Description

Introduction

The Philips Ambx Premium Kit is a speaker system with extra game related functions. After an initial announcement in 2005, the hardware was introduced in 2007. It was a 2.1 system with two 40w speakers and a 80w subwoofer. Two light sources were placed above the two speakers. In addition, the premium kit consisted of two fans and a rumble pad, which you place in front of your keyboard and rest your wrist on. To make optimal use of this hardware, Philips developed a technology that allows game developers to add light, color, sound, vibrations and even wind effects to their games. Developers could highlight certain effects in their games at any time to increase immersion. However, the technology also allows games that did not have special support for the Ambx hardware to take advantage of the lighting effects. Although, its implementation was limited to showing lighting effects that offered a kind of middle ground between the colors shown on the screen.

The idea of AMBX is ambitious. It wanted to create an all-encompassing system that made games come to life by engaging all your senses. Your eyes receive the ambilight-like color and lighting effects that correspond to the action on your screen. Your ears are treated to 2.1 surround sound. Your hands and wrists feel the vibration, and a pair of fans blow air into your face when you run or experience an explosion in a game. At the time, there were even ideas to add scent with special canisters, but these never made it to the consumer market (fortunately).

Why would you want to do so? Well, as with Ambilight, the lamps are designed to create a soft, atmospheric glow that extends the action on the screen out into the area around your desktop. The lamp technology offers a wide range of color tones and the different lamps can use entirely different hues, meaning that if you have a gloomy, green-lit dungeon wall on the left and a crackling fire on the right, the lamps can graduate from green to a pulsing yellow between the left and right speaker lamps. As is the case with Ambilight, this can be a subtle but effective addition – and even more when game developers produce titles that control Ambilight directly (more on this later). The wrist pad, meanwhile, does exactly what you might expect: rumbling when you fire a gun, or when tank wheels rumble near your position, or vibrating like the clappers when something explodes. The fans, finally, create long or short blasts of air, hurling a hefty breeze in your face when you’re in the seat of an open-topped sports car or giving you a quick shot when a grenade goes off nearby.

Ambx in use

Fans

The Ambx system features two separate fans. They are small and compact in stature and painted in the same dark blue as the speakers, with chrome-colored plastic elements. There are only a few games that support the fans natively. From this small selection, I tried the two biggest titles, namely Brothers in Arms hells highway and Far Cry 2. The implementation of the fans in the games that support the fans natively is quite well-thought-out. In BIA, the fans spin during both cut scenes and gameplay. For example, if an explosion occurs or if a tank fires. In addition, the fans are also used simultaneously with the lights on the speakers if you make a headshot in BIA, for example. The lights on the speakers then turn red, the fans blow in your face, and the image zooms in on the bullet piercing the head to draw your attention to the moment and enhance the experience. The implementation in games that don’t natively support the fans feels less natural. If you activate the profile ‘first-person shooter’ in the Ambx generator, the fans will run when you run or drive, for example. This often feels artificial and sometimes even forced, and lacks thoughtful implementation that is tailored to the gameplay of the game in question. Although this is difficult to blame the system because there is no one who is orchestrating the Ambx hardware with the gameplay at that time.

In addition to the games, you can also let the fans run in a homemade scene. Although they are not intended for this purpose, I regularly turned on the fans in such a scene last summer to cool down while working at my PC.

Lights

As with ambilight, the lamps are designed to create a soft, atmospheric glow that extends the action on the screen out into the area around your desktop. The lamp technology offers a wide range of color tones and the different lamps can use entirely different hues, meaning that if you have a gloomy, green-lit dungeon wall on the left and a crackling fire on the right, the lamps can graduate from green to a pulsing yellow between the left and right speaker lamps. As is the case with ambilight, this can be a subtle but effective addition.

In games that are not natively supported, the color of the lights is determined by the colors shown on the screen. In fully supported games, however, developers have sometimes found ingenious ways to make the lights provide more immersion. In TOCA race driver at the start of the race they glow red then green for the starting lights, which adds a little to the pre-race build up. In Brother in Arms (BIA) game, the lights turn deep red when you’re about to die and need to take cover. In Far Cry 2 the implementation is similar to BIA. However, the difference with BIA is that the colors in Far Cry 2 are more vibrant. In addition, fire plays an important role in the game. This makes the AMBX lighting effects more intense than in BIA.

In a general sense, the lights really offer added value. They provide more immersion because they enhance the images on the screen. Especially in games, where the effects of AMBX are manually adjusted to the specific scenes in the game, the lights enhance the gaming experience.

Rumble Pad

As mentioned, the Rumble pad causes vibrations in games. For example, if you get hit by a bullet in a shooter or if you accelerate in TOCA race driver. Compared to the light effects and the wind effects, I find the added value of the rumble pad limited, and even annoying with long use due to the constant attention it requires for your wrists.

Kits

Philips introduced three different Ambx kits. A starter kit with only the lights, a pro gamer kit including the lights, the speakers, and a subwoofer, and a premium kit with also the fans and the rumble pad. They also sold an extension kit with only the fans and the rumble pad if you already had the starter or pro gamer kit.

Concluding

The Ambx system leaves a positive impression. The lamps, in particular, offer an immersive experience that goes beyond a gimmick. The fans also offer a nice addition in some games, if they are well orchestrated in games by the developer. However, the rumble pad is not an ideal way to add rumble to a game. It doesn’t always feel natural, and the thing makes far too much noise. However, the wind effects are a nice addition, if they are used with the right type of game and are used well by the developers.

Then there’s the biggest drawback: right now, too few games make full use of the Ambx features. Those are many disadvantages for a package with a price of 399 euros.