Review: Lightpack Clone (90 LED)
#1
Ambilight Clone
Manufacturer: N/A
LEDs (per strip): 9
LEDs (total): 90
Zones: 10
Processor: Arduino Uno
Model Name: "Ambilight" <- yes, they just took the trademarked name
Replacement for: N/A
Custom build: No
A picture of the clone:
Image

Television Information
Manufacturer: LG
Diagonal Size (inches or CM): 50"
Aspect Ratio (16:9 is the standard): 16:9

Set-up
The packaging was fine but came with no instructions. It's relatively simple to set up as it comes with self adhesive on each strip and the box, it also came with cable ties and sticky pads, I assume this are to stick any loose wires. It's fairly secure but I think it could do with strong adhesive. It took about 20 minutes to set up on a wall mounted TV organising the wiring correctly.

I have gone for the following layout:
- Three strips at the top/bottom (27 LEDs on each)
- Two strips on each side (18 LEDs per side)

Set-up 'B' is what I've gone for:
Image

I tried several pieces of software, boblight (libreelec), hyperion (libreelec), prismatik (Windows 10).

Setting up boblight was quite a pain figuring out which usb port it used, what mode I needed and what to put for the LED color section, took around 2 hours of trial and error. Overall boblight worked fairly well with the colors and has a good add on to configure everything, CPU usage on an i3 seemed reasonable.

Setting up hyperion was much easier with it's wiki and configuration app you can use on any PC. the only thing you have to figure out is the usb device name and the type of device (lightpack in this case). Everything else was straight forward and explained in the wiki. Setup took around 20 minutes. Hyperion seems good overall but seems to suffer from several issues with libreelec, opening menus while content is playing results in flickering and the backlight does not go off when the power saving screensaver kicks in. The cpu usage also seems much higher (around 20%) on my i3 which seems odd as the selling point was reduced CPU usage.

Prismatik was straight forward with a gui and auto detection, takes 5 minutes to setup and worked out the box for a test video on youtube. However it doesn't seem to work with full screen games on windows 10 and there seems to be many people complaining about this. Overall it's not suited to my needs and I will have to try other software.

Software
Operating System: Windows 10
Back-end software: Prismatik
Software Link (URL): http://lightpack.tv/downloads.php
Performance: 1/5
Note: Not suited for full screen apps

Operating System: Libreelec
Back-end software: Hyperion
Software Link (URL): https://hyperion-project.org/wiki/Main
Performance: 4/5
Note: Issues with menus, screensaver and CPU

Operating System: Libreelec
Back-end software: Boblight
Software Link (URL): https://github.com/arvydas/boblight
Performance: 4/5
Note: More difficult text editor based setup

Kodi Add-ons, Integration, and Performance
Add-on(s) used: Boblightd/XBMC Boblight
Link to Add-on: http://kodi.wiki/view/Add-on:XBMC_Boblight
Recommended Add-on Settings: Speed 60, value:2, luminance:1.5
Performance: 4/5
Note: Good addon with plenty of options

Order Details
Store: KSM Top (eBay)
Cost (GBP, EUR, USD): £55
Delivery Information: From Ukraine, took around 15 days to arrive. Cleared customs without taxes.
Customs Tax: No
Notes: Incorrect UK adapter included, requires another purchase.

Media
This video was taking using boblight prior to extra alterations I have made to settings.


Conclusion
This is the first product I have got for ambient lighting and I am impressed with the result for a reasonable price. Having more zones than 10 would be a big improvement and some other more expensive or diy solutions have a seperate zone for every LED. This is a great product for a first timer and better suited to larger TV's than the official lightpack. Setup isn't plug and play but simple enough for technical users, there's lot of options for adjusting to your own liking as well.

This is my personal opinion and not an endorsement by Kodi, the XBMC Foundation, or the Kodi Foundation.
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#2
(2016-06-25, 21:39)jupiter1984 Wrote: http://www.dreamscreentv.com/ is HDMI based, plug n play

Yes, they are £153 approx though and only available for pre-order.

Also it doesn't mention anywhere how many zones they have. If they have individual zones per LED the premium price would be more justified.
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#3
So I have the exact same hardware and am running libreelec, but I cannot for the life of me figure out boblight. I cannot install the boblight daemon. I am running a NUC and trying to install it on the NUC via putty and winscp.

I have seen two sets of pretty similar instructions and cant get it.
http://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=116331
https://github.com/arvydas/boblight/blob.../README.md

The latter wants an autogen.sh run first. But either way, I cant get them to work. I have set the permissions appropriately, but I get the following when I try to run autorun.sh:

Quote:./autogen.sh: line 1: aclocal: not found

I assume because libreelec is so minimal this env variable cannot be found?

Both include this command:
Quote:./configure --without-portaudio --without-opengl --without-x11 --prefix=/usr

However, this doesnt work, if i change configure to configure.ac, I get:
Quote:./configure.ac: line 1: dnl: not found
./configure.ac: line 2: dnl: not found
./configure.ac: line 4: syntax error: unexpected word (expecting ")")

Any help appreciated.
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#4
Problem solved. There are TWO addons needed, boblight and kodi-boblight.
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#5
(2016-08-02, 03:47)westcoastbias Wrote: Problem solved. There are TWO addons needed, boblight and kodi-boblight.

Only just seen this and yes you should just need the 2 addons, no additional scripts etc Smile
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#6
Hi ianuk2005

I have the same lightpack...
Can you help me please ??

I need a working boblight config or hyperion config
For libreelec Raspberry Pi3



Thanks
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#7
This is what he sent me:

Boblight.conf
Code:
#config file for adalight from http://www.ladyada.net/make/adalight/

[global]
port 19333

[device]
name AmbiLight
type lightpack
output /dev/bus/usb/003/002
channels 30
prefix 41 64 61 00 18 4D
interval 20000
rate 115200
debug off #turn this on to see what it's doing with the serial port
delayafteropen 1000000


[color]
name red
rgb FF0000

[color]
name green
rgb 00FF00

[color]
name blue
rgb 0000FF

# Bottom Start

[light]
name start1
color red AmbiLight 1
color green AmbiLight 2
color blue AmbiLight 3
hscan 0 33.3
vscan 95 100

# Right Side

[light]
name right1
color red AmbiLight 4
color green AmbiLight 5
color blue AmbiLight 6
hscan 0 5
vscan 50 100

[light]
name right2
color red AmbiLight 7
color green AmbiLight 8
color blue AmbiLight 9
hscan 0 5
vscan 0 50

# Top

[light]
name top1
color red AmbiLight 10
color green AmbiLight 11
color blue AmbiLight 12
hscan 0 33.3
vscan 0 5

[light]
name top2
color red AmbiLight 13
color green AmbiLight 14
color blue AmbiLight 15
hscan 33.3 66.7
vscan 0 5

[light]
name top3
color red AmbiLight 16
color green AmbiLight 17
color blue AmbiLight 18
hscan 66.7 100
vscan 0 5

# Left Side

[light]
name left1
color red AmbiLight 19
color green AmbiLight 20
color blue AmbiLight 21
hscan 95 100
vscan 0 50

[light]
name left2
color red AmbiLight 22
color green AmbiLight 23
color blue AmbiLight 24
hscan 95 100
vscan 50 100

# Bottom End

[light]
name end1
color red AmbiLight 25
color green AmbiLight 26
color blue AmbiLight 27
hscan 66.7 100
vscan 95 100

[light]
name end2
color red AmbiLight 28
color green AmbiLight 29
color blue AmbiLight 30
hscan 33.3 66.7
vscan 95 100
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#8
Thank you .... but the colors do not fit the picture

Blue is red
Red is Blue .....
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#9
Hi,

I own this exact clone, but I'm having trouble to get it working on Kodi 17. It does work with MPC-HC or VLC when I'm using Ambibox or Prismatik, yet I can't get it to work on Kodi. I tried Boblight but I get a "Failed to connect to Boblightd" (I know it's the daemon, dll? I got it so I don't know) and the Ambibox addon either don't work or show a not so bright (I can barely see it) light.

I'm running Kodi 17 on Windows 7.

Thanks in advance for any help!
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#10
OP: I can't seem to find the store / seller on Ebay. Are they gone or I just don't have a clue how to look for them on Ebay? I've been wanting to try one of these for a while now, but just can't justify the huge price tag for one of these.

EDIT: Found the store on Ebay. Unfortunately, it only ships with a UK plug which does me no good since I'm in the states..... damn
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#11
It's here

http://ksmtop.com/index.php?route=produc...uct_id=108

It ships with EU plug, you can use a cheap adapter, it's less than $1
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Review: Lightpack Clone (90 LED)0