Gaming isn’t what it used to be. This isn’t us being old, by the way, and it’s also not a complaint, it’s just a fact. Gaming used to be a thing you did on your own or just with a couple of friends in a lounge somewhere, often while crowded around the best TV that was barely big enough to see the split-screen you were spying on. Now though, it’s different, it’s more online, and often shared with other friends all over the world, or streamed.
It means that a good gaming space has to be more than just comfortable, it has to look good too. This is especially true if you’re in the content creation space, be that podcasting, YouTube videos, or streaming. Sometimes making sure that your visual vibe matches your actual vibe is essential.
The best way to do this is with good lighting, and the best way to improve your lighting is with some of the best gaming smart lights. These are the things that you can make match everything else in your setup, and it’s remarkable how much cooler you’ll feel when your entire room is lit up in whatever color fits your mood.
Ready to dive in? Shop our list of the best gaming smart lights below!
1. Philips Hue Play
BEST OVERALL
This may be the most commonly well-known gaming smart light of the bunch, and that’s not surprising given the quality and ease of use offered by the Philips Hue Play Starter Kit. This kit comes with a Hue Hub, which looks after everything, and two light bars to help you bring a little more color into your room. You simply put them where you think is best, and then you can play around with what they do from there.
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2. Nanoleaf Lines
BEST ABSTRACT
Smart lights come in lots of strange and wonderful shapes, but there’s something intrinsically wonderful about the simplicity of the Nanoleaf Lines. This starter kit comes with three LED light lines, each of which is easy to fit thanks to the adhesive setup, and each of which features the ability to show off over 16 million colors. It means they’re perfect for putting up specific shapes, weird abstract images, or just a border for whatever you want to use them on.
3. Nanoleaf Canvas
GREAT FOR PIXEL ART
The Nanoleaf Canvas starter kit is an excellent choice for people who like bold blocks of color. It comes with nine squares which can be positioned however you want. This style is perfect for creating giant almost pixel art-like images behind you, or above your playspace. Plus, they’re easy to control thanks to the innate simplicity of the Nanoleaf brand.
4. Govee Glide Wall Lights
EXCELLENT SIMPLICITY
If you’re one of those people that already have the beginnings of a smart home, then you’ll be glad to know that the Govee Glide Wall Lights work with Alexa and a few other smart assistants too. These tubes can be easily fixed however you like, and this kit comes with seven segments to move around as you like. The flexibility of the shapes isn’t as great as some others on this list, but they react well to gaming audio and music, and they’re a bit cheaper than some others
5. Govee Immersion TV Backlights
GREAT REACTIONS
Here we have the Govee Immersion TV Backlights. Despite the name, they actually work well with PC monitors, though they’ll need to be pretty big for that to be the case. Because of that, we definitely recommend you stick these behind your gaming TV and just enjoy the ambient lighting they pump out thanks to the 1080p camera that comes with, which allows the lights to help your TV take up the whole room. It’s a sight to behold, and these are perfect for making all of your gaming and viewing experiences a little bit more epic.
6. Corsair iCUE LS100 LED Lighting Strip Starter Kit
BEST BUDGET
The Corsair iCUE LS100 LED Lighting Strip Starter Kit, despite being a big old mix of words, is actually an excellent choice for gamers looking to add a little more flair to their world. This kit comes with two long and two short strips, and they can be customized as you like. Expansions to this set are a little cheaper than many others too, so if you want visual volume, this could be the one for you.
7. Corsair LL120 Series Fans
BEST INTERNAL
To some, this may seem an odd choice, but for those of us with see-through PC cases and a love of RGB lighting, the idea of having lighting coming from inside your rig as well as around your desk and room is something worth shouting about. The Corsair LL Series fans come with 16 independent RGB LEDs in each fan, each split into two loops. Along with being pretty, the fans themselves can also be adjusted to make sure you’re keeping quiet or keeping your PC cool, so that’s nice too.
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