Philips Hue Sync with WMC on Windows 7

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PeteS457

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Philips Hue Sync with WMC on Windows 7

#1

Post by PeteS457 » Sun Jul 08, 2018 3:35 pm

Philips has just released a new smartphone app Hue 3.0 that supports setting up "entertainment areas" where you tell the app how your Hue lights are positioned around your TV and the rest of your room. They have released a PC app at the same time as the phone app called Philips Hue Sync that will (supposedly) in real-time read the colors that are being displayed on your monitor/tv and change the Hue lights around it to compliment/reflect the color scheme being displayed on your tv. It's getting some good press and there are some youtube videos that seem to be quite impressive. I have just such a setup and would like to use the Hue Sync app on my WMC HTPC, but the Hue Sync app only supports Windows 10 and I'm running WMC on Windows 7. Does anyone here have any experience with this? Is it possible to make the Hue Sync app work with WMC running on Windows 7? Thanks for any insights.

jazz_dude

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#2

Post by jazz_dude » Sun Jul 08, 2018 4:31 pm

Although some people use the words app and program interchangeably, if it's an actual app AFAIK Windows 7 doesn't do apps - it's a new W10 platform. I suggest you find an amenable friend who has W10 and who'll let you road test the app with some regular videos etc - you might get bored after 5 mins.

I don't think upgrading to W10, then installing WMC (a big hassle - trust me) would be worth it just to get a synced light show. Despite the free W10 upgrade offer ending ages ago, it's still possible if you know how.

PeteS457

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#3

Post by PeteS457 » Sun Jul 08, 2018 10:16 pm

All my machines in the house except for my HTPC have Windows 10 running on them so I have the opportunity to try it on a different machine. And I even made a separate solid state boot drive with Windows 10 for the HTPC before the free offer went off the table - with the hope that one day I could run WMC under Windows 10 and be rid of Windows 7 in my house forever. But following these forums, it is pretty obvious that trying to keep WMC running on Windows 10 is overly frustrating and seemingly an exercise in futility, so the drive has never been used. I agree that there's only a 50-50 chance that I would like the effects from Hue Sync, but I like trying new things. One day I'll fire up the Windows 10 boot disk, install Netflix and the Hue Sync software and check it out. I was just hoping I could shortcut directly to the WMC I use every day on Windows 7 as I don't see giving up WMC/Windows 7 anytime soon (unfortunately, according to the feedback on these forums).

jachin99

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#4

Post by jachin99 » Mon Jul 09, 2018 5:33 pm

While I'm not sure it's compatible with hue, there is a zwave plugin written by milliesoft I wrote about in the third party plugins forum.

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DavidinCT

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#5

Post by DavidinCT » Wed Jul 11, 2018 4:49 pm

jazz_dude wrote:Although some people use the words app and program interchangeably, if it's an actual app AFAIK Windows 7 doesn't do apps - it's a new W10 platform. I suggest you find an amenable friend who has W10 and who'll let you road test the app with some regular videos etc - you might get bored after 5 mins.

I don't think upgrading to W10, then installing WMC (a big hassle - trust me) would be worth it just to get a synced light show. Despite the free W10 upgrade offer ending ages ago, it's still possible if you know how.
Windows 10 can be usable...BUT, you need a really early version and COMPLETELY disable updates(!!!). It's a unsupported version by Microsoft. The big question is if you can install store apps. Getting a store app to work inside WMC is a WHOLE different story tho.

If your looking for the experience...just for TV.... This will work on any OS... Exactly like Philips Ambilight…

Here's a good demo of it working...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotatio ... wppg-4ljSY

I was going to build this (I have all the gear just need to install it), you can install this on the back of TV , I think all the parts were under $90 or so...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCVfZb4UoO4
-Dave
Twitter @TheCoolDave

Windows Media Center certified and WMC MVP 2010 - 2012

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Crash2009

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#6

Post by Crash2009 » Sat Jul 14, 2018 9:00 am

PeteS457 wrote:Philips has just released a new smartphone app Hue 3.0 that supports setting up "entertainment areas" where you tell the app how your Hue lights are positioned around your TV and the rest of your room. They have released a PC app at the same time as the phone app called Philips Hue Sync that will (supposedly) in real-time read the colors that are being displayed on your monitor/tv and change the Hue lights around it to compliment/reflect the color scheme being displayed on your tv. It's getting some good press and there are some youtube videos that seem to be quite impressive. I have just such a setup and would like to use the Hue Sync app on my WMC HTPC, but the Hue Sync app only supports Windows 10 and I'm running WMC on Windows 7. Does anyone here have any experience with this? Is it possible to make the Hue Sync app work with WMC running on Windows 7? Thanks for any insights.
Give ambieye a try. It says it works on 7

http://ambieye.com/win/

paellakrieger

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#7

Post by paellakrieger » Tue Sep 11, 2018 11:57 am

Hello, take a look at www.screenbloom.com. I think this is what you are looking for.
This evening after work I give it a try.

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T Rush

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#8

Post by T Rush » Mon Jun 10, 2019 2:41 pm

Hue Sync does work with Windows 8.1 WMC(tried it on my tablet) it seems to have the best performance and you can intensify the colors ...but does not install on Windows 7

ambieye doesn't say anything about being a live and changing screen color reader(so didn't try it as its not free)

screenbloom does work on Windows 7, however WMC can not be full-screen and has to be run in a windowed mode...also its kind of a lame effect and mostly just does different tints of white light, so you would need video with very bold single color covering most of the screen; plus there is a pretty noticeable delay

...so still no great/worthy results on synchronizing my light colors with the TV image
as well as I have 5 different hue lights in my home theater room, and it would be nice if they all did different colors corresponding with different areas or types of movement on the screen; but I doubt we are anywhere that advanced yet...altho maybe if I used some type of multi camera system(like a few old smart phones placed around the edges of the TV screen) that each controlled a different light https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hue-cam ... 37211?mt=8 ; that might be a better way to go so that it also works on any of my smart TV apps like NetFlix and such, or if only there was an actual app directly for the smart TV screen (LG in my case) that could control my Philips Hue lights

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