As far as “waiting to see a few weeks whether Samsung comes up with some form of remedy”, dream on.  Samsung has known about the problem with Ambient Mode, as well as much more serious issues with Q8’s and Q9’s, for many months, but refuses to even acknowledge them.     Take, for example, my biggest problem — recurrent issues with the ARC/CEC connection between the TV and a high-end Samsung soundbar.  Despite this problem being almost universally reported by users in the US forums (including some users who related stories of Samsung repairmen stating that Samsung was well-aware of the problem and had no idea of how to fix it), Samsung basically ignored the crescendo of complaints for months.  Eventually, a Samsung moderator on the US forums posted an official “solution” that decreed that there was actually no problem at all, because “that’s just how the CEC connection works.”  Not surprisingly, I and many other users called BS on this, pointing out that LG, Sony, and even older Samsung TV’s all used ARC/CEC connections without the problem, so it was impossible that it was something inherent to ARC/CEC.  Samsung’s response?  Censor the posts pointing this out.  When called out for this censorship, Samsung’s response was to ban me (and apparently others) from the US forums).   I could go on with more of my stories about how Samsung of late seems to have a problem of touting that their products do something, when they actually do not.  And, when confronted with indisputable evidence of this, Samsung either ignores the complaints or eventually says “you’re right, it doesn’t actually do what we claimed — too bad for you.”  Hopefully my point is clear:  what we are seeing with Ambient Mode is just one example of apparently systematic behavior of this organization.     I’d been a loyal Samsung customer for over 35 years (going back to when it offered the first inexpensive microwave ovens to US consumers).  No more.  The next time I am ready to drop serious coin on a TV, it’ll be an LG or Sony.           ... View more

Thanks.  I took a good high-res photo of the wall before mounting everything.  A good photo editor made it not too hard to airbrush away the electrical/Ethernet outlets that are on the wall (behind the TV), and then play with the sizing / cropping of the image so that the grout lines match up (from dead on, about 2m from the TV -- if you change the viewing position it results in the grout lines not being as lined up as well as they are in this shot, due to the fact that the wall is about 10cm further away than the TV.   Can't change the laws of perspective . . . .   Depending on your viewing angle, the apparent color of the image on the TV changes too.  E.g., viewed from >30 degrees off  center, the colors are much cooler (and get pretty close to what the stones are in morning light [shown]).  As the day goes on, the colors of the stone wall do indeed change (it's a solarium with large southeast-facing windows), and of course everything changes in artificial light.    Of course, Ambient Mode is supposed to sense the amount of ambient light in the room and adjust the brightness of the Ambient Mode image accordingly  . . . yet another feature that Samsung touts but does not appear to have implemented.   And it certainly  shouldn't take this degree of experimenting / hacking / kludging to make a $3k device do what Samsung claims Ambient Mode is supposed to do out of the box.  Still, the overall effect is pretty cool. ... View more

BTW, here’s how mine came out using the hack/kludge described above:   ... View more

As discussed supra,  Samsung and StupidThings CS eventually admitted to me (after lots of e-mails and hours on phone calls) that there's not a way to use your own images as background (i.e., w/o the Mono frame), notwithstanding what Samsung's ads and promotional materials say.  Their excuse seven months ago was that they were "working on it" -- the fact that they still haven't fixed/enabled this ought to tell you that this isn't exactly a priority for Samsung.   The only way I've seen to do this was the hack/kludge that was posted on the Samsung US Communities board a while back (before the cowards that run that place removed it).  It required using an Android device running the StupidThings app (the hack wasn't doable with iOS devices).     For it to work, you had to start by editing your desired image to get it sized precisely to your TV.  I did that by hooking the TV up as a separate monitor to my laptop, and ran some photo editing software with the desired image displayed "full screen" on the TV.  Keep resizing and color correcting the image until you get exactly what you want on the TV.  Save this image on your computer.   You then use the "take a picture of the TV on the wall" utility of StupidThings (Android only).  You'd then connect the Android device to the computer and find the "generated wall behing the TV" image that was just created (noting its gibberish file name and path).  You'd then delete that file and rename your saved desired background image to the name/path of the file you just deleted, and then use the Android device / StupidThings app to upload that image to your TV.   Essentially, you are spoofing StupidThings into using your image instead of the "generated wall behind the TV" image it created.   It's a very clunky and involved hack/kludge, and ultimately I was able to kinda get it to work (when it uploaded the image, StupidThings messed up the color correction of my image).  If someone will point me to how to embed / attach images to forum messages, I'll post a photo of what mine looks like.    As noted in an earlier message in this thread, however, it appears that the most recent version of StupidThings may have disabled this kludge.   And, of course, all of this begs the question of why Samsung has and continues to flat out lie about the features and capabilities of Ambient Mode. ... View more

I say again . . . Ambient Mode is a fraud. It’s never performed as advertised, and Samsung continues to tout features of Ambient Mode that nobody has ever seen working. Example: There has never been a way to “play a bit of light background music” in any released version of Ambient Mode I’ve seen, nor can Samsung/SmartThings CS tell you how to supposedly do so. Yet go to the Samsung website or read every ad for Ambient Mode over the past year and there it is to this day, bold as brass — Samsung still brazenly claims it as a feature of Ambient Mode. Hopefully, the Samsung EU Community Moderators will continue allowing me to post despite voicing this unpleasant truth. (The cowards who run Samsung’s US boards have banned me (and apparently others) who had the temerity to point things like this out.) ... View more

I suggest just scrolling through all the threads containing “ambient mode.”  There weren’t too many when last I was able to see them. ... View more

It’s on the Samsung US Community site.  I’d be able to find it and send you a link, but as indicated above the cowards that run that site have blocked/banned me (and appardently others) who have the temerity to point out the problems with Samsung products. ... View more

Don’t hold your breath. Ambient Mode has been a scam from Day 1. The fact that’s been out there for over a year and it *still* doesn’t do what Samsung continues to tout it does should tell you all you need to know. And while I respect the Moderators here (as opposed to their cowardly counterparts on the US Samsung forums, who react to critical customers by simply banning them), the fact that they cannot give us any information beyond “we’re looking into it” pretty clearly indicates that Samsung isn’t interested in addressing the issue. ... View more

Yeah, I had to borrow a friend’s phone to do the kludge. It *shouldn’t* be that hard to add this, but given that Ambient Mode has NEVER done what Samsung has touted (“play a bit of light music” — apparently Samsung never even attempted to implement that, but it’s still in their advertising), it’s becoming clear to me that Samsung’s marketing department got way ahead of their engineers on this. Honorable thing would be for Samsung to just admit that Ambient Mode does not do what they represented it would, and make some appropriate arrangement / accommodation with affected consumers. However, just like with the HDMI-ARC debacle (where the official Samsung response to this universally-reported flaw is to blithely claim “that’s just how HDMI-CEC works” — despite the fact that Sony /LG / Visio/ older Samsung TV’s don’t have the problem), Samsung isn’t remotely interested in doing what’s right ... View more

SBart, my situation was similar . . . my TV is mounted on a wall of rough irregularly-shaped stone, and like you I took some high-res photos of the area where the TV would be.   Hooked my laptop up to the TV and set the TV as a second monitor, and then used photo retouching software to crop/resize/color correct it until a “full screen view” of the image on the TV was what I wanted.  (And it was pretty cool . . . .)   Best I was ever able to accomplish with the iOS version of DumbThings was to get that image as a photo in Mono — which, as you, indicate, is not what I was after because of the mat/frame that it uses.   Using the kludge I alluded to on p.2 of the comments in this thread, I was able to trick the Android version of DumbThings into using my image as a background image.  However, when DumbThings did so, it reduced the resolution and screwed up the color correction.  I was able to correct that a bit via the on-screen controls — it’s now “just OK” (and I am using it), but it’s nowhere as good as the original image.     (I’d post  a link to the step by step instructions on how to do the kludge (it’s pretty involved), but as mentioned earlier in the thread those were posted in a thread on the Samsung US boards.  The  Moderators / administrators there respond to people like me calling Samsung out for this kind of false advertising and their disingenuous responses to known flaws by banning us from the site, so unfortunately I can no longer get it for you.  Bunch of despicable cowards, that lot.)   Ambient Mode remains a disappointment at best, a deliberate fraud at worst. ... View more

FWIW:   Which phone and phone OS/firmware you're using:      iPad Air, iOS 11.4.1 TV model number and software version:  QN75Q8FNB, T-KTM2AKUC-1153.1, BT-S SmartThings app version;  1.6.21-207   In getting this info, I noticed that a new version of SmartThings updated yesterday that is pretty radically different.  Inter alia, there now is an Ambient Mode button on the SmartThings TV’s home screen.  (This is new and is also different from what is shown in the link posted by the mods.)  Clicking through this, it does appear that, after many months of us complaining, some of the Ambient Mode features may *finally* have been implemented in the iOS version of SmartThings.   However, while I have not yet had a chance to test it out comprehensively, at first reading it appears that the following advertised features of Ambient Mode remain unimplemented.  (If anyone knows how to use them, please sing out.)   1.  No way to “play a bit of light music” while in Ambient Mode. 2.  No way to use your own image as the background in Ambient Mode.  (Yes, you can display your own photo in Photo Mode, but I’m taking about using your own image to be used as the background with the time and weather floating atop it.)     Note:  as I’ve alluded to before, a very tech-savvy user discovered a way to do this using a pretty involved kludge through the Android version of SmartThings — not sure why this advertised feature isn’t just part of the program. 3.  I’m not seeing any way to resize the mats or photos in photo mode.  (This may be there and I have just not found it yet.)   ... View more

The information in the links posted by the moderator *is* updated from the information previously available, so kudos to them for bringing that to our attention.   However, notwithstanding the info at those links, Ambient Mode still does not actually work as advertised.  The iOS version of SmartThings still does not have the Ambient Mode button (on the lower right hand side) that you need to import images, etc.  And many features that are advertised (playing light music in Ambient Mode, using your own images as background, etc.) don’t even appear to have been implemented at all. ... View more

I certainly appreciate that the Moderators here are responsive -- perhaps that is why you have so many US readers!  (When it comes to providing actual technical support and accurate information, the moderators on the US Community page are pretty much worthless, and when faced with knotty problems like this they typically just ignore the threads entirely, other than to start editing / deleting / banning when the natives start getting especially restless.)   WRT the problems with Ambient Mode not being reported by many UK/Ireland custmers, is that because the problem doesn't exist or because folks just aren't complaining about it?   Stated differently, does Ambient Mode actually work as advertised on UK Samsung Q8/Q9's?   If not (which, as the last poster seems to have verified, seems to be the case), can you share any info on why? ... View more

Let’s put it this way . . . .   Samsung has long misrepresented Ambient Mode, and continues to do so to this date.  For example, note that they still represent that you can “play a bit of light music” in Ambient Mode, even though that feature never seems to have been implemented in the released version (if indeed it ever actually existed).    And, of course, what does Samsung do when consumers complain and point out their duplicity on this and other, similar issues?  In my case (and I suspect others), the US Community administrators simply ban those of us who dare to do so.   If the UK/EU Community Moderators have more class than that, good for them.  (Perhaps they could explain if their US colleagues’ actions in censoring criticism are consistent with Samsung’s policies and practices . . . .).   But combine what Samsung has done in the past with what they are doing in the present, and I think you have a pretty good idea of the future — and that doesn’t auger well for Ambient Mode ever being fixed. ... View more

A word of warning to you all . . . .   I’ve been a member both here and on the US Samsung Communities, sharing information and trying to get to the bottom of how to get Ambient Mode working as advertised (long and short, it still doesn’t and it does not appear likely ever to), as well as the maddening problems with Samsung’s HDMI-ARC system (which appear to be nearly universal, but that Samsung US disingenuously claims are just “how HDMI-CEC works,” despite the fact that LG/Sony/Visio/etc. all support HDMI-ARC and HDMI-CEC and don’t have those problems).   Recently, apparently concerned that complaints being voiced by me and other members about these issues were starting to hit too close to home, the Samsung US Moderators first tried to stifle negative info by closing and locking an active thread of over 100 pages of comments (“ARC Sounds keeps resetting to TV Speakers”).  That was followed by “editing” of negative posts about this in other threads, followed by simply deleting posts that were critical of Samsung.   And when called out for such censorship, they simply banned me (and, I suspect, others who have dared point out what appears to be misfeasance by Samsung) from the US Community site with no notice or explanation.   I’ll let you draw your own conclusions from this.  For me, I’d been a loyal Samsung customer for over thirty years.  Not any more — this company has truly lost its way.   ... View more

<unacceptable>   Yup.  Samsung is treating us as beta testers at best, suckers at worst.   And, of course, note the utter silence from the Moderators here (as well as on the US Community site) on this subject after people point out that Ambient Mode doesn’t actually work and the “fixes” that they routinely cite to don’t either.   Why such silence?  Probably because they bloody well know that Ambient Mode is and continues to be an abject fraud that has never worked as advertised, and likely never will.   ... View more

The posted “solution” is not, of course, any solution at all.     Ambient Mode has turned out to be mostly hype that does not (and apparently never has) worked like Samsung has breathlessly claimed in its advertising.  Good luck finding a moderator (or CS rep) who actually knows anything about it beyond a few scripted responses, most of which usually turn out to be wrong.   For example, after lots of effort on my part, Samsung and SmartThings CS both confirmed to me that there’s not a way to use user-supplied backgrounds with Ambient Mode, notwithstanding Samsung’s claims to the contrary.  (Over at the US Samsung Community, one very tech-savvy user posted a kludge/hack that he figured out that allows you to do so (Android SmartThings only), but it’s pretty involved, and only kinda-sorta works.). But rest easy, they’re working on it.   Yeah, right.  I’m sure they’ll get right back to us on that. ... View more

I was on the phone with Samsung CS on this today -- they say that Smart Things for IOS won't do Ambient Mode at all.  They say that they know about the problem and "are working" on a fix, but of course have no idea if/when such a fix will emerge.   They also say that except for using Smart Things, there's no way to upload pics or do any of the other Ambient Mode tweaks Samsung touts in promoting the Q8 and Q9 TV's.  IOW, until Samsung deigns to fix their IOS version, I'm out of luck.    This really bites.  Samsung is deliberately advertising a feature that it knows is essentially crippleware, if not vaporware.     ... View more