All you need to know about
Ambient Lighting
from a company who have been successfully fitting it to cars longer than most.
Kit Type
This is the biggest decision that you need to make, as there are 4 different kit types on the market and we currently sell 3.
We'll explain the 2 universal kits first - which are available for absolutely any car
On the left (above for mobile users) is the fibre optic kit, the original aftermarket ambient lighting kit
And on the right (below) is the newcomer. Symphony.
The difference? Well:
AT A GLANCE:
AS WELL AS SINGLE
IN DETAIL:
Kit 1:
Fibre Optic
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Single LED shining down a bendable rubbery tube referred to as strip
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64 different available colours but it can only do 1 colour at a time
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Brightness and colour controlled via bluetooth phone app
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The strip is available in clear or black tint
Pros:
-Cheaper
-No maximum strip length
-Bends around corners with ease
Cons:
-Single colour at a time
-Only noticeable at night (brightness wise)
-Rubber strip is quite thick
-Bright at the start and the end but dimmer in the middle
Kit 2:
Symphony
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Strips made out of hundreds of LEDs
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Can also do 64 single colours, but can also do 255+ rainbow like modes because the LEDs are seperate
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Brightness and colour controlled via bluetooth phone app
Pros:
-Much brighter, obvious even in the daytime
-Thinner strips which blend into the original car more when they're off, more OEM finish
-Able to do multicoloured modes as well as single colour
-Consistent light all the way along
Cons:
-More expensive
-Can only bend to an extent
-Strips can be shortened but not made longer
OEM Screen Controlled
As close to factory genuine ambient as money can buy. Certain models of car (mainly German) can have kits installed which are controlled using the factory headunit, however the convenience comes at a premium price.
The pros and cons of the screen controlled kit are simply that it is a fibre optic kit which can be controlled without using your phone. They are single colour at a time, 64 colour option kits and symphony is mildly brighter, however for those craving the genuine factory approach, phone app controlled just won't do.
The reason that a screen controlled kit is so expensive is simply that it's an all-or-nothing approach to ambient lighting. To take the GLC below as an example, the kit comes with turbine vents, LED speakers, rotating tweeters and LED seat backs which customers must have. Other kits allow customers to opt out of these options to lower the overall price.
Kit 3:
Ambient Terms Explained
Understand the Lingo
Factory Replica
For cars that came out of the factory without ambient lighting specced; this approach to installing ambient lighting aims to provide an OEM look at a fraction of the original option cost.
For this we would recommend going for the symphony kit as it can provide a 'glow' like effect where you're looking at the light given off by the strip rather than the strip itself.
A perfect example of this is the centre console and lower dash on a W177 A Class Mercedes. A top spec model would come with factory ambient, but the one pictured on the left did not.
A visit to Fusion Performance later and this car now has ambient lighting exactly where a Premium Plus one would, but with the added features the symphony kit provides.
Factory Replacement
For cars that did come with Ambient Lighting out of factory, but it wasn't up to scratch.
Factory ambient lighting works the same way as the fibre optic kit - an LED shining down a tube. The difference is that the factory tubes are much higher quality than the rubber ones.
The good news here is that we can substitute the OEM LEDs with our own, while keeping the higher quality OEM strips.
This results in ambient lighting that has the same location as your original factory ones, but with the added bonus of now being 64 colour and having a much higher maximum brightness.
Using the example of the W205 C Class, the car on the right is a premium plus, so it came with factory 3 colour ambient. Now with its new LEDs, that 3 colour is 64 colour and the overall brightness is at least 3x as bright.
OEM+
The best of both worlds and possible with either of the two kits. The idea here is to have as much ambient lighting as humanly possible.
If there is factory ambient in your car it will be replaced, and then on top of that we will add some choice lines in where we believe the manufacturer should have in the first place.
RS3 as an example car on this one. This car comes with factory white door handles, cupholders and speaker lights.
Symphony kit put in and the door handles, cupholders and door storage match the added in footwells, all of which are controlled separately but from the same app.
That's on top of the new symphony lines under all of the trims, as well as the speakers being replaced with symphony strips to match.
