Some gaming accessories online have misleading features, but it’s easier to avoid disappointment if you know what to look for.
Gaming accessories such as keyboards, headsets and controllers have changed a fair bit over the last few decades, not only to offer better ergonomics and features, but also to keep up with current style trends. One of the more prevalent phrases you might see thrown around is ‘RGB lighting’ as having colorful LED lights across your setup has become more popular, but there are some unfortunate traps that you might fall into if you’re not paying attention. Let me explain. ‘RGB’ stands for ‘Red Green Blue’, a type of color space used in additive color synthesis across displays to create a huge spectrum of other colors by using a mix of red, green, and blue LED lights. LEDs first became available in the 1960s in red, and eventually followed by green and then orange/yellow, but it wouldn’t be until much later that the ability to create other colors was developed. The inventor of Blue LED (which finally arrived in the 1990s) was awarded a noble prize in 2014 as blue was the final color required to make almost any color when mixed alongside other LEDs. This revolutionized technology in things like TVs and computer screens, but we can also see this applied in other areas, such as color-changing light bulbs from brands like Philips Hue. In the world of gaming peripherals and accessories though, RGB has also become associated with flashy rainbow lights that can sometimes be customized to match your existing setup. If your gaming keyboard has a backlight that switches between a specific shade of green and blue, you could also extend this across other RGB-capable peripherals like your gaming mouse or even within the PC build itself. This customization is prevalent across many of the well-recognized gaming brands such as Razer, MSI and Asus, all of which have software available such as Razer Chroma, MSI Mystic Light and Asus Aura that can be used to sync your choice of lighting style and effects across the rest of your peripherals, providing they’re compatible with the same software.
