This one was a quick weekend build, and honestly one of the most fun.

I wanted movie nights to feel a bit more cinematic. The idea was simple: make the smart lights around the TV react to whatever’s on screen, so the colours spill out into the room.

How it works

It’s a very simple app that runs on the TV box. It records a tiny copy of the screen, works out the colours on each side of the picture, and sends them to the Philips Hue lights around the TV, many times a second. Explosions light up the room, a sunset turns everything orange, and a dark scene dims the lights right down with it.

Once it’s set up, it’s just one button: turn it on, turn it off.

The catch

Some streaming apps block screen recording, so the app just sees a black screen. For those, it falls back to slow, ambient mood lighting instead, which still looks nice in the background.

It’s not a business tool and it was never meant to be. It’s just a fun one, and it’s made watching anything at home a little more special.