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Lightpack - Ambient Backlight for Displays

Posted: March 05, 2014
$119
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Initially I thought Lightpack was meant to be some sort of aesthetic enhancement for the media screens of gamers and ravers and I was like, Whatever, if I want to see a rainbow light show from my couch, I'll just get a flashlight and some drugs. But after I succumbed to reading about the product I discovered Lightpack isn't actually a clubby piece of tech for your living room. It's a content-driven lighting system that attaches to the back of computer or TV screens to amplify their presence effect, plus ease the strain on viewers' eyes.

Compatible with TVs, PCs, Macs, and HTPC displays in movies, games, and daily work windows, Lightpack mounts on the back of a chosen screen and connects via USB to the system's hardware. Prismatik, Lightpack's software, then analyzes the current data streaming to the screen and communicates this information to the Lightpack device, which responds by illuminating the surface behind the screen with matching RGB-LED colors. The effect may not be revolutionary, but Lightpack makers say their goal was simply to develop a "simple and cheap" means of enriching TV and computer screens. (You can read more about how it makes these determinations and keeps up with, say, the changing scenes in movies here.)

Lightpack can also reduce the effect of eyestrain on screen viewers, particularly those watching movies or gaming in a dark room. When a screen is a room's only source of light, the quick transitions between dark and bright scenes it often presents can put stress on the viewer's pupil. Since it takes much longer for a pupil to increase in size to adjust to darkness (up to 5 minutes) than it does to narrow in response to an onslaught of bright (5 seconds), eye muscles are tense and under constant stress throughout the viewing period. Lightpack can level the intensity of a screen-lit room by reducing, or in some cases completely eliminating the swings in lighting between dark and bright scenes.

Each Lightpack package includes a Lightpack box for screen attachment (back side), 10 LED modules with 70cm of cable length, a micro USB cable, an AC adaptor, mounting accessories, and an installation guide. Its creators say installation and setup should take less than 10 minutes.

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