RGB lightstrips always felt like gimmick to me until I saw them in action. It’s a wonderfully vibrant immersive experience, and when matched to your games makes your screen feel like it’s leaping out into your room. It’s a lot cooler than I gave it credit for. But it’s also commonly a lot more expensive for quality lights.
Philips Hue is known for being one of the pricier but also better integrated smart lighting brands out. They even work with Loupedeck. Unfortunately, the pricier part of that is actually a pretty big factor. We’re often talking several times that of other still fairly well-regarded brands. I know this because I’ve made the painstaking effort of slowly changing all my lights to Hue bulbs. I love it, but my wallet doesn’t.
While this may not be the lighting kit we'd recommend specifically for PCs, this Philips Hue Lightstrip Starter Kit is currently a pretty good deal, and that’s by non Hue standards. It’s going for less than half price at $49.98 on Amazon while the sale lasts and comes with more than enough to get you started.
While getting $60.01 off the recommended retail price, you also get an 80” LED strip light with adhesive backing, a base plug, and a Hue Hub. Hue Hubs are a connectivity point for Hue lights, meaning you don’t have to add each one individually to your router, filling it up. They also allow for additional functionality over just lights and can cost as much as this kit does in total. It’s a very nice deal with all this included.
Lightstrips like these are pretty easy to install with their adhesive backs, but make sure you plan it out before you go making big decisions. It’s also worth noting that these LED strips can look a bit harsher than you might expect. A lot of folks use them to illuminate in ways you won’t directly see them, like under a desk. Others end up putting them behind some kind of filter.
Another important piece of note is the Philips Hue lighting does have screen mirroring capabilities for PC via the app. This is a cool way to have your lights reflect what you see on the screen. However, some apps like most streaming services do detect this as a potential piracy issue and disable it. To get this effect without the app, and via a direct pass-through of your video input, you’d need to get a Hue Sync box which are also ridiculously pricey. Sadly, we haven’t spotted any in our Black Friday sale scrounging.
