Wiz TV Sync

Your WiZ lights, following the picture on your Google TV.

Wiz TV Sync captures the screen, reads the colours along its edges and streams them to WiZ bulbs and strips over your home network. No hub, no cloud account, one APK.

Android TV / Google TV 8.0 or newer. Free for 3 days on each TV, then $5 a month.

The 24 edge zones the app samples. Each light follows one zone, a range of zones, or the whole screen.

Before you install

What it can and cannot light up

Android only lets an app capture what Android itself draws. That decides everything below, and the app never tries to work around it.

Follows the picture

  • YouTube, the launcher, games and any app without copy protection
  • Screensavers, photo apps, local media players
  • SDR and HDR content (HDR drops the sample rate automatically to keep 4K playback smooth)
  • Every WiZ class: RGB and RGBCW bulbs, RGBIC strips segment by segment, tunable white, dimmable white

Falls back to ambient light

  • Netflix, Disney+, Prime Video, HBO Max, Apple TV+ and other DRM apps: the video is black to the OS. The app detects that and holds a warm ambient colour until the picture returns
  • Other HDMI inputs (console, set-top box): never pass through Android. That needs a hardware sync box
  • TVs with an Amlogic chipset (for example TCL models on the T5M platform) play video on a separate hardware plane that Android cannot capture, even without DRM. On those TVs only menus, the launcher and games follow the screen; YouTube and other players stay black to the app
  • Screen capture consent must be tapped again after every reboot; Android 14 does not allow it to be remembered

Before you buy

Why this is heavier than Hue Sync TV, and what that means for a box

Samsung and LG build a colour-sampling API into the TV's own video pipeline for Hue Sync TV; an Android app has no such API. The only way to read the screen is MediaProjection, the same interface a screen recorder uses, so every sample means the TV's compositor redraws the whole picture again. That cost falls on the compositor and GPU, not on this app (it runs under 10% of one core): the chipset under the box matters more than its price.

The one disqualifying trait: Amlogic video planes

On some Amlogic-based TVs (verified on a TCL T5M set) video is composited on a hardware plane that sits outside Android's normal drawing surface. MediaProjection cannot see it: not slow, not sometimes, never, DRM or not. Menus, the launcher and games still follow the screen; players don't. No setting in this app changes that.

What actually keeps it smooth

  • Android 11 or newer. Older builds lack the HDR APIs the auto-profile uses and tend to pair with weaker GPUs anyway
  • 2 GB RAM or more. The capture buffer itself is tiny; this is about the compositor having headroom while also decoding video
  • A current-generation Google TV certification rather than a generic reskinned box, since Google requires a baseline GPU/driver quality to certify
  • 1080p output for heavy 4K HDR sources, or the HDR auto-profile (drops to 5 fps automatically) if you keep 4K

Test before you commit to a box

The mechanism is the same for any screen-capture app. If a device fails this test, this app will show the same black screen during video that it does on our Amlogic set.

  1. Install any screen recorder

    One that uses Android's standard capture (most do); a free one from the store is enough.

  2. Record five seconds of a YouTube video

    Not the launcher or a menu; the actual video playing.

  3. Play the recording back

    Video visible → this app will follow it. Black rectangle → it's an Amlogic-style video plane, and this app can't follow it either.

The two TVs this app is actually developed and tested on are listed below, with what each one can follow.

Install

Five steps on the TV

  1. Allow installs from unknown sources

    Settings → Apps → Security & restrictions → Unknown sources, and allow the app you will download with (the TV browser, Downloader, or Send files to TV).

  2. Get the APK onto the TV

    Easiest: open wizsyncapp.sharkylab.id in the TV browser or the Downloader app and press Download. From a PC: adb connect TV-IP then adb install wiztvsync.apk.

  3. Scan for your lights

    Open Wiz TV Sync → Scan & setup → Scan network. Bulbs on the same Wi-Fi/LAN answer with their name and model. Rename them and, for strips, press + seg until the red tip reaches the end.

  4. Place each light

    On the home screen tick the lights that should follow the screen and press Zone to say where each one sits around the TV.

  5. Start sync

    Press Start sync and accept the capture dialog. If a yellow “Allow display over other apps” button shows, grant it: without it lights follow menus but not video. Updates install themselves from inside the app; your lights and settings are kept.

Price

One month at a time

$5per TV, per month
  • Trial3 days, starts when the app first opens
  • RenewalManual. Buy another month whenever you want; it is added after the current one ends
  • Bound toYour TV’s Device ID, shown in the app
  • PaymentPayPal to datasharky2@gmail.com
  • Code arrivesBy email after the payment is checked by hand, usually the same day (Indonesia, UTC+7)

Buying a month

  1. Copy your Device ID from the app: Home → License. It looks like A1B2-C3D4-E5F6-7890.
  2. Send $5 USD with PayPal to datasharky2@gmail.com. Put the Device ID in the PayPal note if you can.
  3. Tell us with the form below, or email the payment proof and Device ID to support@sharkylab.id.
  4. Enter the code from the email on the TV: Home → License → Activate.

License status

When does my month end?

Enter the Device ID from the app. This shows what the server knows about that TV: trial end, licence end, or locked.

Tested with

Hardware that has run it

Anything else running Android TV 8.0 or newer should work; these are the combinations that have actually been used for development.

DeviceDetailsNotes
TCL Smart TV Pro G08Android 14, MediaTekMain development TV. Video follows fully; needs the “display over other apps” permission (the app asks for it).
TCL G09Android 12, Amlogic T5MMenus, launcher and games only. Video (YouTube included) is rendered on the Amlogic video plane, which no app can capture; the app holds ambient light during playback.
WiZ RGB / RGBCW bulbsESP24_SHRGB_01White routed to the white LEDs.
WiZ tunable whiteESP25_SHTW_01Follows brightness and colour temperature.
WiZ RGBIC stripESP25_MHORGB_0112 addressable segments per strip.