The best backlights for TVs to enhance your viewing experience

02/01/2025

Lights, camera, action! When it comes to binge-watching your favourite TV shows, enjoying a movie night or a gaming marathon, the right lighting can make all the difference. Enter TV backlights — the perfect addition to your home entertainment setup.

Read on to learn how to use TV backlighting and explore the Hue smart light products that will transform your living room into a movie theatre experience!

TV backlights are designed to be attached to the back of your TV or placed behind or alongside it. They can then be synced with your TV to create a fully immersive viewing experience with light that surrounds your entertainment space. Hue surround lighting  includes a range of backlights, from strip lights to lamps, that can react to all the on-screen action by changing colour and intensity. You'll feel like the content is leaping off the screen and filling your room.     

Don't want to sync your lights with on-screen content? No problem! TV backlights can simply set the mood for your viewing experience by casting a colourful halo of light around your viewing area. Why not watch a horror movie with a blood-red glow, a nature documentary with a serene green hue or get cosy with warm white light for a romantic comedy? Whatever you're watching, backlights will create just the right vibe! 

Backlights for your TV not only make viewing and gaming more exciting and interactive but can also help improve eye comfort as you watch. When you sync your smart lights behind and around your TV, they will dim, brighten and change colour to match everything happening on the screen in real time. If you don't fancy such a dramatic light show, TV backlights can also create a more subtle mood by splashing diffused light around your TV and entertainment area. Simply set the lights to any combination of colors and intensity you like using the Hue app. You can choose from preset light Scenes or even create your own to set the perfect mood for a night on the sofa. Another benefit of using TV backlights is improved visual comfort. By adding lighting behind your TV, you can reduce the amount of contrast between the bright screen and the dark room. This can help reduce eye strain and make it easier to watch for extended periods. 

Want to get set up with TV backlighting? There's a whole range of Hue smart lights you can use as LED backlights for your TV and entertainment space, from LED strip lights to table and floor smart lamps. 

Make your TV an even more entertaining centrepiece of your living room by mounting a Hue lightstrip plus to the backside of your screen. With the LED strip casting light against the wall behind the TV, you can get a beautiful outline of light and set it to any tone or intensity you like. The Lightstrip is flexible, allowing you to bend, shape, cut and extend it to fit any screen or entertainment unit. Play light bars are compact and slender LED lamps that are designed to stand upright or lay down – perfect for creating pools of colourful light on each side of your TV setup or even behind the screen. Like Play light bars, the Hue Go accent light is a compact addition to your viewing space and can be used to create a TV backlighting effect. Place one on each side of your TV and point them towards the wall to create a colourful splash of diffused light behind the TV screen. To make your Hue smart lights flash, brighten, dim and change colour in sync with the content on your screen, use the Hue Sync desktop app or the Hue Sync mobile app paired with a Philips Hue Play HDMI Sync Box.  

Gradient-enabled LED lights produce multiple colours of light at the same time, resulting in a seamless gradient of rich, high-quality light. Each colour flows naturally into one another to create a truly unique effect that makes TV viewing and gaming a truly captivating experience! Designed especially for behind the screen, the Play gradient lightstrip is easily mounted onto the back of your screen and comes in three sizes for the perfect fit. Make the immersive glow of your TV backlighting fill every corner of your space with Signe gradient floor lamps. These beautiful sleek and slender lamps can be stood in the corners of your living room and fill them with a stunning gradient of light that blends multiple colours together along their length. The smaller Signe gradient table lamp creates the same unique effect and is ideal for placing on each side of your TV or on side tables and entertainment units. Get the ultimate home theatre feel with a TV backlight that creates a brilliant blend of colorful light — the Play gradient light tube! Lay this gradient of colorful light directly below the screen to complete the TV backlighting effect. You can rotate the light tube 340 degrees to get the perfect angle of light without any glare on the TV. 

Here are some useful pointers to help you get started with TV backlighting or expand your setup to create an immersive and optimal viewing experience.  

Lighting the backside of your TV with diffused, subtle light provides bias lighting, which helps reduce the amount of contrast between the brightness of the screen display and the light in the room around you. A smart LED strip light is one of the best ways to achieve bias lighting, as it attaches directly to the backside of your TV and creates a wash of light between the TV and the wall or space behind it. This effect can also be achieved with many other types of smart lights which can be placed behind or around your TV setup. Consider using a combination of strip lights and lamps for the best TV backlighting effect. 

More lights mean a more dynamic and immersive viewing experience, whether syncing your lights to the on-screen content or simply creating a colorful ambiance around your viewing area. A larger room will require more lighting. Think about positioning lamps and LED strip lights in other areas of the room and not just behind the TV. Strip lights can be run under sofas, cupboards and shelving, while smart lamps can be placed alongside the sofa or on tables and units around your space. TV backlighting used with lights placed 360 degrees around where you sit will make you feel like you're part of the action while helping to counteract any harsh glare from the screen.  

If you're using strip lights as part of your TV backlighting setup, you'll need to consider the dimensions of your screen to make sure the strips fit perfectly without any untidy protrusions. The Hue lightstrip plus can be bent and cut to fit the exact size of your screen. It's important to note that the Play gradient lightstrips can be bent but can't be cut to size. However, a range of sizes is available and designed to fit 55-, 65- and 75-inch TVs.