OpenRGB and Corsair: lighting in your desktop colour

You need three things: a Corsair device from the OpenRGB list, OpenRGB itself, and iCUE closed.

1. Check your model in the field below. The list has 94 Corsair entries: K55, K60, K65, K70, K95 and K100 keyboards, M65, Dark Core, Harpoon, Ironclaw and Katar mice, MM700 and MM800 Polaris mousepads, RAM, Commander and Lighting Node controllers, and Hydro liquid coolers.
2. Close iCUE completely from its tray icon, not with the window's close button. Only one app can control a device's lighting.
3. Remove iCUE from Windows startup, otherwise it takes the lighting back after a restart.

Wireless mice are listed with the mark “Wired”: OpenRGB controls them when they are connected by cable. If iCUE and OpenRGB run at the same time, the device gets commands from both and the lighting flickers. This is not a fault. It is simply two apps controlling the same device.

You only do this once. After that OpenRGB starts with Windows and runs in the tray, and Vealo finds the devices on its own.

1. Download OpenRGB from the official site openrgb.org and install it.
2. Open Settings, then General Settings, and turn on three options: Start At Login, Start Minimized and Start Server.
3. Check that your Corsair devices appear in the OpenRGB list, then close the window.

The key option here is Start Server. Without it OpenRGB still runs, but other apps cannot connect to it, and Vealo will tell you so in the “Connection” window.

Vealo connects to OpenRGB on its own and checks the link every two seconds while the lighting tab is open.

1. Open the Studio, go to the Lighting tab and pick an effect in the Effect row. Choosing an effect turns the lighting on, and the “Off” button turns it off.
2. Click Connection. The window shows whether OpenRGB is connected and how many devices it has passed on. If OpenRGB is not running or not installed, the same window has Open OpenRGB and Get OpenRGB buttons. The circular arrows button next to it restarts OpenRGB: this picks up devices connected later and gets a frozen animation moving again. The lighting pauses for a few seconds while this happens.
3. Choose a colour. By default it comes from your desktop theme and changes along with it. To set your own colour, use the eyedropper.

• Theme colour. Lighting set to the theme colour recolours itself whenever you change the theme or the wallpaper.
• Per-key effects. Wave, fire, rain, starlight and other effects travel across the keyboard from key to key, and along the LEDs on RAM and fans. The device does not just glow in one solid colour.
• Every brand in one tab. Corsair peripherals and RAM, fans, the motherboard and SteelSeries, Logitech and Razer devices are all lit from one place with one effect.
• Try before you buy. Static and breathing are in the free version, so you can test the connection on your own devices before buying. The other effects are part of Pro.

The general lighting guide: how Razer and OpenRGB work, the device check and what to do when nothing lights up: All your RGB in one place.