Razer is teaming up with NIO to bring RGB lighting to electric vehicles

Gaming outfit Razer has teamed up with NIO, a smart electric vehicles manufacturer, to bring Razer’s Chroma RGB lighting to NIO’s electric car.

This somewhat unusual collaboration will kick off with the release of the Razer-brand NIO x Razer ES6 Night Explorer, an SUV which will be produced for a limited run of 88 units. This is somewhat auspicious, as in China the number 88 symbolises fortune and good luck. 

After that launch, Razer will be providing their RGB lighting tech to future NIO vehicles. While Chroma RGB started out as tech for gaming peripherals — my keyboard, mouse and mouse mat are glowing softly at me as I write this — but the ecosystem has grown to be integrated with over 130 games and 500 devices.

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Many of the games have slick integration: Overwatch has a keyboard colour scheme that matches the signature colour of the character you’re playing. Meanwhile, Doom provides a nice red ripple effect as soon as you launch the game, with red pulses every time you take damage and a host of other neat effects, including a rainbow burst of colour whenever you dissect a demon in combat with your chainsaw. 

Chroma can add a lot to your favourite game, especially if you start adding things like Philips Hue into the system, making your whole room into a set of pulsing colours. 

For smart cars, Chroma will have its own set of tricks. It will enable customisable lighting effects for the passenger compartment, audio visualisation features, synchronisation and, bizarrely, game integration features which seems like a very poor idea for anyone driving but could be a cool feature for 

Providing, of course, they’re willing to drag a laptop into the car to game with. Which, I really can’t stress enough, feels like a bad idea.