A 50-pixel RGB ambient light rig I built for my TV using a Raspberry Pi, a webcam and an LED strip. A webcam pointed at the screen captures each frame, the software samples colors along the edges, and each LED updates to match.

The first version ran on an Arduino, with color sampling done on my PC and sent over serial. That worked, but only when my computer was the video source. Switching to a webcam meant the rig could work with any input — game consoles, streaming sticks, anything.

The Raspberry Pi runs a headless server that captures deliberately out-of-focus webcam frames (for smoother color averaging), samples the edges and drives the LEDs. A separate Python desktop client connects over the local network and provides a calibration UI for mapping the webcam’s view to the TV bounds.