Windows 11 is getting a previously rumored feature to give users centralized control over peripherals with RGB lighting.
This was another of many revelations pertaining to Windows 11 at Microsoft’s Build conference, and was detailed in a lengthy blog post by Panos Panay, who’s Chief Product Officer for Windows and Devices.
The feature is called Dynamic Lighting (in the Settings panel) and the promise is that Windows 11 will make it easy to “effortlessly set up and customize devices with RGB lights”.
The ability to control all RGB lighting needs from one central Dynamic Lighting hub in Windows 11 is important, because as Panay observes, if you have multiple devices, it can be a real pain to install a bunch of apps from different manufacturers to deal with the lighting controls for those peripherals.
We’re told that Dynamic Lighting will be going into testing later this month, meaning in the next week, so we’ll get to see it in action in Windows 11 preview builds soon enough.
The workings of the feature were previously uncovered in testing back in February, so this addition is not a surprise.
Analysis: Over the moon, or not interested – which are you?
This is a feature you either won’t care about – if you’re not a gamer, or you hate RGB lighting and think it’s a load of showy nonsense – or you’ll be over the moon that it’s arriving.
While it might not sound like a huge addition to Windows, we can’t underestimate what a boon it’ll be not to have to install multiple third-party apps to control lighting if you have, say, an RGB mouse, gaming keyboard, headset, and maybe some case lights, and so on – all from different vendors.
Those various apps can add up to a lot of bloat for the system – particularly in the case of some of these clients, which can be worse offenders in terms of bogging down the system than others – and you can avoid all this with Windows 11’s RGB hub.
Plus, of course, just having all the controls present in one handy settings panel is just so much more convenient than having to work across multiple RGB-related apps.
With the feature entering testing imminently, we can hope to see the Dynamic Lighting hub inbound with the big 23H2 update later this year, where it’ll certainly help to liven up what’s threatening to be a bit of a yawn-fest currently.
Via PC Gamer
