Control Philips Living Colors using PC

Question

Hi guys,

is there a way (hardware/software-combination) that I can use to control one or more "Philips Living Colors" lamps using a PC - e.g. a USB-stick that acts as the "remote". This way i could control the lamp through software (e.g. a web-app - over iPhone / remotely) or even create what Philips builds into some of their TVs and calls "ambilight" (graphics driver detecting the main color to control the lamp).

I guess this is more like a hardware than a software question - but I couldn't find anything about this online and I'm sure not to be the first to have come up with this idea right when I unpacked my LivingColors lamp yesterday ;)

Any idea/hint is appreciated.

-chris

Answer 1

I checked the Philips website where you can download the user documentation. The following trouble-shooting tip provides a clue:

LivingColors doesn’t respond quickly to the remote control.
- The communication between the remote control and the
  LivingColors can be affected by heavy traffic on a wireless data
  network, for example a wireless router.You should move Living-
  Colors away from the wireless access point and switch your
  wireless router to channels 8-11 for minimum interference.

So the controller uses wireless communication. It is clearly quite a sophisticated communication link, one controller can control up to 6 lights.

Unless it is a full WiFi link getting a computer to control the light would necessitate some heavy hardware hacking. Should it be a WiFi link it would be possible to write a driver.

If anyone has one these could they do a WiFi scan to see if the light and controller show up?

Answer 2

Read this http://www.ideetron.nl/Livcol/UK2008110661.pdf article. It describes how to control the remote using usb.

Answer 3

Wow, now that the author has shoqwn it's possible to control a Living Colors with USB, I hope (?) Phillips will eventually do a USB controller...

Answer 4

I would too be interested by controlling my Living Colors from a computer, through a 2.4Ghz USB transmitter (mainly just for fun ;)

I have two Living Colors, a "Generation 1" and a "Generation 2", and the bad news is that the remote hardware and (maybe) the protocol have been totally modified by Philips in the process (probably to add the "fading effects" of the second generation). So it's even more complicated now, such a transmitter would have to deal with the 2 protocols.

Another link about what's inside the official controller (in addition to the Elektor article given above) :

• Gen 1 : http://www.knutsel.org/2009/01/01/livingcolors-1st-generation/
• Gen 2 : http://www.knutsel.org/2009/12/01/philips-redesigns-livingcolors-breaks-compatibility/
• Elektor (reverse engeneering of the procotol : http://www.ideetron.nl/Livcol/UK2008110661.pdf

Answer 5

There are two version of the LivingColors lamp, the Gen1 lamp can be controlled with a small kit, as far as i know the Gen2 can not be controlled with 3rd party products.

There is an Arduino shield that can control the Gen1 lamps, the article describing this is in Dutch. In short : the shield, and by extension the lamp, can be controlled by serial-over-USB. Google translate may help :

The hardware : http://www.knutsel.org/2010/04/11/assembling-the-cc2500-arduino-shield/

The link to the software is at the end of the post. (I can only post one link.)

There is a schema and software, enough information to build your own controller for Gen1 lamps.

Some remarks: 1) I am the a author of these posts. 2) The shields are sold as a kit in the Netherlands and Belgium (hence the dutch blog post). 3) The Gen2 uses IEEE802.15.4 (it says so in the manual) and is said to use encrypted Zigbee. Zigbee and encrypted Zigbee use IEEE802.15.4. 4) I should probably make a better translation of the posts.

[ 11 April 2010 edit : made translations of the blogposts in English and changed the links here ]