4 ms·

This kind of idea is something philips has been working on for years, with Hue being the newest in a line of lighting control systems. Years ago, they were ped

This kind of idea is something philips has been working on for years, with Hue being the newest in a line of lighting control systems. Years ago, they were peddling the amBX line, which was a set of lights, desk vibrators, and fans (yes, as in like, desk fans that blow in your face) that would create an immersive environment for games. Of course, very few games picked it up (we worked on it a bit for Second Life, and I did some silly things with it, super mario bros, and alcohol: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kiKE3lif8Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kiKE3lif8Q). amBX ended up being mostly a failure, despite having fuck off HUGE booths on the gdc expo floor for at least 3 years running (Who else remembers the huge black blob? Great as a "meet me near [large obvious thing]" place. :) ). Philips ended up either spinning or selling off amBX. It's still around as a set of crappy LED lights that burn out quickly (?!) and have crap for contrast and color depth. There's open source drivers out there if you look (including my half-done-maybe-still-works libambx). Hue seems to be working out a bit better from what I'm hearing thus far. Might pick one up myself soon.

alirov 14y ago
I got a secondhand amBX system (just the lights) off of Craigslist a few months ago for cheap and it's been pretty cool. The Windows drivers were a pain to deal with but I got everything up and running in Ubuntu and it works much better. Interesting issue is that when the power is plugged in for the first time (or the power is reset), the drivers in Ubuntu don't properly link to the device. The lights just flash continuously or don't turn on at all. I have to restart into Windows with the amBX plugged in which I guess does some sort of initialization to them. From there, if I restart back into Ubuntu, everything functions normally. No issues with burn out so far. There's something pleasing about lighting up my room at night in bright colors. And it gets even better when used as music visualizations!
- qdot76367 14y ago
  Hmm, ok, I was seeing the exact same rebooting issue. Didn't realize it was an initialization issue on powerup. Just curious, what drivers/programs are you using to control it on ubuntu?
  - alirov 14y ago
    I haven't delved into the Windows drivers but clearly they're doing something that the Ubuntu ones aren't for this issue to exist. I just noticed it's happening after a "cold boot" of the amBX. I'm just calling it an initialization issue because that's what it seems to me. Just wanted to clear that up first just in case the way I was using "initialization" wasn't clear. I'm using a combination of boblight, ruby-usb and combustd to get it to work. This isn't my blog but I used this as a guideline to get everything up and running: http://slickeel.wordpress.com/2011/03/25/philips-ambx-starter-kit-with-xbmc-media-centre-in-ubuntu-linux-maverick-meerkat-10-10/ http://slickeel.wordpress.com/2011/03/25/philips-ambx-starte... The tricky thing was realizing I had to have it "initialize" in Windows before this would work.

alirov 14y ago

I got a secondhand amBX system (just the lights) off of Craigslist a few months ago for cheap and it's been pretty cool. The Windows drivers were a pain to deal with but I got everything up and running in Ubuntu and it works much better. Interesting issue is that when the power is plugged in for the first time (or the power is reset), the drivers in Ubuntu don't properly link to the device. The lights just flash continuously or don't turn on at all. I have to restart into Windows with the amBX plugged in which I guess does some sort of initialization to them. From there, if I restart back into Ubuntu, everything functions normally. No issues with burn out so far. There's something pleasing about lighting up my room at night in bright colors. And it gets even better when used as music visualizations!

qdot76367 14y ago
Hmm, ok, I was seeing the exact same rebooting issue. Didn't realize it was an initialization issue on powerup. Just curious, what drivers/programs are you using to control it on ubuntu?
- alirov 14y ago
  I haven't delved into the Windows drivers but clearly they're doing something that the Ubuntu ones aren't for this issue to exist. I just noticed it's happening after a "cold boot" of the amBX. I'm just calling it an initialization issue because that's what it seems to me. Just wanted to clear that up first just in case the way I was using "initialization" wasn't clear. I'm using a combination of boblight, ruby-usb and combustd to get it to work. This isn't my blog but I used this as a guideline to get everything up and running: http://slickeel.wordpress.com/2011/03/25/philips-ambx-starter-kit-with-xbmc-media-centre-in-ubuntu-linux-maverick-meerkat-10-10/ http://slickeel.wordpress.com/2011/03/25/philips-ambx-starte... The tricky thing was realizing I had to have it "initialize" in Windows before this would work.