Past Kickstarter ambient lighting projects were mainly focused on bringing colorful LED lights to TVs, and making home entertainment an immersive experience. Recently, a UK team has gotten even more personal by bringing DIY ambient lighting systems to the computer screen.

AmbiLED HD system demonstrated on a Samsung 37" LCD. (All Photos Courtesy of AmbiLED via Kickstarter)

The AmbiLED HD is a high resolution ambient light conversation kit for computer monitors. Unlike previous ambient lighting solutions, the UK team has adopted a wireless solution. According to the company, common commercial ambient lighting systems tend to use 3-30 LEDs around the display that requires 3 pins to control the RGB LED colors. This design requires a lot of cables and connectors between LEDs and controllers.

The LED strip fort he AmbiLED system is simply taped to the back of the computer monitor screen.

AmbiLED has adopted a WS2812B RGB LEDs that are capable of switching into 16 million colors, and does not require additional wiring. The system can control up to 512 LEDs (8.5 meters) with 3 pin connection, and works as a self-adhesive LED strip without any extra cabling.

The setup is fairly simple by attaching the flexible LED strip to the back of the display, plug in the 3 pin connector to the AmbiLED HD controller, supply the controller with AC adapter, and connect it to the USB port of the PC. The project has already raised GBP 20,917 (US $34,705.80) out of its GBP 33,000 goal. For more details please see their Kickstarter project.

A diagram of AmbiLED components and setup requirements.

Features

• Open Source Hardware, Firmware & Software
• Arduino based circuit design
• Flexible & Bendable 12mm wide self adhesive RGB LED Strip
• 14W/m powerful RGB LEDs (only 3W/m enough for AmbiLED HD)
• 5V 3000mA wall adapter (capable of supplying up to 5 meters of LED strip)
• UK,EU or US wall adapter plugs depending on your location.
• Windows compatible easy to use driver software