The company launched their Corsair Gaming brand in 2014 and targets the eSports professionals and gamers alike with the products like keyboards, mice, headsets and mouse mats. Corsair was not behind any of such innovation. This has another aspect to it as well as Corsair was giving the hint of what is coming next. Corsair introduced their Lighting Node Pro to address all these desires by bringing the users what they have been demanding in quite a stunning manner. Today, we will be taking a look at their Lighting Node Pro. The idea is as simple as it could get which is using the Corsair Link corsair lighting node pro create vivid lighting effects and custom color combinations. It is made of a cardboard box and comes in yellow and black colors. The front side has a Corsair brand name and logo printed on the top left side. The device is compatible with the Corsair Link. The backside of the packaging box has a picture of the device on the top right side. A Corsair brand name and logo are printed on the top left side. Salient features of the device are printed in 6 different languages in the main section. The left and the right sides have the Corsair brand name and logo printed on the top side. The top side has a Corsair brand name and logo printed on the left side. Unlike many other packaging boxes, this is not the opening side of the box. The bottom side has a Corsair brand name and logo printed on the top left side. The product is made in China. There are two seals on this end. The inner box is slid into the main packaging box. Remove or cut the seals to slide it out. Corsair has given due diligence in the presentation of the device. This I give to them. When it comes to the overall packaging, my impression is made not only from how easy it is to take the content out but more importantly how easy it is to put them back in the right manner. Corsair has delivered on this aspect. I am impressed with this presentation. With the inner box taken out, we can see the controller nicely placed inside a transparent sheet placed at the bottom of the box exposed. There is a cover with a Corsair brand logo in the middle of it. This part of the inner box is actually a tray like and taking it off would show the other contents. The user manual is placed on the top along with other documents. Removing them will show some more cables. The controller itself is small size device in black color measuring 55mmX31mmX12mm. The labels are important, pay attention to that as they appear in Corsair lighting node pro Link software by numbers. The headers are implemented on the right side no, in the middle. It does not light up in case you are wondering about that. There is a small pinhole above the Corsair logo. It is not needless at all rather has an important function which unfortunately was not mentioned in their user guide. There is a reset button inside this hole. Thankfully, Corsair adopted the smart approach and provided the users with the hardware level reset functionality removing the software dependency. You would need a pin like a thumb pin etc to insert in this hole and press the button. You will get to feel the button pressing. In case you ever experience any issue with the device, resetting it would be helpful. There is another hidden functionality. It would have current firmware file on it. In case you are having trouble with updating the firmware using the Corsair Link software or wanted to go back to previous version or more stable version, you can do that manually by following the above steps. Once the drive is accessed, make a backup of the current firmware and copy paste the downloaded firmware file in the drive. You can download the firmware file from the Corsair Forums section on Lighting node pro. The backside of the device has a sticker pasted on it. The Corsair brand name and logo are printed on the top left side. The device is made in China. There is no connectivity option on the left and right sides of the device. The Corsair has provided two double-sided mounting tapes so that user can easily install the device inside the chassis in a proper and secure manner. It has a length of 375mm. Connect one end to the node pro and the other end to the Hub. These are helpful in case you have more space to cover. The Corsair has provided 4 such strips with the Lighting Node Pro. Both ends of the given strip are designed such as they can be daisy-chained to each other. Corsair was really considerate in giving the users multiple mounting options with these strips. Each strip has 4 powerful magnets in addition to the 3M adhesive backside as well. Depending on the situation, the user can mount the corsair lighting node pro either using those magnets or peel off the adhesive cover and paste the strips on the surface. I am more in favor of the magnetic mounting but having both options is a plus and user should not be concern about the mounting provision what so ever. There is an arrow indicator which shows the start point of the strip. Setting up the device is easy and straightforward. Download the latest version of the Corsair Link from the Corsair website and install it. Connect the fan s in order starting from port no 1 of the hub. You are all set up and ready to go. There is only one caveat to all this functionality, dealing with so many cables at a time and they would require you to be good at accepting this challenge if you are a cable management freak. Installation was a breeze and we were not concerned about the cable management as this CoffeeLake based build is still going through revision. In fact, you may feel that they could use more brightness than what is provided. At the end, it comes to the personal taste and preference. The unit seems to have some power limitation as after using 3 strips and 2 extension cables, we connected the fourth strip but it did not light up. The fourth one is not faulty as we earlier checked each cable separately for proper functioning. Here is a demo video that we have prepared for you eye pleasure. Effects like Visor, Marquee, Sequential would take this order in consideration and light flow will be in that order. The functionality has been built right into their popular Link software. Once you have properly setup the device and installed the Corsair Link version 4. Click on the Configure button to bring the main window for controlling all the aspects of the connected devices. The user would have to select the correct device for each channel first. Once it is done, you are all set to configure the lighting effect. The brightness of the connected devices can be controlled using the slider against each channel. Click on the list to see all the available color modes. If you want to have the same effect on all the strips or even on the fans, click on Copy To button and select the devices corsair lighting node pro you would like to have the same effect. You can also set each profile with different lighting effect. Some effects have further control options like the direction of light flow, the speed of the effect and selecting between two colors or random color cycling. The Temperature effect would let the user decide from the plethora of temperature sensors from the motherboard and would let to create up to three brackets for the temperature control, each with different static color as a visual aid to the user. It could be helpful during summer season or overclocking session. The user can click on the color to open the color palette and virtually one can select or make a combination of 16. Click on the Options button menu of the Corsair Link software and click on the Devices. It will pop up a new window with the connected devices. Select Corsair lighting node pro Node Pro and click on Check for Updates. If the new firmware version is available, it will update the firmware after downloading it. There is a Force Update option which is handy if the last update leaves the device in ever updating mode and could not come out of it. A user can download the firmware file from the internet and use the Force Update method to update to the given firmware. The controller itself is small size device in black color measuring 55mmX31mmX12mm. It has two channels labeled as 1 and 2. The headers are implemented on the right side, not in the middle. It does not light up in case you are wondering about that. There is a small pinhole above the Corsair logo. It is not needless at all rather has an important function which unfortunately was not mentioned in their corsair lighting node pro guide. There is a reset button inside corsair lighting node pro hole. The Corsair has provided two double-sided mounting tapes so that user can easily install the device inside the chassis in a proper and secure manner. The Corsair has provided all the required cables in the bundle. Both ends of the given strip are designed such as they can be daisy-chained to each other. Corsair was really considerate in giving the users multiple mounting options with these strips. Each strip has 4 powerful magnets in addition to the 3M adhesive backside as well. The Corsair Link Software is used to control and customize the lighting effects to create stunning, vivid visuals inside the chassis and they have done it with almost perfection. The user can customize the color effect on each connected device on each of the channels or let them sync altogether. This all comes down to the users on how to produce the looks that they want as Corsair has provided enough features in the Link software to do all that. All of this functionality is just a few mouse clicks away. Corsair is providing 2 years of warranty on the Lighting Node Pro. I did not experience any glitches while installing the device or using the software. It is a premium price for the premium product. If there is one thing that I would like to state against the device, it is that one would have to deal with lot many cables and this could be an issue with chassis that lacks proper cable management provision on their backside. Letting the Corsair Link controlling all the lighting effects is a smart move. Featuring honest and in-depth product reviews and a credible analysis on technological innovation, Tech4Gamers covers a wide range of technology trends — from small business to enterprise, social to mobile, gadgets, computing devices and the general World Wide Web.
