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Open-source RGB lighting control for keyboards, fans, etc

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Re: Open-source RGB lighting control for keyboards, fans, etc

#31
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Today it's hard to find TVs that are just TVs and not smart TVs Why would you prefer non-smart TVs?

yes! I much prefer my Roku, and its super simple remote. I also appreciate how I can just block one domain in my home DNS for roku, and stop telemetry. Also, My Roku is regularly updated, unlike most smart TV's, and I have heard horror stories of TV's no longer working with things like netflix, because they can't be updated anymore.

I have a Roku TV and while it suffers from a bunch of smartness issues it’s pretty good. A bit slow to boot, a bit slow to shut down, the apps are shite, and the “Oh no that’s our competitor so you can’t do this obvious thing (like use hbomax)” experience is terrible.

But overall it’s okay. The remote is simple, the main apps are fine and the overall ecosystem integration is okay

Re: Open-source RGB lighting control for keyboards, fans, etc

#32

If you're in this thread "I built a PC, all my stuff has RGB, it's fine but I don't get it", try setting them all to the same color - you might be surprised how nice it looks. I set everything to white, but my roommate has a nice shade of purple he uses for everything. My real golden rule is absolutely no motion. Can't stand cycling rainbows or whatever.

Doing this in Linux seems like a lot more time/trouble than just putting the side of the case on (and not getting one of those silly cases with a window in it).

Re: Open-source RGB lighting control for keyboards, fans, etc

#33

If you're in this thread "I built a PC, all my stuff has RGB, it's fine but I don't get it", try setting them all to the same color - you might be surprised how nice it looks. I set everything to white, but my roommate has a nice shade of purple he uses for everything. My real golden rule is absolutely no motion. Can't stand cycling rainbows or whatever.

Or have the color encode a performance counter like total CPU.

Re: Open-source RGB lighting control for keyboards, fans, etc

#34
I use this and it's amazing. There's also another visualizer program by the same person to do custom visualizers that works on the RGB stuff in your case, connecting to RGB over a network port.

https://gitlab.com/CalcProgrammer1/KeyboardVisualizer

I had a great time pointing my camera at my computer for a meeting, and letting everyone realize their voice was controlling the RGB (with a slight delay for zoom of course).

I'm even thinking about making my own visualizer to do things like show me my kubernetes cluster health on my RGB :)

One thing to note, the corsair RGB fans and strips can be tricky - you have to tell it how many LEDs are on each strip manually, and otherwise it will just look all black and won't warn you. That was a couple hours of debugging there!

Re: Open-source RGB lighting control for keyboards, fans, etc

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> have to admit I don't fully get the "bling" thing for PCs Me neither. Today it's hard to find TVs that are just TVs and not smart TVs and similar thing is happening in the PC builders ecosystem. Built a new desktop computer recently, and had to spend more time searching for things that don't have RGB things in them, seems most components nowadays have some sort of RGB lights in them, even when it's completely not n…

> Today it's hard to find TVs that are just TVs and not smart TVs Why would you prefer non-smart TVs?

Display technology has historically improved/changed at a slower rate than signal generation technology. Additionally display technology was significantly higher and slower to decrease cost than most signal generators such as VCRs/DVRs/game consoles/etc. Thus beyond minor commodity signal generation such as a TV receiver it makes sense to separate the two at a component level.

This user behavior has been guided by two past trends: A. in the transition from analog to digital TV signals many display makers separated the TV receiver function; B. by the time makers integrated VCRs the world had moved on to DVD which made the integrated VCR a waste product that could not be disposed of without refreshing the display.

Are the signal generation components of "Smart TVs" similar to the analog TV tuner, slow to change and nearly always needed, or are they like the VCR which was integrated right at a signal generator change?

On the other hand, I suspect that displays are adding more general computing for the purpose of scaling, color representations, decryption, etc even without the components that provide "smart" functions. As a result scaling them to include smart functions as software functions is low hanging fruit. I wonder if display computation architecture is common enough to support a user/hobbyist controlled OS.

http://linuxgizmos.com/linux-continues-advance-in-smart-tv-m...

Re: Open-source RGB lighting control for keyboards, fans, etc

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> have to admit I don't fully get the "bling" thing for PCs Me neither. Today it's hard to find TVs that are just TVs and not smart TVs and similar thing is happening in the PC builders ecosystem. Built a new desktop computer recently, and had to spend more time searching for things that don't have RGB things in them, seems most components nowadays have some sort of RGB lights in them, even when it's completely not n…

My LG CX turns on in less than 2s and shows the picture from the HDMI input. The TV can’t access the internet. I use OpenRGB to disable all lights, or sometimes I’m in the Cyberpunk 2077 mood and make it yellow. I’m curious that people want to pay more to get less.

> I’m curious that people want to pay more to get less.

Actually a fairly old adage when it comes to lots of things, not just TVs. Sometimes it's for creativity (limiting yourself to only using specific set of hardware for music production) and sometimes for better user experience (like in industrial design, Dieter Rams' (Braun) simpler radios with less functionality is a famous example, ~1960). Dieter Ram also had a large influence on design in general, and states one of the principles for "Good design" is "Good design is minimal – Less is more. Simple as possible but not simpler. Good design elevates the essential functions of a product."

Re: Open-source RGB lighting control for keyboards, fans, etc

#38
post #26

The vendor tools are so bad. I don't want to download a 500Meg program just to change my mouse DPI or make the keyboard light up

Logitech is probably the worst offender with their windows app being buggy as hell and sometimes pegging one CPU core to 100%. Wtf?

Re: Open-source RGB lighting control for keyboards, fans, etc

#39
post #3

The supported devices list[1] looks pretty good. The support for individually addressable LEDs (WS2812 and friends) also means you could do pretty much any custom setup you wanted. Though I have to admit I don't fully get the "bling" thing for PCs. I'd rather, for example, drive a little OLED matrix screen to display temperatures, etc. [1] https://gitlab.com/CalcProgrammer1/OpenRGB/-/wikis/Supported...

> have to admit I don't fully get the "bling" thing for PCs Me neither. Today it's hard to find TVs that are just TVs and not smart TVs and similar thing is happening in the PC builders ecosystem. Built a new desktop computer recently, and had to spend more time searching for things that don't have RGB things in them, seems most components nowadays have some sort of RGB lights in them, even when it's completely not n…

My "smart TV" is a pile of junk. We wanted a large TV for home theatre, but couldn't find anything over 65" that wasn't "smart".

It takes 3-5 seconds to turn on, then another 10-20 seconds to react to input from the remote (at which time it will rapidly replay all input provided that it didn't react to in this time, sometimes turning itself back off for no reason).

All of the "apps" are barely responsive and crash regularly. Hulu, particularly will crash at the end of every episode.

I've tried factory resets, and was hopeful about an open source mod until I discovered my firmware version is "unpatchable" as of yet.

The Internet of Shit is alive and well.

Re: Open-source RGB lighting control for keyboards, fans, etc

#40
post #3

The supported devices list[1] looks pretty good. The support for individually addressable LEDs (WS2812 and friends) also means you could do pretty much any custom setup you wanted. Though I have to admit I don't fully get the "bling" thing for PCs. I'd rather, for example, drive a little OLED matrix screen to display temperatures, etc. [1] https://gitlab.com/CalcProgrammer1/OpenRGB/-/wikis/Supported...

I just upgraded my computer this holiday season, and was surprised that my motherboard, CPU-fan, and graphics card now all sport colourful lights with special cables to connect them to the motherboard. If it makes people happy, I'm all for it. I couldn't be bothered to figure out how to actually turn the lights in the CPU-fan off though (they are on by default), so there is a very colourful and pointless light show g…

Funny enough I just bought parts for a new build and my Motherboard was about the only thing without RGB lights. I didn't really want any at all, but the components I needed were all significantly cheaper than their non-RGB counterparts. Even the RAM ended up $20 per kit cheaper than the exact same model without RGB.

I might try to embrace it to look nice, but I will probably just end up turning them all off, despite having a window on the case.

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