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Comment by Thaxll | Hacker News Reader

I built a new PC this year and after a break of 10 years I was shocked to find out that RGB trend, I just don't understand it.

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It's pretty. Even 10-15 years ago cold cathodes and windowed cases were starting to be a thing and with the current addressable LED obsession that's been doing the rounds in the maker community over the last decade, from a technical POV it's actually nice to see that now rolled into desktop PCs.

People also seem to treat their IT equipment far more as fashion accessories these days - or at least expect technology to fit into their ideas of aesthetics. If you think multi-coloured, cleverly fading LEDs look pretty then you're well in. If you don't then at least it's all pretty easy to switch off.

Honestly I kinda prefer it to the case designs 10 years ago. There's still a strange hankering by case makers to try to make them "edgy" and a solid percentage are still competing to be the xtremiest PC equivalent of go-faster stripes on cars. However there is at least a new aesthetic where people are taking simpler and tidier case designs and then making them garish with LEDs, and I quite enjoy seeing some of their creations.

Personally I don't bother, I go after sound-proofing in my builds instead, but my partner, who isn't particularly into computers, is actually quite a fan of the RGB stuff so her computer will be notably more lary.

> PC equivalent of go-faster stripes on cars.

Yes.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_button

I'd personally get a kick out of using the RGBs on a keyboard to give me htop type information. My wife sometimes thinks I'm strange.

I don't get it either. If I was to buy LEDs, I would buy them and use them around the house. I have seen what some hotels do and it is amazing. I have seen LED strips behind the mirror, so when you wake up at night you can get your way around but don't get blinded by the light.

However, here we are, with people buying RGB fans and having their desktops on the desk taking up space and making more noise (because they are closer)... I don't get it either.

Do you have any other ideas you recommend? I thought this mirror idea was brilliant!

I've read that putting an LED strip (or other light source, I guess) behind a monitor reduces eye strain. Can't speak to its veracity, but it would at least reduce glare!

Bias Lighting is the term for it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias_lighting

Cheers!

If that use case was interesting, check out also colour led light bulbs. Turning on a very dim red/brown light lets you see the way to the bathroom, but it's not enough to wake other up. Also when you turn red lights off, it doesn't kill your low-light vision.

Absolutely! I have been dreaming about the mirror since I first saw it! I have found this brilliant website [0] that has many of the ideas I know of. Mainly the LEDs behind the mirror [1], on the stairs [2], on the kitchen [3], and the ceiling [4]. The ceiling ones are pretty cool because they can lit up the room more homogeneously and it makes it way more relaxing and comfy. Some of these ideas help to better simulate sunlight which I find pretty stimulating.

I know of a few more that are not on the website tho! I have seen led strips on closets (ala fridge style) that light up when you open them (With something like [5]). I have also seen the opposite of the LEDs on the ceiling, on the floor. Something like [6] but in the hall is pretty cool. When you finish watching that movie/tv show and go to sleep you no longer have to choose between finding your way in the dark and getting light at your eyes.

When I get my own place, I will certainly try out all of these ideas. I find them light (hehe) years better than LEDs on computers.

[0]: https://www.lightstec.com/led-strip-light-ideas/

[1]: https://www.lightstec.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/led-str...

[2]: https://www.lightstec.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Led-str...

[3]: https://www.lightstec.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Led-str...

[4]: https://www.lightstec.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/strip-l...

[5]: https://www.amazon.com/Cabinet-Wardrobe-Switches-Drawers-App...

[6]: https://www.instyleled.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/pure...

When I built a new PC recently, I got RGB everything. I just keep it all set to a dark blue. I think it looks nice, that's really all there is to it.

Ok... so why not just buy some dark blue LEDs and put them anywhere you want without the complexity of interfacing them with your computer?

Huh? All of the components of my computer, both internal and external, have RGB built-in. It would be practically impossible to replicate that by just buying some dark blue LEDs, and there's barely any additional complexity involved with RGB components. There are literally only two additional connections in my machine due to the RGB, and those are for the LEDs in the case and the water cooler. Every other component uses the data lines it's already connected to.

Because then you have to wire it all up manually which is a lot of work and likely won't look good. No one sells fans, gpus and mobos in the exact color you want so its easier to buy RGB everything and configure it to be the color you want.

Installing openrgb is infinitely easier than wiring up LEDs inside fans imo.

At least for keyboards, it can be useful.

Take Factorio as an example(scroll to the very bottom): https://www.factorio.com/blog/post/fff-218

> I just don't understand it.

Because we don't know how to use the feature yet.

But you can connect something like a CPU trigger to a led, so use 3 keys with 3 colors for CPU%, RAM%, SWAP%, then one blinking for disk IO, network IO and you get something very useful!!

For a full keyboard, you could have predictive input for the other as a typing assistant (ex: after pressing t,y put r in a strong green, e in a lighter green, p in a strong red, i,n,g in a lighter red : so typing and tyre are shown as 2 completions, with tyre less likely unless you work in mediterranean history and care about ancient cities)

I also find CPU/RAM monitoring not very useful to me. I used to put conky widgets all over the place, but concluded that it did very little. Most of the time I fire up htop, I'm looking to kill a process anyway.

I programmed one of my keyboard to be modal, and use the lighting as an indicator of which mode I'm in. Sort of like vim's status bar. It's pretty handy.

> It's pretty handy.

Exactly this! I don't want to waste screen space or CPU time to fancy widgets, but having a few leds that blink too much when my system does too many things is very handy. It's like in the old days of HDD leds: it didn't intrude, but I quickly knew what was going on if I looked at it. And blinking things have a tendency to catch your attention, so it removes the "monitoring" problem too (because, when do you know it's time to check htop?)

Linux LED triggers are very handy to do just than.

None of that stuff is particularly useful, if I wanted that, I have my screen that shows me metrics.. My desktop is a black box. I dont know why anyone would spend a second of their time looking at a tower, when the only moving part is a fan

The idea behind the trend is quite simple. It was already common to find colored lights on PC cases, peripherals, and components. With RGB, you can match colors across those parts more easily.

At least... that's the idea. In practice, it's actually quite cumbersome to configure everything thanks to a lack of hardware/software control standards. As a result, I usually don't bother with RGB. Hopefully this app helps to resolve that issue.

The gaming industry drove this. Most gamers build their boxes, and they do like RGB (for whatever reason).

Yes. Also, why do people insist in wearing any clothing except baggy brown overalls, and any hairstyle other than shaved bald? Don't get me started on music that has melody, rhythm, and harmony to interfere with it. Aesthetics are such a waste of time and materials and there needs to be some formal accounting for taste.

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