Level- up your gaming PC with the Philips Hue Play Gradient Lightstrip for PC monitors
Philips Hue Play Gradient Lightstrip for PC. Picture: Philips.
PC gaming is well and truly thriving and the recent releases of next-gen graphics cards from Nvidia and AMD are a testament to this. Of course, unlike console gamers, PC enthusiasts love to tweak their setups and nothing does that better than a good lighting system. I’ve been testing a new lightstrip product from Philips Hue and while it isn’t cheap, it does create enhanced lighting for your monitor or for those with a three-spanning surround monitor setup.
PC gamers tend to go overboard on our desk setups to create a space that is both practical and esthetically pleasing. Lighting is everything and while I’m not a massive fan of too much RGB lighting in a case, adding ambient lights to the back of my three-monitor setup has transformed my work/gaming desk setup.
During work hours I use the lights to improve the ambient light, which helps with eye strain from my monitors and at night they create an ambience to the room and desk area. The lightstrip provides dynamic accent lighting that can give an additional level of immersion for music, movies and especially games in addition to the mood-setting gradient lightstrip, which can display a variety of colours simultaneously. It has a maximum brightness output of 1,000 lumens and is not meant to be a primary source of light, but instead provides an indirect glow.
If don’t have one already you’ll also need a Hue Bridge (€60), to use the PC monitor lightstrip.
Philips Hue Light Strip comes with plastic mounts that adhere to the back of your monitor with preinstalled sticky pads. The lightstrip has a strong rubber backing and can be curved and shaped to suit your setup including curved monitors.
At the end of the lightstrip is a small box that plugs into the lights at one end and a power adapter on the other.
Using the Hue app, you can simply add the new lightstrip and then you’re ready to start using them. You can control the lightstrip via the app or with your voice assistant, but to get the full experience you’ll need to download and install the Hue Sync desktop app.
Philips Hue and Corsair have partnered for what they consider to be the ultimate gaming setup by bringing your games to life with light for a more immersive gaming experience. To achieve this ideal gaming environment, you’ll need to use Corsair iCue to create scenes on Philips Hue lights in your home or gaming area and sync them with your Corsair RGB gaming peripherals.
The Hue Sync desktop app is surprisingly easy to use. You can choose scenes and even create scenes by picking your favourite colour or use the Philip Hue app on your smartphone to create a colour scene based on a picture from your photo album. I use a Philip Tap Dial on my desk to toggle between five preset scenes on the lightstrip.
While the ambient light created by the lightstrip on the PC monitors is wonderful, the magic happens when you turn on the light syncing feature from the desktop app. There are presets for games, music and video. You can choose subtle, moderate, high, or extreme for each setting before tapping a button to start synchronisation. You can also choose how fast it synchronises from subtle all the way to extreme. An additional toggle can use the audio from your PC to determine effects too.
With video or games playing on your main PC monitor, the lightstrip will match the variety of colours in the content as well as the light intensity. It works incredibly well, especially for games by adding an extra layer of immersion to the experience.
I found it less immersive for slow-moving movies or general content from YouTube. Also, if you like kicking back and watching movies or TV shows from your favourite streaming platforms on your PC you’ll be disappointed to learn that the lightstrip won’t work with Netflix, Prime Video or Disney Plus since they use hardware-encoded protection that prevents it.
Although expensive, the Philips Hue Play Gradient Lightstrip for PC monitors is the pinnacle of lighting for your PC or gaming rig with excellent flexibility and sophisticated smart features. Of course, it’s not an essential must-have product, but if you’re looking to level up your desk set and gaming rig, then this is the way to go.
Philips Hue Play Gradient Lightstrip for PC Monitors - from €150
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