Dynamic Ambient Lighting
Systems, methods, software, and data structures that provide dynamic ambient lighting synchronized to a video program being watched in a premises are described herein. A video program may be associated with a predefined lighting scheme that specifies or identifies a time-sequenced set of lighting effects (e.g., flashing police lights, sunrise, explosion, etc.) that are to be performed by the dynamic ambient lighting system time-synchronously with the video program. Components of the dynamic ambient lighting system may extract the lighting scheme from video data, parse the lighting scheme into individual lighting effects, and then control a single-color or multicolor light source associated with each of a plurality of light channels (e.g., front right, rear right, front left, rear left, center, and burst channel, among others) based on time-sequenced lighting primitives defined by each lighting effect. Light sources may be wirelessly controlled, e.g., using an IEEE 802.15.4 or ZigBee-compliant wireless system.
1 . A light source having a processor coupled to LED devices, the processor configured to activate the LED devices responsive to lighting instructions corresponding to a video stream.
2 . A light source, comprising:
a plurality of strands of light emitting diodes (LEDs), each LED strand being a different color;
a wireless receiver configured to receive an ambient lighting instruction; and
a microprocessor configured to control each of the plurality of strands, wherein by actuating one or more of the plurality of LED strands at one or more intensity levels the microcontroller can create substantially any color of light in a visual color spectrum, wherein the microprocessor is configured to receive the ambient lighting instruction from the wireless receiver, and wherein the microprocessor is configured to selectively actuate each of the plurality of LED strands to produce a resulting color and intensity of light based on the ambient lighting instruction.
3 . The light source of claim 2 , wherein the wireless receiver comprises a receiver compatible with an IEEE 802.15.4 standard.
4 . The light source of claim 2 , wherein the wireless receiver comprises a receiver compatible with a ZigBee standard.
5 . The light source of claim 2 , wherein the plurality of LED strands comprise a red strand, a blue strand, and a green strand.
6 . The light source of claim 5 , wherein the plurality of LED strands comprises a white strand.
7 . The light source of claim 2 , further comprising a predetermined identifier identifying the light source as being associated with one of a plurality of light channels in an ambient lighting system.
8 . The light source of claim 2 , wherein the microprocessor is configured to execute only received ambient lighting instructions that are associated with the one of the plurality of light channels identified by the predetermined identifier.
9 . The light source of claim 7 , wherein the plurality of light channels comprise a center channel, a left channel, a right channel, and a burst channel.
10 . The light source of claim 9 , wherein the left channel comprises a front left channel and a rear left channel, and wherein the right channel comprises a front right channel and a rear right channel.
11 . The light source of claim 10 , wherein the left channel further comprises a middle left channel placed between the front left channel and the rear left channel, and wherein the right channel further comprises a middle right channel placed between the front right channel and the rear right channel.
12 . The light source of claim 2 , further comprising a toggle accessible on a housing of the light source, and wherein the microprocessor is configured to perform, upon actuation of the toggle, to perform a pairing routing to identify the light source as being associated with one of a plurality of light channels in an ambient lighting system.
13 . The light source of claim 2 , further comprising a plurality of dip switches, and wherein the microprocessor is configured to identify the light source with one of a plurality of light channels in an ambient lighting system, based on settings of the plurality of dip switches.
14 . The light source of claim 2 , further comprising a memory readable by the microprocessor,
wherein the microprocessor is configured, when receiving a first type of ambient lighting instruction, to actuate each of the plurality of LED strands based on intensity data received for each of the plurality of LED strands in the first type of ambient lighting instruction, and
wherein the microprocessor is configured, when receiving a second type of ambient lighting instruction, to actuate each of the plurality of LED strands based on one of a plurality of predefined lighting effects stored in the memory and identified in the second type of lighting instruction.
15 . The light source of claim 14 , wherein the predefined lighting effect comprises a sequential set of raw intensity values for each of the plurality of LED strands.
16 . The light source of claim 14 , wherein the predefined lighting effect comprises a transition to a default lighting state upon completion of the lighting effect.
17 . The light source of claim 14 , wherein one of the plurality of lighting effects simulates flashing lights on a police car.
18 . The light source of claim 14 , wherein one of the plurality of lighting effects simulates a sunset.
19 . The light source of claim 14 , wherein one of the plurality of lighting effects simulates fire.
20 . The light source of claim 14 , wherein one of the plurality of lighting effects simulates a searchlight passing over a location of the light source.