The Ambilight system is celebrating 20 years of success as a truly remarkable technology that has manged to remain unique in the TV market while still enjoying increasing popularity with consumers, the media and major retailers.

And once tried, there’s no turning back! An amazing 35 million Ambilight TVs have already found happy owners, with more than 80% saying their next TV must have Ambilight – making the system one of the most popular consumer electronics technologies ever launched under the Philips brand.

The journey began in September 2004 at the Berlin IFA Show, with a wide range of Ambilight equipped LCD and Plasma TVs dominating the Philips Hall. And now the technology is reaching a new peak – under Philips TV brand guardians TP Vision – with the launch of its most sophisticated version Ambilight plus on the new flagship OLED+959 TV.

Ambilight was originally launched to help reduce eye strain, while giving a perceived increase in contrast, to consumers who were watching TV for extended periods in nearly totally dark rooms.

The system integrates intelligent ambient lighting into the rear of the TV, with Ambilight projecting a continually changing halo of coloured light on to the wall behind the set, while precisely matching the on-screen colours.

Since its original launch, Ambilight has enjoyed 12 major upgrades with the system becoming increasingly sophisticated and powerful. Over the same period, TV bezels have also reduced in size to a bare minimum which, together with Ambilight’ s enhanced performance, has revealed one of the systems biggest benefits, the impression of the on-screen image extending far beyond the edges of the set.

Ambilight launched in 2004 using CFLs – cold fluorescent lamp – showing the same colour on each side of the screen. This was quickly followed in 2006 by the ‘stereo’ version which could show different colours on each side and the ‘surround’ and ‘full surround’ versions mounted on three and four sides of the set.

Also in 2006, Philips TV announced that 1,000,000 Ambilight sets had already been sold, a landmark that was celebrated at CES Las Vegas in 2007 with what is still the most expensive Ambilight TV ever made, featuring 2250 De Beers diamonds on its special mounting backboard.

2007 was also the year that Ambilight swapped CFLs for LEDs starting a new era of sophistication for the system and giving the ability to independently and precisely match colours from local areas within the screen plus the launch of the flagship Aurea set with the Ambilight feature extended to the sets bezel.

TP Vison has continued to invest in developing the Ambilight technology, introducing the Next Gen version in 2022 that increased the number of colours within each LED from three to nine and further extended the intensity and size of the halo.

And now, with the launch of the new 65OLED+959 TV, TP Vision is unveiling the most sophisticated version of the system with Ambilight plus taking immersive viewing to new heights by adding multiple lenses to the individual rear mounted colour LEDs.

Ambilight plus can create a more dynamic, larger overall halo with more resolution and can project up to four different halos at different depths to add a new two-dimensional impact to the overall immersive effect.

Commenting on the 20th Anniversary of Ambilight, Johnson Su, General Manager Europe TP Vision said: “For any technology to remain unique plus so hugely relevant and to be still enjoying increasing popularity over twenty years is almost unheard of. It’s testament to how valid the original idea of Ambilight was but also to how the system has been continually improved over the years. And with Ambilight plus, I’m happy to say we are introducing the best version of the system yet.’

So, 20 years on, Ambilight moves from strength to strength as still the only true stand-out technology in the consumer TV market.