Ambilight effect on a budget! WiZ Sync Box will bring atmosphere to your living room

If you’ve ever seen a Philips TV with Ambilight, you know how impressively the colored lighting around the screen can enhance the movie experience. The problem is that such TVs (if we’re talking about OLED or MiniLED) cost tens of thousands – and if you want a similar effect on a regular TV via the Philips Hue Play Sync Box, you’ll pay at least eight thousand, plus without LED strips. Fortunately, there’s a significantly cheaper way.

The WiZ Sync Box starter kit gives you essentially the same for less than three thousand, currently even with code ALZADNY15 for 2,311 CZK. What’s more, you’ll also get an LED strip included in the package.

How it actually works

The WiZ Sync Box is a small black box that connects between your device and the TV. You plug in your PlayStation, Xbox, or set-top box, and it reads the HDMI signal in real-time, changing the colors of the LED strip stuck behind the TV according to what’s happening on screen. Does an orange flame explode? The wall turns red. Does the hero jump into the sea? The room is plunged into blue.

Unlike competing solutions from Govee or Nanoleaf, which use a camera pointed at the screen, WiZ reads data directly from the HDMI cable. No visible camera above the TV, more precise synchronization, and simpler setup. The kit includes the sync box, a 3.4-meter RGBIC LED strip (for 75″-85″ TVs, a shorter version for 55″-65″ also exists), and all necessary cables.

Installation takes fifteen minutes

The LED strip is attached to the back of the TV using 3M adhesive tape. Unlike classic strips that you have to painstakingly bend at the corners, WiZ uses corner connectors linked by wires. While small gaps without light will appear in the corners, you won’t notice them once the lighting is on.

Wiring is trivial: an HDMI cable from the console to the sync box, another cable from it to the TV, power for the strip to the box, and the box to the outlet. The WiZ app will then guide you through the setup via Bluetooth – it maps how you’ve attached the strip, and the entire installation takes a maximum of fifteen minutes.

One HDMI port, but it can be solved

The biggest compromise of the WiZ Sync Box is its single HDMI input. If you have a PlayStation, Xbox, and perhaps an Apple TV, you’ll either have to constantly swap cables or purchase an HDMI switch for a few hundred. For comparison: the Philips Hue Play Sync Box has four HDMI inputs but costs over seven thousand. WiZ has one input and costs 2,300 CZK.

The second compromise concerns TV applications. Because the sync box reads the signal from the HDMI input, it doesn’t work with Netflix, HBO Max, and other apps running directly on a smart TV. You’ll have to use external devices like Apple TV, Chromecast, or Fire TV Stick. However, the Philips Hue Sync Box has the same issue, so this isn’t a specific disadvantage of WiZ.

4K yes, 120 Hz no

The WiZ Sync Box supports HDMI 2.0, which means 4K at 60 frames per second, including HDR10+ and Dolby Vision. This is sufficient for movies, series, and casual gaming. What it cannot handle, however, is 120 Hz – so if you have a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X and want to get their full performance in competitive games, you’ll have to choose between lighting and a higher frame rate.

Honestly, if you’re playing competitive titles, you’ll want minimal input lag anyway, so colorful effects around the TV aren’t a priority. For everything else, 60 Hz is more than enough.

Modes and microphone for music

In the WiZ app, you can choose from several preset modes: Cinematic for dramatic films with muted colors, Vibrant for action films with more pronounced colors, Relaxation for a calmer atmosphere, or Rhythmic, which reacts to music.

The sync box has a built-in microphone, so it can react to sound even when the TV is off. Play music through a speaker, and the lighting will pulse to the rhythm.

You can add more WiZ lighting

If you want to extend the effect even further, you can connect other WiZ products to the sync box – for example, the WiZ Gradient Floor Light (a floor lamp for approximately 2,000 CZK) or WiZ Gradient Light Bars (table lamps for about 1,400 CZK).

In the app, you set where these lamps are physically located, and the system adjusts the colors accordingly. If an orange flame explodes on the left side of the screen, the left lamp will turn redder than the right one.

Is it worth the money?

For less than three thousand (with a promo code for 2,311 CZK) you get a complete functional system that can synchronize lighting with movies, series, and games. It’s not Philips Hue – and that’s okay. It has one HDMI port instead of four, occasionally makes a color error, and can’t keep up with the fastest action scenes. But for the average viewer who wants to enhance movie nights, it’s an absolutely sufficient solution.

Buy it if you want to try the Ambilight effect without spending a fortune, primarily watch movies and series, or play games and don’t mind occasional color inaccuracies.

The WiZ Sync Box starter kit 75″-85″ can be found on Alza with code ALZADNY15 for 2,311 CZK. The version for smaller TVs (55″-65″) costs slightly less.

What do you think of the new WiZ product line?