I tried adding Razer's latest smart home lights to my setup, but I'm not as sold on these standing light bars

When I reviewed the Razer Gamer Room, I was genuinely taken aback by just how adeptly Razer entered the smart home market.

The initial family of Razer Aether smart lights not only offered a great experience through Razer's own software, but also integrated seamlessly into the existing smart home ecosystems that people are already using.

Quality lighting, plenty of customizability, and easy setups all make the Razer Gamer Room very easy to recommend. Now there's a new product in town, and it (mostly) follows the same easy path to recommendation.

The Razer Aether Standing Light Bars are just as lovely as its siblings when it comes to bringing more colorful lighting into your home, but — like the rest of the Gamer Room — does feel a little expensive.

That cost stands out more when these light bars feel like the cheapest part of the Gamer Room by a substantial amount, and that's before considering if you even have the free outlets or ports to put the entire Gamer Room family on your desk.

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Zachary Boddy (They / Them)

I certainly review dozens of devices like laptops, desktops, handhelds, and monitors, but I'm also constantly evaluating accessories, peripherals, and even smart lights for quality, value, ease-of-use, and unique characteristics.

Standing Light Bars: Pricing and specifications

• The Razer Aether Standing Light Bars retail for $99.99.
• They are sold as a pair, and are permanently attached via a single cable.

The Razer Aether Standing Light Bars are the sixth product (seventh if you count the extender) in the Razer Gamer Room family.

Like all of its siblings, the Standing Light Bars integrate with the Razer Gamer Room mobile app, Razer Synapse PC app, and Matter, Google Home, and Alexa smart home ecosystems.

The Razer Aether Standing Light Bars retail for $99.99 at Amazon, and are sold as a pair (not one at a time). Pricing-wise, this product is middle of the road for the Gamer Room.

If you wanted the full Razer Gamer Room setup, it would now cost around $570 for the Razer Aether Light Strip, Light Strip Extender, Light Bulb, Lamp Pro, Monitor Light Bar, and Standing Light Bars.

The Aether Standing Light Bars only come in black, with no white colorway available (this is similar to the Monitor Light Bar, while all other Gamer Room products only come in white).

In the box, you'll find the Razer Aether Standing Light Bars connected via the split, braided, nondetachable 3m USB Type-C cable. This product is covered by Razer's standard 1-year warranty.

Wall of Light 🚦

Razer Aether Standing Light Bars
Buy now: $99.99 at Amazon

The Aether Standing Light Bars slot seamlessly into the existing Razer Gamer Room setup and — as expected for Razer Chroma — look quite nice. They're hollow and somewhat cheap feeling, though, despite the price tag.

👉See at: Amazon.com or Razer.com

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Standing Light Bars: The good

• The Standing Light Bars look great, with even and consistent RGB lights.
• The integration into Razer Gamer Room and other platforms is great.
• These lights should get better in the future as Razer Chroma does, too.

Just based on visual aesthetics, the Razer Aether Standing Light Bars look great. They're sleek, oblong cylinders with one side dominated by an uninterrupted strip of RGB LEDs.

Those RGB lights are of excellent quality, too. The Aether Standing Light Bars get quite bright if you're able to feed them enough juice, and the brightness and color temperature are perfectly balanced along the entire length.

You get a ton of customization options for those lights, as well. The Standing Light Bars support the full suite of colors, patterns, and features in Razer Chroma, including the advanced customization you get through Chroma studio.

Seeing as the Aether Standing Light Bars are a part of the Razer Immersive Ecosystem unveiled at CES 2025, it's no wonder. As Razer updates its Chroma engine with full spatial and contextual awareness, the Standing Light Bars and other Razer Chroma and Gamer Room products should become even better.

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Existing integration is already excellent, as evidenced by the supremely simple setup process carried over from the rest of the Razer Gamer Room. Plug them in, open the Gamer Room mobile app, and pair! It worked quickly and effortlessly just like the rest of the Gamer Room, a far cry from my experiences with NanoLeaf.

Once you're connected, you'll be able to add the Aether Standing Light Bars to your Gamer Room within Razer Synapse, too, but you do need the mobile app for that initial setup (and the Gamer Room app is still the fastest, most convenient way to control your Aether products).

The Standing Light Bars are a pair, connected via a split, nondetachable, braided USB Type-C cable that gives you a fair amount of flexibility in placement between the two light bars, with the rest of the (combined) cable giving you a ton of length to connect to your power source.

It's tempting to connect that USB Type-C cable to one of your computer's ports, but it may be difficult to feed the Standing Light Bars the full 5V of power it requires to unlock max brightness. You can use an outlet, if you're able to source a USB Type-C power brick.

As for placement, the Aether Standing Light Bars are designed to either face you or face the wall. The former is more intense and vibrant, while the latter casts a pleasant wash of light behind your monitor in a similar way to some TV smart light strips.

All you must do is orient the light bars the way you want in the base, taking advantage of the bottom-mounted cables that are happy to head in either direction. Personally, I preferred the rear-facing solution for more subtlety, but both are great.

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Standing Light Bars: The bad

• A light, hollow design makes these not-cheap light bars feel cheap.
• They're also power-hungry, and require yet another port/outlet to power.

As much as Razer's Aether Standing Light Bars look amazing, they don't feel it. The use of matte black plastic is nothing new in this product category, but the Standing Light Bars feel cheap and hollow in the hand.

More importantly, they're simply too light, while the bases simultaneously lack grip. Any minute adjustment of my wired accessories results in unwanted shifts and even complete falls. These lights don't want to stay in the same place.

On top of that, the Standing Light Bars aren't immune from the problem all RGB ecosystems face — including Razer. Colors aren't calibrated between products, so the Standing Light Bars look slightly different from the rest of the Gamer Room; they're more muted, closer to the Light Bulb than the Light Strip.

If you want to take advantage of these lights' full brightness, you'll also need to feed them enough power. Your average USB 2.0 port doesn't provide full 5V charging, though; the Standing Light Bars will still work with reduced power, but with a handicap.

The power-hungry nature of these light bars also highlights that the Razer Gamer Room requires at least two outlets and two USB Type-C ports (or four outlets) for the complete setup, and that's without multiple lamps or other products.

If you've invested in other parts of the Razer Chroma ecosystem, the ports demand may be even higher. I'm starting to feel like we need some kind of "Razer Gamer Room Hub" to make all these cables easier to manage and these lights easier to feed.

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Standing Light Bars: Final thoughts

You should buy this if ...

✅You're already invested in the Razer Chroma or Gamer Room ecosystem

If you already own Razer Chroma products, then the Aether Standing Light Bars will seamlessly integrate into your existing setup, with the same software and customization support. It's the advantage of an ecosystem.

✅You just want some solid, bright RGB smart light bars

The Razer Aether Standing Light Bars don't have to be used behind or flanking your monitor — anywhere you might fancy compact, customizable RGB light bars that sync with your smart home is a good home for these.

You should not buy this if ...

❌You have limited outlets or ports to spare

I have about as many ports and outlets as someone could reasonably expect to have, and I'm still running out of ways to power the growing collection of accessories and smart lights. If you're already scrupulous about your limited ports or outlets, the Standing Light Bars will take one more (without adding any utility to your setup).

The Razer Gamer Room has continued to impress me, gracefully merging into the Razer Chroma ecosystem to immediately become a mature, reliable family of customizable lights for your smart home.

The Gamer Room app and Razer Synapse can battle for control sometimes, but these have truly been great products. The Razer Aether Standing Light Bars more-or-less match its siblings, at least when it comes to appearances, setup, and ease-of-use.

The actual hardware feels lacking, though, especially when you're once again paying $100 or more for some lights to add to your setup. They're good lights, but they don't feel like the same caliber of product as, say, the Razer Aether Lamp and Lamp Pro.

Don't expect your Gamer Room to be entirely cohesive, either, since most of the Aether products are white, while the Monitor Light Bar and Standing Light Bars are black. Why can't we have both options for every product? Probably something to do with volume of sales, but I still wish Razer had picked one color and stuck with it.

I don't want to end this review on a negative note, though. These are still fantastic smart light bars with a ton of options and excellent software support; if you want to add the Razer Aether Standing Light Bars to your home, you can for $99.99 at Amazon.

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