LAS VEGAS – Lifx makes some of the best smart lights for illuminating indoor spaces. At CES 2020, the company has expanded its portfolio with a dedicated lighting kit for spicing up the average gaming setup.
The Lifx Z Gamer Kit is a set of LED strips that adhere to the back of TVs and gaming monitors. The kit costs $69.99 and comes with 2, 50-cm polychrome strips plus a discrete connector.
While a plethora of light strips are already available and widely implemented in gaming rigs, we’ve yet to see major smart light brands target gamers with dedicated products. I spoke to Lifx’s David Kavanagh to inquire about how the Lifx Z Gamer Kit came to be.
“It was a natural extension of the light strip kit we already sold,” Kavanagh said. “The Lifx Z Gamer strips were designed to suit most gaming monitors.”
He added that Lifx paid attention to customer feedback and viral ‘rate my rig’ shoutouts.
In November 2019 Razer launched the Lifx Chroma Connector that lets users connect Lifx smart lights to Razer Chroma devices for an immersive lightning experience. Similarly to the Philips Hue Play Sync, the Chroma platform enables Lifx lights to morph, match and reflect a screen’s gaming experience.
But what’s special about the Chroma Connector is that SDK is free to download. You don’t need an additional piece of hardware, albeit a Razer gaming device.
At CES Lifx also announced a vintage-style filament bulb and a white-to-warm candle bulb. The latter looks a lot like the trippy Lifx Candle Color, but provides a more natural range of illumination. Both the new bulbs cost $29.99 and will be released in Spring 2020.
Be sure to check out our CES 2020 hub for the latest news and hands-on impressions out of Las Vegas.
