Aurora

A while back I backed a Kickstarter project called DreamScreen. The project was to build a box that would add LED light behind your TV and “extend” what was on the TV. It got enough backers and they actually shipped out the boxes. You put an LED strip around the back of the TV, and then plugged that strip into the box they built. You then plugged your TV source (Apple TV for me) into the box and the box into the TV.

Fast forward several years and it eventually stopped working. The company that had formed around the project was gone at that point and so you couldn’t really get replacements. Maybe you could find one on eBay, but their mobile app to control the device had also stopped working. At the time I looked around for an alternative device, but I never really found a good one for my needs.

Fast forward again and I noticed a post on /r/appletv about a setup that looked exactly like my DreamScreen setup. I had really enjoyed my DreamScreen so I started looking into the setup. The author had written up a detailed post on how he got it all working so I had everything I needed. The first thing to check was if I could use my same LEDs. He was using WS2812b LEDs and the LEDs that came with my DreamScreen were SK6812 LEDs. They were compatible! I also found details on the connector that DreamScreen had shipped with and I could wire things up.

With all the details and the hardware mentioned in the post I set out on building a DreamScreen replacement. Andrew, the author of the project, did a great job documenting things and I had a working system in no time! Now I can enjoy the same effects of DreamScreen even though that project is dead.