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

gitlab.com

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

#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...

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

#4
post #2

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.

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.

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

#5
Finally! I'm eager to try this. I always wanted to control my keyboard lights to have 'analog' notifications and stuff[1]. Never bothered to check the windows apps with wine.

[1] I was thrilled when some dev showed on twitter that he reserved some key lights to CI build status.

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

#6
post #2

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.

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.

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

#7
post #2

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.

> 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)

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

#8
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 needed.

Back in my day, people used to buy strips of RGB lights to add to their setup, so us normal, non-RGB people could still buy the same components. Today, it's a lot harder to find stock CPU fans that don't ship with RGB lights...

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

#9
I found this last week and was really happy to come across it. I ditched Windows for my main desktop/gaming machine in 2020 partially because there are some fantastic open source projects that replace many of the Windows vendor-specific utilities that look like they were designed by teenagers in the 90s.

https://github.com/libratbag/piper is another great example that handles mouse configuration.

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