Antec soundscience halo 6 LED bias lighting kit
MRP: Rs 690 (plus taxes) (Store Locator)
Street Price (As On 7-11-2012): Rs 750 (BitFang.com)

While many of us spend long hours on our computers for work and , be it for work or fun.  Sadly, not many of us pay attention to the toll that the PC usage takes on our bodies - from our backs to wrists to our eyes. Eyestrain increasing when viewing the monitor for extended periods of time in a dark room. Unfortuntaely, if you want to simulate a theatre experience in watching a movie, you often need to turn the room lights off. Now here's a possible solution. 

Antec soundscience halo 6 LED bias lighting kit, which is nothing but a set of six bright white LEDs, aims to remedy the situation by providing a soft glow behind the monitor. The company claims that it reduces eyestrain and even "increases your monitor's perceived contrast ratio - making blacks blacker and colours more vibrant". We'll find out if these claims are really true.

Design
The kit is simply a 14.6" (37 cm) long flexible strip of transparent gel with six white LEDs embedded at regular intervals across the length. The underside of the strip has 3M adhesive material to allow it to stick to the backside of the monitor. There is a 4' 3" (1.3 m) cable attached to one side with a full USB port at its other end, which is sufficiently long to even reach USB ports on a PC cabinet placed under the desk. The LEDs can be lit up by plugging this end of the cable into a free USB port on a PC or any other powered USB port.

 

It weighs just 28 g, so it will not fall off due to its own weight. The length of the kit is sufficient for use with a monitor with up to 24" screen size. Larger monitors can use more than one such kit.

Principle Of Working
Here's how it is supposed to work. When you watch the computer monitor in darkness, the pupils of your eyes tend to open wider to let more light in, which is actually excessive when it comes to light from the monitor. This natural reaction of the body results in not only a bad viewing experience and eye fatigue when continued over a prolonged period. The kit introduces an ambient lighting on the wall behind the monitor in such a way that a soft white glow is visible, making the eye pupils contract and allow just the right amount of light from the monitor into the eyes as they would do in normal lighting. This should result is a more comfortable viewing experience with less possibility of eye fatigue.

We are sure that you might want to reason why not watch with the room light on instead. Well, room light is usually too bright when compared to this and it doesn't really provide a backlighting. If the room light is situated behind the monitor, it is likely to become distracting and tiring to the eyes by coming in your field of view. If it is placed on the sides or behind you, then it is very likely to produce glares on the monitor, thus spoiling the viewing experience. The advantage of the kit is that it produces a subtle lighting behind the monitor and avoids all the aforementioned problems. Also, it is not in direct view, making it more comfortable for the eyes. We'll see in the next section of the article if this theory really works as well as postulated.

Performance
Before you start using it, make sure that you demarcate the area at the back of the monitor where you are going to stick it and clean it to ensure that this strip sticks properly. The strip is to be horizontally stuck near or a little above the centre of the monitor's backside. The adhesive used is such that it may not be reused on another monitor and it will leave a gooey residue. Therefore, make sure that you want this as a permanent fixture before sticking it.

On plugging it into a USB port, the LEDs emit a bright white glow. Thankfully, you don't get a direct view of the LEDs as their basic purpose is to light up the wall behind the monitor. That said, you do need a wall behind the monitor for this to work and it must be no farther than a metre.

The kit does work as per the principle explained in the earlier part of this review. The overall effect was that the eyes felt relaxed even after watching two movies back-to-back in a dark room. It was observed that the kit works best when the wall is of light coloured. When it was replaced by a darker curtain, the LEDs could not help much and the kit couldn't achieve its purpose.

While it does work as it is supposed to, the perceived improvement in screen contrast appears to be better when you have an older monitor such as a CRT or LCD monitor. Perceived contrast on newer monitors seems to remain unaffected. The claims of making the colour appear vivid remained unsubstantiated.

Being a very simple product, you cannot adjust the brightness of the LEDs. We must make it clear that the LEDs do not change colour or brightness according to the image on the screen; something that was introduced in Philips Ambilight television models a few years ago. In fact, there is no way to adjust the brightness of the LEDs and there is no button to switch; you can turn them off only by unplugging the USB plug. Check out the photos in the image gallery below the article.

So Is It Worth A Buy?
The Antec soundscience halo 6 LED bias kit is a unique but simple concept with a healthy goal in mind, and it does work as expected. The backlighting it provides to the monitor indeed made the eyes feel better relaxed while using the computer monitor in a dark room for hours. However, the effectiveness is dependent on a number of factors such as the presence of a wall behind the monitor, its colour, and its proximity. The kit is not reusable and leaves a sticky residue if removed, so you must make sure that you are really ready to use it. The price of Rs 750 seems a little too steep for what is just a gel strip with six LEDs. However, if the health benefits are taken into account, then it may be worth a buy. However, if you are up for some DIY, here's how you can get the same thing done while spending a lot less. If you are looking for multi-coloured backlighting that adapts to the colour and brightness of the scene being played on the screen, then you must take a look at this.

Design And Build: 3.5/5
Ease Of Use: 4.5/5
Performance: 3.5/5
Value For Money: 2.5/5
Mojo: 3.5/5

Overall Rating: 3.5/5

TAGS: Accessories, Jayesh