller, 2.4GHz 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, HomeKit compatible

The effect is pleasing and fun, and does everything you’d expect an Ambilight TV to do.

Back in 2004, Philips wowed TV watchers with Ambilight, its first TV equipped with a rear-mounted light strip. The TV claimed to produce a more immersive viewing experience by splashing colours on the wall behind it to echo those on screen. The effect was also said to reduce eye-strain. Philips has continued to iterate on that idea ever since, with its latest Ambilight TV line-up starting at 65 inches and costing from £599.99. Philips says it has more than 10 million Ambilight ‘lovers’ worldwide.

While Ambilight is a lot of fun, it’s hardly essential, especially when it means having to buy a whole new television in order to take advantage of it. However, smart-lighting geniuses Nanoleaf have come up with a better way… Nanoleaf 4D takes the Philips Ambilight idea and runs with it, enabling anyone with a television (i.e. almost all of us) to achieve a similar effect with minimal outlay. To that end, it has created two Nanoleaf 4D kits – one at £89.99 for TVs with screens up to 65 inches and one at £119.99 for screens up to 85 inches.