Ambient lights for games from amBX

[Erron]

Ok, I don't know if I really need these things, but I want them. I play in the dark a lot and the glow from six monitors normally lights up the room as is, but with these it could be even better.

amBX lamps playing Word of Warcraft



Features

Multiple RGB LEDs deliver over 16 million colors
Using 16 million colors, the synchronized lighting system intensifies the gaming experience, washing gamers’ viewing space with co-ordinated lighting. The screen is no longer the barrier between gamers and the action.
Light show with digital music
amBX is also about more than games. If it’s time to party or unwind, the system responds to music and floods the room with a stunning coordinated light show. Alternatively consumers can change the mood of any room with a single color or series of lighting effects. Or, set their own lighting sequences with the speed, color and intensity controls in the easy-to-use interactive software.
Mood lighting
Be bold and create your own lighting creations with a palette of over 16 million colors. Create unique lighting designs that suit your mood or entertainment. Combine your lighting choice with music and you have your very own light show in the privacy of your own home.
Plug and play USB interface
An easy-to-use configuration manager enables a stress free set up. Simply indicate where you’ve placed the products around your room and the configuration manager will set the perfect level for each product.
Presets and advanced controls
Light, sound, the amBX fans and rumble pad are all controlled by the simple to use pop up control. It even offers a series of preset options. The more adventurous can customize the settings to create a bespoke system. Tune and balance sound and light to your specific needs to create the optimum experience for any room.
Includes games
amBX enabled game titles ready to play.

YouTube video Demo

[warwizard]

Way too cool, mine will be here on the 17th

[Erron]

Order from Tiger Direct, should be here next week. Seems the prices for the kits vary a great deal.

[warwizard]

Tiger and compusa have the same price, i think shipping is going to be the only difference.

Order from Tiger Direct, should be here next week. Seems the prices for the kits vary a great deal.

[Ogloo]

thats a beast.. just imagion a bunch of them..!

[Portal]

Nice find; I'd love to get a set, but I'm wondering if the lighting will work independent of the sound. More specifically, I have a nice set of speakers that I would like to continue to use - would I be able to add these for the lights alone? I know I can specify my audio output source in WoW, and the demo video seems to indicate that the color is being picked up from what you're seeing in the game and that gives me some hope. Can anyone confirm once they have recieved their setup?

Thanks!

thats a beast.. just imagion a bunch of them..!

Hah - spoken like a true 'boxer :thumbsup:

[Erron]

I have a nice set of speakers now too, and am considering just using these as a secondary set. I might pipe music to listen out my current setup and pipe the game sound to the Phillips amBX set. I don't think sound is required for the ambient colors to work, it appears to be driven by the background screen colors for WoW. I am curious what would happen if you had say four or five of these lighting up the entire room.

Non-native games
The FXGen is a piece of software that forms part of the standard software install that analyses on-screen events and triggers the amBX peripherals to generate effects. For games that amBX isn't embedded into such as Call of Duty, Crysis, Assassin's Creed the amBX software team provide constant updates that allow for the games to work, meaning that there is a large amount of game content available including onlines games like WOW.

Was hoping this might have some mutlibox application:

"PC usage In October 2008 amBX announced a new application called amBX Creatorwhich for the first time allows amBX users to create their own effects and tag them to events on the PC e.g. multicoloured light shows when you get emails."

I think the connection to the PC is through both USB and audio.

[Erron]

Finally got this kit installed and had some time to play around with them.

Initial thoughts:
The light effects are a nice addition to games. The lights consist of three parts, a wall washer unit (with three separate flood lamps), and a pair of speaker top lamps. The wall washer unit is ideally placed directly behind your monitor facing a wall. If the wall is too far (more than 3ft.) the effect is lost. If your room is not dim enough, the effect is washed out. (Ideal lighting level is anything dark enough to keep you from being able to read effectively.) The lights on the speaker tops are made to be placed at the edge of your peripheral range to the left and right of your monitor on the top of your desk. If you place them too close to the edge of the monitor the brightness can be a bit distracting.

My Kit came with the Fans and Rumble wrist pad. For games like Farcry2 the fans and rumble pad was a cool effect, but it was rather gimmicky. The game has to have native support for this two optional add-ons. It take a lot of tweaking and fine tuning to ensure that the speed of the fans and the intensity of the rumble pad "fit" into the game play. Game like WoW do not have support for these functions. I am looking forward to seeing these two pieces usage in other games to see if it gets better.

The speaker set is a 2.1 arrangement. The sub is powered and has its own volume control. I found the sound quality from this set to be rather poor. The Sub does not produce very low bass sounds, and tends to rumble and rattle at higher volume levels. The front speakers did offer a nice range, but tended to be poorly matched to the mids and the lows coming from the sub. These speakers may be on par with average 2.1 powered speakers in the $40-$60 range. I do not recommend the 2.1 system.

My multibox setup totally did not work out with this kit. I am using a 2x3 - six monitor configuration. The cables were way too short to be able to reach the extra distance I needed and because of the height of monitor arrangement, the wall washer effects were obscured by the upper monitor. My existing speaker set was far superior in sound quality to the amBX set. I did find an acceptable solution rather than return the set. I mounted the wall washer to the backside of the upper center monitor and attached the speaker pair with the lamps onto the Monitor mount poles holding the left and right monitor pair. This raised the lamps up high enough that the effects are visible. I also added the speakers in as a set of Rear Quadrophics speakers keeping my existing speakers as the fronts.

If you play in a dimly lit room, have a single primary monitor, and often rely on headphones vs. speakers for your game sounds, and often play from the list of currently supported games the amBX might be workable for you. :thumbup: Otherwise, I'd recommend on passing on this gear. :thumbdown:
Make sure you shop around, prices on this gear varies greatly. The Set I purchased was the Premium Game kit, which listed for $279, and I think I got it for $149 at tiger direct.