**The Power of Lighting: Enhancing Gaming Immersion with Philips Hue and Razer Chroma**
Lighting can have a huge impact on the look and feel of a room, and in the case of gaming setups, it can be especially immersive. In my previous video, I kitted out my living room with Philips Hue smart lights, including their smart bulbs, light strips, and go lamps. The ambient lighting made watching TV and movies much more immersive, but now I want to take it to the next level for my PC gaming setup.
**The Philips Hue-Razer Chroma Partnership**
Philips Hue has teamed up with Razer to create a new partnership that allows users to sync their color-capable smart lights with a range of Razer Chrome-enabled devices. This means that users can easily create a color theme across their whole setup, from laptops to peripherals. Game devs can now integrate lighting effects into their games, adding an extra layer of immersion and engagement for players.
**Setting Up the System**
To set up this system, all you need is a second-gen Philips Hue Bridge, some Hue color-capable lights, the latest version of The Philips Hue app, and some Razer Chroma devices. For my setup, I've got two Hugo lamps on either side of my monitor, along with a light strip at the back of the desk and another light strip over there behind my bookcase. You can have any combination you like, really ā maybe you could even put a light strip on the back of your monitor. Combine that with a bunch of Razer peripherals, such as the Black Widow Chroma keyboard, Basilisk Mouse, and Firefly mouse pad.
**Syncing Lighting with the Philips Hue App**
Once you've set up your lights and devices, open the Philips Hue app on your phone or tablet to create a new entertainment area. Select the room and then the specific Philips Hue 2 lights you want to include. You'll get a virtual room map where you can position your lights relative to your chair and monitor, so the software knows where all your lights are in relation to the room.
**Downloading and Installing Razer Synaps 3**
Download and install the Razer synaps 3 software on your PC, which also comes with the Hue and Chroma modules. Once installed and it's found your Philips Hue Bridge, you're good to go. You can start customizing everything from the full spectrum of RGB colors to brightness lighting patterns and even matching the colors on particular devices.
**Customizing Lighting Effects**
There are loads of options to choose from, so that's pretty cool by itself. It's really easy to create a custom color theme across your whole setup, whether it's for working, playing games, or watching movies. That's only half the story, though ā game developers can integrate lighting effects directly into their games.
**Game Development and Integration**
Overwatch is a great example of an official integration with Philips Hue and Razer Chroma lighting. The tutorial specific keys light up on the keyboard, showing you what you need to press to help you learn faster. But the coolest part is on the hero selection menu, where each one of the characters have their own themed lighting preset. While playing, activating your hero's abilities creates special lighting effects that add to the overall immersion and engagement of the game.
**Quake Champions: A Better Example**
In my experience, Quake Champions is even better than Overwatch when it comes to lighting effects in games. You get an orangey fire effect on the menu screens, and then in-game when you run over health or armor, it flashes blue or green. The lights also flash to match the color of the gun you pick up as well.
**Third-Party Integrations**
There are only a limited number of games with this official integration at the moment, but it is a new feature, and the library is growing. You can also find third-party integrations with games like CS:GO, Dota 2, and Minecraft, which require a third-party application usually made by the developer community to get the cool lighting effects.
**Conclusion**
A lot of people think the world has gone RGB mad, especially when it comes to gaming setups. But once you think all your lighting together, it can create some awesome color themes and provide a new level of spatial immersion when playing games. If you want to find out more about any of this stuff or even if you want to buy this setup for yourself, I've put links to everything you need in the description below.
**Thanks**
A big thanks to Philips Hue for sponsoring this video. Let me know what you think of all this in the comments ā could you see yourself buying these sorts of lights? Do you think it would add to that gaming immersive factor for you?