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Razer Aether Monitor Light Bar (Quick Look) - Complete Immersion

This monitor light bar offers dual-lighting options that allow you to both illuminate your display and create a striking RGB-enabled colour show on your wall behind it.

Audio transcription

"Hello everyone and welcome to another Gamereactor Quick Look.
This time it is again all about monitor lights.
It is a category that we basically took our first look at not too long ago with the BenQ ScreenBar Halo."

"A light, by the way, which is more expensive than this that we're about to talk about, but also this sacrifices some features that you may want on your monitor.
But basically, that is the case boiled down, so let's take a closer look.
This is the Razer Aether Monitor Light Bar and it is a light bar like the BenQ ScreenBar Halo."

"And that basically means that it is this cylindrical light attachment which uses a small lip clamp here at the top of your monitor and then a little rubber standoff here at the back in order to both illuminate your desk space in front of you because it's just a nice space-saving way to do so beyond just having a regular lamp next to you when you are either working or playing or it is whatever it is that you're doing on your computer or at your desk."

"And at the same time, well, the claim for these kind of lights is that by cascading light downwards, not onto your monitor, but basically by creating this wall of light ahead of you, it frames in what you're doing, meaning that you'll be more focused.
Now, I think that's very much in the eye of the beholder and very subjective to the point where it's very difficult for me to say whether or not you'll be more focused by having some of these lights."

"What I will say is that it is very popular from the sort of the content creator crowd to sort of use a monitor light like this.
So what BenQ did was that they gave you tons of different lighting modes.
They gave you a little command module, meaning that it would be much easier to set the temperature and the tone and the sort of the overall volume of the light."

"Well, Razer, obviously being Razer, is doing something else because while there was a little lamp on the BenQ ScreenBar Halo here, cascading light on the wall behind your desk, this obviously has, well, RGB.
Very obviously, it has RGB."

"Now, the first thing I should say is that this seems to be a little bit cheaper than the BenQ ScreenBar Halo.
You also sacrifice the command module.
You do not get something like that, but it's coming in at around $130, which seems to be somewhat cheaper than the ScreenBar Halo, but by how much, that is very much up in the air currently because we don't have normal pricing."

"It also attaches to USB Type-C, which is very nice.
The ScreenBar Halo uses USB Type-A, and that standard is just going way out now and it's kind of old-fashioned, so we want to use USB Type-C fully, and well, this does that, so that's very nice."

"I said that you sacrifice the command module, and you do, and it is more of a hassle to set this up than, well, BenQ's alternative, but not by much because the way that you do that is right here.
It is a touch-based interface where you can very quickly slide through different lighting modes and intensities."

"You can set the RGB lighting at the back and change temperature, quickly turn it off or on.
It is overall, I think, a nice alternative and not something which immediately springs to mind as being a cost-saving measure.
Now, in terms of RGB, it's very clear what it is that they're doing, so imagine that you already have a very sort of RGB-heavy setup because that's just the way that you roll, and all respect for that."

"Well, there is really no stronger effect.
We can't really replicate it, what it would be like here, but if you have your desk up by a big, massive wall, well, what better way to create a lot of lighting and a lot of effect from a very small device by having it, again, cascade onto the wall behind you?
It'll probably, particularly in a dark room, be very, very, very effectful, and I imagine such."

"And for that reason alone, it's very easy to see how this fits within the Razer Chroma lifestyle.
And from all of the various products that they've launched, particularly the lighting-specific ones, this is by far the one that makes the most sense.
Now, it works with Razer's Home app that they've designed themselves."

"It is Matter-compatible.
It supports Google Home and Amazon Alexa, all great stuff.
The only thing is, do you need RGB, or would you be rather better off buying something from BenQ?
The BenQ really isn't a sound alternative to something like this, but what I will say is that just by doing the smallest amount of research, I was able to find an alternative from Yeelight, which has touch-based interface at the top, which uses USB Type-C, which has RGB at the back, and which supports Matter, Google Home, and Amazon Alexa."

"And that was available for around $80, $70, around half of what this costs.
So depending on what the Danish pricing will be, that is probably the biggest kink in the Ether Monitor light bar's armor.
But apart from that, this is one of the simpler products that Razer has put out in recent years, and it's pretty easy to recommend if you're already invested in the Chroma sort of setup."

"So take that for what you will.
Thank you so much for watching.
See you on the next one.
♪♪♪"

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