friends Hello everyone, I asked myself on the channel a month ago. AmbiLight for a PC monitor? The task was complicated by the fact that I have an ultra-wide monitor Xiaomi Mi Curved Gaming Monitor 34 with a ratio of 21:9.

I received a lot of advice, but I used the simplest one. I ordered a ready-made solution from Alik and now I will tell you about this miracle of technology. In general, for 5k, the decision suits me, but it was not without jambs.

I’ll tell you in order, because I couldn’t find more than one normal review for this set, but it’s generally cool, especially if you see it at a discount.

But to begin with, I will remind you what it will be about:

Ambilight (abbreviation from English Ambient Lighting Technology – blond “Ambient Lighting Technology”) is a backlight technology for TVs that was invented and patented by Philips Electronics.

It is a backlight built into liquid crystal TVs, which, analyzing the color picture of the frame on the TV screen, reproduces diffused light around the perimeter of the TV. Thanks to this, the surface of the wall behind the TV case is dynamically illuminated, thereby supplementing the intensity of the image on the screen with a halo and visually increasing the size of the image, as it were.

There are studies that prove it takes the strain off your eyes, especially if you like sitting in the dark like I do.

How does this whole construction work in practice? Very simply, a special program reads the screen through the video card driver and controls the addressable RGB LEDs, and you get an instant color change following the change of the image on the screen. Well, let’s start the review!

This set is called Skydimo and consists of two components:

1. Monitor tape with self-adhesive fastening.

2. Two lamps, the direction of light can be changed.

I ordered Alice from this seller. Glad it was an ad, but no, ordered for 5782 Krovnykh, now costs a little more than 6.2 CONSIDERATIONS at the time of writing.

Packed almost like an iPhone. All in an air bag. The quality of the boxes is excellent, they did not skimp on printing and cardboard. This is not a bad gift.

Tape

I forgot to take a photo of the set in the box, because I will show a photo from the Internet.

I had everything the same, the kit includes all the necessary fasteners, instructions, the tape itself is pulled with Velcro. Installation does not cause problems, turn the monitor over, degrease the surface, and stick the plastic corners on the self-adhesive and on the monitor, something like this image from the manufacturer’s website. Please note that the length of the tapes is different on different diagonals of the monitor, choose according to your diagonal. And also attach the tape, because I managed to glue the corners in such a way that I had to peel it off and re-glue it, because did not calculate their location by height.

This is how it looks to me in its finished form. It holds up well, maybe the constant heating of the monitor will later ruin the 3m self-adhesive, and it will start to come off, but it is not a problem to replace it with a new one.

Everything is clear with the tape, I stuck it on, connected it and forgot, it holds up well.

Lamps

But I really liked the lamps. Here is a photo from the manufacturer’s website.

The design of the lamps allows you to install as a basis a part that lights up from any side, if you want the light on the wall, if you want it on yourself. This is very convenient because it allows you to create several lighting scenarios.

And since I run a YouTube channel and often record videos, this flexibility in lighting is very helpful in diversifying scenarios.

Scenario number one – lamps on themselves.

Scenario number two – lamps in the wall

Scenario number three – lamps behind the monitor – my favorite.

By the way, the lamps are connected not by one cable, but by two, as a result, you should have as many as three USB connectors free to connect the entire set.

Application and settings

The program is downloaded from the website https://www.skydimo.com/index_en.html, which actually has nothing but the application.

The devices were identified immediately and without any problems. The device settings look like this

Not too pretty, but it works.

I will explain the meaning Control mode – allows you to install only for this device or for all at once, if you have several of them.

Installation direction – The direction of installation, here is the mount on my monitor, it starts on the right side and goes to the left.

Groups – This is the mode of operation. Screen sync – Ambilight mode, Music – blinks to the music, Colorful – changing color, Single color – one color, however, you cannot set different ones for each of the lamps, Marquee – Beacon mode, just flashes red.

At the same time, additional effects are available in many modes, these are ready-made lighting presets, they can also have additional settings, such as the selection of a color palette, the speed of color change, and so on. The settings are not intuitive, but they are set using the tick method quite simply.

For example, with a little effort, you can arrange a real rave by turning on the Music mode and visualization in the player, remove epileptics from the screens.

After a reboot, the parameters are not reset, and the program is loaded when the system starts, if you check the appropriate box.

Cons

You might think I’m praising this kit, but I’m not at all, it’s just ok, well packaged and still working. But there are also disadvantages.

For example, a small marriage, on one of the lamps the base does not close and light shines from it, it is of course easy to fix with super glue, but it spoils the impression.

Well, an inconvenient, buggy and incomprehensible application. For example, in order to change the size of the capture window, you need to manually move the virtual sensor of each LED, which is a bit annoying, when there are 25 of them, why can’t you select all of them and move the entire line to the Chinese programmers.

I wish Skydimo had an api so I could output the strip and lamp controls to the Aurora RGB app, just like I control my SteelSeries keyboard and mouse. And create profiles of lighting and interactive messages for different applications and games. But, unfortunately, I did not find such an opportunity. If you know how to do it without programming, be sure to tell us in the comments.

And, of course, it eats up resources during operation. In addition, it eats up both the GPU and the CPU, not much in my case, 4-7%, but it eats up.

And I also don’t like the fact that you can’t turn off the base near the lighted lamps, I would like only the ribbon to light up, but not the base, because it’s distracting when working or playing, but alas. Of course, it’s easy to fix with a soldering iron, but for such a price, you don’t want to break things.

The lamp that is connected to the PC directly at maximum brightness whistles disgustingly on the purple color, because of which the brightness had to be reduced.

And how about games?

Just like in the movies – great.

Guys, is this Skydimo kit with AmbiLight strip and two lamps worth the money? There is probably no 6,200, but there may be a thousand for 4.5. But on the other hand, I could not find decent alternatives in principle, they seemed to me more cumbersome and inconvenient. I found it difficult to make my decision on an addressable LED strip and an Arduino, but here the finished kit looks normal and somehow works.

Write in the comments about your AmbiLight variations, maybe I missed something in my search and there is a better solution.

I also talk about neural networks and share my illustrations on YouTube, Telegram and Busta. I will be glad for your subscription and support. He hugged everyone.