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Sometimes it can be a lot of fun dishing out the perfect balance of LED lighting for your gaming rig. Or YouTube streaming rig. Or simply your bedroom or anywhere else you’d like to add a little color. LED lighting has blown up in recent years and continues to grow as it becomes more advanced through new options and integrations.

Of course, simply lighting something up isn’t always the perfect option. Sometimes you want a little more character in the effect by getting those lights to move, pulse, react, and change based on various conditions, like the content on a PC monitor. All of which can be obtained with Lytmi’s Immersive ARGB Backlight.

Similar to only a few other options out there, this light monitors the image in order to reproduce the colors along the edge of your screen, projecting them using an ARGB LED tape running across the back of your monitor. An ambient light kit that is alive and constantly changing to the image on display.

The company also has a version for TVs that we covered recently that worked great. It did exactly the same by tapping into the HDMI connection running to the TV. Only this time, no HDMI information is needed. Everything is done using USB and Lytmi’s own software. Beyond that, it is almost identical to the TV version (it’s just software/PC vs app/mobile driven)

There are three versions of this kit, each covering different sizes of monitors based on a range. We have 17 to 30″ (MSRP: $39), 31 to 42″ (MSRP: $49), and 43 to 55″ ($99). Most users will fall under the first two, making these kits pretty affordable

Installing the light is simple. Like the TV version, the company provides a number of connectors that attach to the back of your monitor via double-sided tape (3M pads). You place a few straight connectors (one at each side and one dead center top) along with a few corner connectors (top left and top right), and run the LED tape around starting from either corner.

Once you get to the end of the other side, find the closest “cut” point to that corner to balance the length with and careful cut the excess length away using scissors.

The LED tape will have a wire running from it that connects to the in-line remote (pictured above). You also connect a wall adapter (AC) to this for power. The controller then has a third cable that has USB at the end that plugs into your PC. This is used to control everything.

Once all of this is plugged in, you’ll see a light run through the LED tape until it reaches the end and flashed red at the tip. This is it determining length each time so that it knows how big the screen is (else it wouldn’t align properly).

Then you head to Lytmi’s download link (here) to snag the software and install it to your PC (Mac is not supported at this time, thus you have to be running Windows 8 or newer). The software is what controls everything and it is very friendly. It starts you off in “Movie” mode, which is where you want to be if you want to match the color around the screen. You can set the intensity underneath (how fast it reacts to every change).

Alternatively, you can choose “Music” mode, which interacts with the sound in the room via a small mic built into the controller. There are three patterns to pick from, with the first and third being our favorite.

Then you also have “Mood” which brings you to a number of other features, allowing you to set all sorts of effects for the light. Like pulse, rainbow, various flashing patterns, solid colors, and more.

In the settings tab, you can configure which corner of the screen you began the run of LED tape at (left or right based on looking at it from the front). This is important to set this properly, else your lights might be inversed to the image. The default value is “right” (looking from the front), which we had to change to “left” since we started from right corner of the back side (which is left from the front).

You can choose which device you are controlling (in case you have more than one) and you can have multiple monitors going at the same time, as long as you buy a light for each monitor separately.

The resulting effect is fantastic. You can see this in the demonstration we give in the video down below. It has such a fun energy to it, just like the Neo version for TVs. It move quickly to keep up with the image on the screen and really does bring your rig to life.

When we shot the video below, we did forget to calibrate the colors on the TV sadly. Its settings were still on whatever we used it for last and are not representative of a proper color profile. So the colors were a bit off when it comes to image vs light. However, we did notice that it still performed close to the same when we did calibrate.

Therefore, the color accuracy of this Lytmi model isn’t 100% perfect. However, it doesn’t take too much away from the experience. We still got lost in the immersion and had a lot of fun with this one (and continue to do so).

The music effects are a blast and make for a great experience if you are having a party in the same room as your PC or at just looking to entertain yourself while you listen to music.

As mentioned before,  are also buttons on the in-line controller that allow you to switch between modes in case it is quicker than playing with the software. The result isn’t as involved as the changing things from the software but you still get a lot of control.

So far, we haven’t had any troubles. We still have plenty of time to see something go wrong here though. I say this since we did end up having issues with the TV model after so many days after we had finished the story on it. The connectors sticking to the TV fell off. What’s weird is that the double-stick tape/pads failed between the pad and the connectors and not the TV. So the pads failed to remain stuck to their own connectors. We wound up having to use our own heavy-duty tape to replace these pads in order to keep the LED strip on the back of the TV.

To be fair, we did have to bend the corner pieces to contour to the shape of the rear of the TV. However, the weight of it all pulled the other pieces down too with it, pretty easily. So our own theory points to the pads not being reliable enough.

So we may find the same thing happening with this model. It hasn’t happened yet, but we have only been using this kit for around a week or so.

Worst-case scenario, you may have to use your own tape/pads to get the connectors to remain on the back of your monitor. Best-case-scenario, maybe the batch (of double-stick) we had with the TV model was faulty and this kit may remain on the back of the monitor without any trouble. Hard to say, but time will tell. At least the solution is a simple one.

We absolutely love this backlight as a solution for adding a lot to your PC setup. At least, when it comes to intense and immersive lighting to blend in with any other lighting or effects you have going on within your rig. There is a lot of flexibility in the software a lot of potential when it comes to where the software can go as the company expands with new products.

Hopefully, the double-sided tape remains to the back of the monitor through time, unlike the more-involved TV version of the kit. For now, everything seems to be working out though. So the only thing for us is the color accuracy. It could be a bit better. I think the Neo (for TVs) does better using HDMI instead of USB.

Either way, it still produces quite the results, and for the price, makes for a great option. There are others out there, but they can get pretty expensive or are limited in function. Making this one the ideal choice thus far.

*Average price is based on the time this article was published

Lytmi Software for PCs – Click here

Are you a manufacturer or distributor that would like us to test something out for review? Contact us and we can let you know where to send the product and we will try it out.

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Designer, Editor and Product Reviewer Poc Network Ryan is an avid gamer that spends most of his time either commanding teams on the Xbox One or out on the grass kicking the soccer ball around when others are willing to take the challenge. He comes with a bachelors in electrical engineering and a hobby in the installation of advanced audio-video environments.

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