Windows Dynamic Lighting

I tend to go down these little technology rabbit holes. Anyone else? Just me?

Anyway, I’ve been a smart home lighting enthusiast for quite a while…since I started in 2017, I have probably 60 LIFX bulbs spread around my home. My wife jokes that I’m trying to turn the house into an Amsterdam discotheque. Why LIFX, you ask? Well, in the early days of my smart home dabbling, they were the one company that had solid Windows support, including dedicated Windows desktop and phone apps, Cortana integration, and even support for the AllJoyn IOT protocol. They also integrated with SmartThings, which was my home automation platform of choice in those days. Now, almost a decade on, I’m so heavily invested in their ecosystem that switching to another vendor frankly seems daunting. I have a hard enough time getting my family to use one app; there’s no way they’re going to board the crazy train of another lighting vendor with me. Besides, the LIFX bulbs still work well enough…I mean, the app is decent, and they now integrate with Google Home, which is what I’m (mostly) using these days. And despite kind of losing their mojo during a couple pandemic years and being acquired by Feit Electric, they’re still churning out some innovative hardware. But, I digress.

The latest bee in my technology bonnet has been Logitech, which has always made really solid peripherals that I…mostly just ignored. I really like a matched set of whatever, and it felt like me tacking on a random mouse or keyboard was probably just complicating my setup unnecessarily. Besides, if there was a Microsoft option, then I was naturally going to be more inclined to go with that instead. But with Microsoft basically ceding the hardware peripheral space, I’ve started dabbling. I got a Logitech 4K Brio webcam a few years back (mostly for its Windows Hello support), and I really liked it. So then I got a Logitech Yeti GX mic to replace my aging Blue Yeti and lo and behold it had these little integrated LEDs. In my best John Oliver voice…cool. Because of my OCD, I started gathering other Logitech peripherals, and now here I sit with Beam Litra LX light bar, and as of this weekend, a pair of G560 speakers. And they all have integrated LEDs.

And there’s a Logitech app, because of course there is. There’s always an app. G Hub is Logitech’s umbrella utility, and it has this proprietary LIGHTSYNC™ feature to do some fancy tricks with compatible products, including an innovative screen sync that coordinates the built-in LEDs with your content by sampling your gosh darn screen in real-time. OK, that’s objectively awesome.

Then I noticed something else…these Logitech doodads with their fancy LEDs also support Windows Dynamic Lighting. This is a personalization feature baked into Windows 11 that effectively does a lot of the same things, but with compatible hardware from any vendor. While not quite as fancy as G Hub’s shenanigans, you can do some equally nifty things, such as align the lighting with your Windows accent color. All this got me thinking…why aren’t smart lighting companies doing more with this? What’s stopping a company light LIFX (NanoLeaf, Hue, etc.) from building an app or at least a driver that exposes their hardware to Windows Dynamic Lighting? Is this something that could be tackled by an enterprising third-party developer? Is somebody already doing this and I’m just missing out?

Y’know, in case I decide to open an Amsterdam discotheque in my home office.