The detail that caught me off guard is the update rate: each bulb has its state changed around 25 times per second while a track plays. That is a serious pace for color, brightness and effects, and it explains why the synced light show looks so alive in the demo footage.
The project is an iOS app called Lights and Music, built by rugosotv for iPhone and iPad, that drives Philips Hue bulbs in time with music. It has been on the App Store since last December, can be tried for free, and needs an in-app purchase to unlock everything. It pulls audio from Spotify, Apple Music, the Music app or the microphone, and lights can also be set manually. A newer Auto mode reacts to the energy of whatever track is currently playing, which sounds like a nice hands-free option.
The demo setup itself is tidy and worth copying: bulbs stand upright in small individual bases, arranged in a straight line on a wooden table, eight of them in motion. The connected hue range runs from blue, cyan and green through yellow, orange and red to magenta and white, with the bulbs brightening, pulsing and chasing one another along the row. One App Store data point worth noting: thousands of users and sessions per month, so this is no abandoned side project. The maker's oldest bulbs are nearly two years old and apparently still going.
Two open points stand out. First, syncing stops at 10 lights, a limit set by the bridge itself, and nobody seems to know whether that ceiling can ever be lifted. Second, Spotify sync only works while music plays on the phone, so anyone driving external speakers will need to connect them by aux or Bluetooth. Those are the trade-offs to weigh before jumping in.
Project by rugosotv. Watch it on their YouTube channel: