Smart lighting isn’t just limited to turning your bulbs on and off from your phone or changing their colors by asking Alexa. With the best smart light bulbs, you can even soup up your gaming rig with lights that follow the rhythm and beats of your games, turning your entire room into a living visualizer. These are some of the top smart lights for gaming to consider.
Bulbs for your lamps
Philips Hue White and Color Ambiance – LED Smart Bulb
Staff Pick
If you don’t already have an elaborate smart lighting rig, why not start simple with a couple of bulbs? You can start with one, two, or however many Philips Hue White and Color Ambiance bulbs you want and connect directly to your phone via Bluetooth. No hub needed. Philips Hue partners with gaming brands like Razer so that your lights can match the changing colors of your Chroma-powered peripherals.
$100 at Amazon (3 Pack) $100 at Best Buy (3 Pack) $80 at Walmart (2 Pack)
Ambient glow
Philips Hue Bluetooth Smart Lightstrip
Just like the light bulbs, Philips Hue’s LightStrip Plus can connect with Razer Chroma devices like Razer’s RGB gaming mice and keyboards and match their colors to give a unique ambiance to your room. You can stick the LightStrip to the bottom or edges of your desk, the trim along your walls, or anywhere else that might look interesting with a colored glow.
$80 at Amazon $80 at Best Buy $90 at Walmart
Light up your wall
Philips Hue Play White & Color Smart Light
Maybe you prefer shining colored lights onto your wall instead of emitting them from a lamp or the back of your desk. The Hue Play light bar is yet another smart light system from Philips Hue that is sold individually or comes in a pack of two and sits tilted on your desk to shine light onto your wall — it works especially well with both lights pointed behind your computer monitor.
$150 at Amazon (2 Pack) $80 at Best Buy $150 at Target (2 Pack)
Lighting panels
Nanoleaf Rhythm Edition Smarter Kit
Though Nanoleaf’s standard kit isn’t properly equipped for gaming, the Rhythm Edition kit includes a sound module that listens for music and features a specialized game mode that reacts to various in-game sounds. Like Philips Hue, Nanoleaf works with Razer Chroma, along with Cooler Master, to color match your gaming peripherals.
$210 at Amazon
Another light strip
LIFX Light Strip
The LIFX Light Strip is a long strip of dimmable LED lights with rich color combinations and effects. You can control it with your phone and select from any of LIFX’s preset themes or create your own, and it ties in with Razer Chroma as well. It connects to your Wi-Fi, so you can control it even when you’re not home.
$75 at Amazon $75 at Best Buy
Colored fans
Nzxt AER RGB 2
While you’re lighting up the setup around your gaming rig, why not colorize your computer tower itself? The 120mm RBG 2 fan from Nzxt comes in a two-pack and keeps your computer cool — in both senses of the word. You can daisy chain multiple fans together to create different lighting effects.
$70 at Amazon
Total immersion
Govee Immersion TV LED Backlight
Govee’s Immersion TV Backlight uses ColorSense technology and a 1080p HD camera to capture the colors on your screen and apply them to your backlights, creating a truly immersive gaming experience. In addition to customizing each light segment, you can also sync your lights up to your music and pick from several different modes like game mode.
$80 at Amazon
It pays to stay within an ecosystem
Matching the color and intensity of your lights to your games and peripherals can make a surprisingly noticeable difference in your gaming experience. For example, bouncing colored lights off the wall behind your monitor can add to the ambiance of your game and even ease the strain on your eyes by keeping the amount of light relatively even between your foreground and background.
Most of these smart lights support gaming standards like Razer Chroma, which allows them to change color along with your game without needing any extra setup on your end. Philips Hue’s White and Color Ambiance bulbs are the most popular and best Philips Hue bulbs and work great with Chroma. Once you have one Hue product, why not keep going with more and more lights from the lineup? The best part: while Hue lights used to require a hub to control, they can now operate independently over Bluetooth.
LIFX is another great smart home brand whose lights don’t require a hub connecting directly to your Wi-Fi network. If you’re after something unique, Nanoleaf’s Rhythm Edition light panels can be arranged any way you like for a truly personal setup.
