The market for TVs and monitors with built-in ambient lighting that reacts to what’s displayed on the screen has long been boxed in by Philips and its Ambilight technology – but that doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to upgrade your existing equipment. The Govee DreamView G1 Pro adds reactive lighting to almost any computer screen and gives your desk some mood lighting.
Rather than fiddling with display passthroughs or screen reading software, the DreamView is a self-contained system that uses a camera to scan your screen and pick matching colors almost instantly – whether you’re playing a PC game, streaming video, or to console.
The wide compatibility and minimal setup look promising. And can you really call yourself a real gamer if you don’t have a mountain of RGB-lit peripherals? Time to shed some light on whether the Govee is what your setup needs.
Design and configuration: stay with me
The DreamView G1 Pro kit consists of an LED strip light that sticks to the back of your monitor, two tower lamps for your desk and a camera control box – plus a whole host of cables to connect it all. The camera sits above your monitor where a webcam could come, staring at the screen. Govee calls it Envisual technology, which uses visual data and divides the 180-degree field of view into different zones to assign matching colors to individual LEDs.
Both the strip and sidelights are diffused for a softer glow. The side lights are enclosed in metal effect plastic (as does the camera), which already looks premium enough even with the LEDs turned off. They all plug into the camera, meaning multiple cables need to be tucked out of sight, but on the plus side the whole kit is powered by just one outlet. By not relying on your PC’s USB ports, console gamers can get in on the action even if they don’t have a computer to hand. Everything is controlled with a smartphone app.
Govee says the strip light is only good for flat-backed monitors, although the one we used was a bit angular and things worked well enough. Screens with more dramatic curves won’t be so lucky.
The installation instructions are clear enough, with paper templates to align the strip light for different screen aspect ratios, but there are a few spots that are easy to trip over. The strip needs to be installed in a specific way, with enough cable slack to reach the camera, and it’s not particularly easy to squeeze the adhesive brackets that hold it in place. The camera is also held with sticky pads to keep it from hanging in your line of sight.
The most nerve-wracking part is having to stick orange foam cubes to the surface of your screen so you can calibrate the camera, but the glue didn’t leave any marks or residue.
Features and companion app: all eyes on me
The Govee Home app takes care of the initial calibration, aligns the light strips and defines screen boundaries by dragging a box onto each of the foam cubes. The DreamView G1 Pro camera’s wide field of view is fine for flat screens and can handle ultra-wide screens to some extent, but curved panels are a struggle and can mean it follows only part of the screen rather than the entire screen.
Color accuracy is dependent on the city lights being placed a good distance from the monitor, and reflective desk surfaces (or anything directly below the monitor) can also interfere with camera tracking. White balance and saturation can be adjusted through the app, but we had to dial the balance to the coolest setting to match a completely white image.
There’s no shortage of customization here, with multiple modes for static colors, subtle animated gradients, and more dynamic pulses. The lights can even respond to audio, with a 3.5mm headphone port for piggybacking on the sound output from your PC or console, or from a microphone built into the camera.
The video mode is the main event, matching the on-screen action and reacting incredibly quickly to any movement or change in real time. It has two sub-modes: Movie and Game. The former is a bit more subtle, with smoother transitions that are less distracting, while Game splits into Story, Action, Shooter, and Racing.
Story is the best middle ground, with a single color for each sidelight and subtle transitions for the striplight, while Action splits the sidelights into multiple sections for the most dramatic light show. Shooter is not as colorful but is faster in transition, and Racing speeds up sidelight transitions to create the illusion of speed.
Smart assistant support is also baked into the app, with Alexa and Google Assistant being able to turn the lights on and off with voice commands, or connect to other Govee smart lights. Handy if you just want some atmosphere in your room, but not a game changer as the on/off button is always within reach on top of the camera module.
Performance: a touch of color
Tap the touch-sensitive power button on top of the camera module and the DreamView G1 Pro lights up and remembers the last color mode set via the companion app. It instantly colors the wall behind your monitor, helping to relieve eyestrain while working and improve the atmosphere for gaming.
With the app set to Video/Game/Story mode, the lights usually stayed subtly white during days spent switching between web browsers, email clients, and Slack messages. Fire up a game or play a video in full screen, and the light show kicks up a gear, with more colorful hues and faster, more dynamic transitions.
It’s undeniably slick, and since you’re not piggybacking on display cables or using screen reading software, you don’t have to worry about HDMI-CEC or HDMI version compatibility, or copy protection blocking the system from responding to streaming services like Netflix. Your monitor’s resolution or refresh rate doesn’t matter either: whether you’re playing at 1080p or 4K, or have plans to go even further once prices for 8K panels drop, you’re good to go.
Colors aren’t always quite accurate, with the camera favoring a certain area of the screen that doesn’t match what you’re seeing, but for the most part it’s just as captivating as a Philips Ambilight setup.
Finally, we couldn’t overlook the privacy implications of pointing a camera at your screen and giving it Wi-Fi access. Fortunately, we can still change settings using the mobile app (which connects via Bluetooth) after blocking the device from our Wi-Fi network, so you can isolate it from the rest of the world if you wish.
Govee DreamView G1 Pro verdict
Aside from buying a Philips TV with Ambilight built in, this is about as painless as reactive ambient lighting gets – assuming you have a compatible monitor and are ready to do a bit of tuning to get accurate colours. The DreamView G1 Pro costs a lot less than a new television, is fairly easy to set up and gets impressively bright.
It doesn’t play too well with curved monitors, or those with angled back panels, and the number of cables is a bit tame. Also, anyone concerned about privacy may object to pointing a Wi-Fi connected camera at their computer screen, but that’s the price you pay to ensure broad device compatibility.
If none of these things sound like deal-breakers, here’s a quick and easy way to give your gaming setup a color-reactive makeover.
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