The Ultimate Guide for Lighting up your Gaming Room

Lighting up your gaming room with decorative lights is a great idea for an immersive gaming experience. The surrounding lights affect your emotions and by implementing the correct utilization of surrounding lights, you can stay active and healthy for long gaming sessions.

Currently, we are seeing a spike in the trend of using decorative lights in gaming setups and bedrooms. People today opt more for RGB lights and warm lights for a comfy feel than the older bright white-cool bulbs and CFLs.

The global LED Lighting market is likely to expand with a CAGR of 13.4% from 2020 to 2027 with the indoor segment being dominant on outdoor having over 69% share of total revenue according to the analysis by Grand View Research.

This is the time to rejuvenate your room and gaming setup with better lighting systems that create a comfortable yet productive environment.

The Psychological Effects of Light

Before setting up the lights, it’s important to know how and what type of properties you should set for your lights. There are a lot of studies that show that lights do affect emotions and we all know it from our own experience.

A room with a light source having 6000K(Bright white) as the color temperature placed at the corner of the room isn’t as effective for productivity as a light source with 3000K(Yellowish White) as the color temperature placed on your desk or in the center of the room ceiling.

What Brightness to use?

Brightness is the amount of light a source gives out. Brighter lights affect emotions while low light keeps emotions stable as per studies conducted by Rachel and Stephen Kaplan.

If you feel sleepy, then a brighter light is the solution where you can feel focused and concentrate on gaming sessions better while it might not be the best idea if you are going to bed shortly because bright lights cause mental fatigue.

Low light, on the other hand, is comfortable and allows you to decide and negotiate better. This might be helpful in a long competitive gaming session where you don’t want to get yourself fatigued fast. Take a look at the following image. We can clearly say that the first pic with low brightness is better for a comfortable gaming session than with the brightness in the second pic.

Low vs High Brightness — Image Source:- superbrightleds.com

The brightness of your monitor and surrounding both matters. The brightness of your monitor should always be more than the brightness of surrounding lights. This will help you stay focused for a long time but don’t increase the brightness too much which actually may damage your retina permanently if exposed on a daily basis according to the Chesapeake Bay Waterman Study.

The pic below where the lights are too bright is a good example of how you shouldn’t overdo it.

led behind monitor

How much Saturation?

Saturation is the intensity of color in the light. It’s important to know how much color intensity you should use in environmental lighting for a better gaming experience. While a more saturated color intensifies emotions, it may distract you if the saturation is too high.

A very dull color, on the other hand, doesn’t make your room lighting as attractive as it should be. The intensity of the colors in your lighting should neither be too high to distract you nor too low to dampen your emotions.

Best Locations

Near the Monitor

led behind monitor — Image source:- Reddit

You should never game in a completely dark room and your number one priority to keep one of the lights source is at the side of the monitor or behind it. This lowers the impact of your monitor’s light glare on your eyes.

On the Wall of Your Setup

nanoleaf panels

The wall of your gaming setup can be lit up with fancy lights. You can use any available lights I listed in the ‘Types of Lights’ section. This also lowers the glare of your monitor and lights up your room with various colors.

In the Corners of the Room

Table lamp at corner — Image source:- Yellow.com

When the corners of the room are dark, the whole environment looks incomplete. Caitlin Murray, the founder, and chief executive of Black Lacquer Design, recommends that you should use an oversized floor lamp that is complementary to your surrounding space.

Under your Desk

It’s one of the most underrated areas of a gaming room and without lighting it up you are missing a lot and it might pose a problem when you need to access the area under the table for some important tasks like plugging the cables and managing them. You can use LED strips under a table and a single strip is sufficient for lighting up the whole area under your desk.

Types of Lights

Unlike the old-fashioned lights which we had 20 years ago, there are various fancy and appealing lights today that fulfill many purposes at the same time. These are compatible with each and every area of your home let alone your gaming room.

Some of the best lights to buy today are:-

RGB LED Strips– Best behind the monitor, under the desk/border of the desk
Table Lamps– Best on the desk
RGB LED bulbs– Best if used with a Table lamp or on the wall
LIFX Beam-Best behind the monitor, under or border of the desk
Hexagon lights-On the wall of your gaming setup
Nanoleaf Aurora-On the wall of your gaming setup

Almost each of these lights can be controlled using a remote controller or a phone App.

It’s best to use Table lamps with a warmer color like orange or yellow than a cool blueish. Paloma Contreras who is an interior designer in Houston says that she uses somewhere from 2,700 to 3,000 kelvin which looks like traditional incandescents. A warmer color is more welcoming and thus you will be able to game more comfortably.

Color Theme

It’s best to use all the lights source in a particular color theme to create a beautiful and syncing environment. If you use a particular color or two in all of your lights, then your gaming setup will look better than using multiple colors. While you can use continuously changing RGB lighting effects, it’s best to use colors that are less stressful and comfier for a long session of gaming.

According to TCPI, Purple color reduces emotional and mental stress and the Orange color stimulates creativity. These two colors can be combined to reduce stress and for being more productive in gaming as specific games like CSGO may increase stress if taken too seriously.

Top Gaming Setups with LED and Lights

*Accessories and parts listed below each setup may or may not be exactly the same as shown in setups as not every part or accessory has been named by the user and alternative accessories may be listed.