Mediaboss Marketing

Say youre planning to watch a movie tonight you sit down, open the Amazon app, and start searching. Want to watch Marvels The Avengers from 2012? Thats free on Amazon Prime. But if youre interested in the most recent installment in the Avengers series, Marvel Studios Avengers: Endgame from 2019, that will cost you $3.99 to rent. But not all new movies are rental only, and not all older movies are free. For example, you can watch Eddie Murphy in 2021s Coming 2 America for free with your Prime membership, but if you want to check out the Murphy classic Beverly Hills Copfrom 1984, thatll cost you an additional $2.99. What gives?

Amazon is known for making very deliberate choices about what to bundle in with a standard Prime membership, when, and for how long. To make these decisions, the company is likely using a metric like cost-per-first-stream dividing the titles costs (e.g. production or licensing) by the total number of subscribers streaming a given title to determine what to offer as standalone versus adding to the basic Prime bundle. Because the value of shows and movies tends to depreciate, some titles will lose their value after a certain period. At that point, the standalone charge can no longer be justified, so Amazon moves these titles under the standard Prime membership.

This two-step approach to rolling out services is an example of a strategy called biphasic subscription monetization in which 1) businesses roll out novel services as standalone offerings and quickly monetize them by targeting enthusiastic consumers, before 2) adding them to pre-existing bundles consisting of more mature services and monetizing them over longer periods of time with the broader consumer base.

As companies across sectors are going from a product-based to a subscription-based business model from Microsoft, Google, and Nike to auto manufacturers, industrial manufacturers, and brick-and-mortar retailers this strategy is catching on. If done correctly, it can help offset initial development costs of novel offerings, provide companies with quick and actionable feedback on these novel services, and generate positive momentum that drives larger investments in innovation. And as companies continue to add more services to existing subscription bundles, they can justify a progressive increase in subscription fees since the perceived value of the bundle is increasing.

In my experience working with thousands of subscription businesses, Ive seen three considerations that drive the successful adoption of the biphasic monetization strategy. First, companies need to prove the benefits of this biphasic monetization strategy by qualifying new services against 13 attributes that make up what I call the Unified Subscription Adoption Model (USAM). I developed the USAM as the first hybrid framework for assessing the end-to-end potential of subscription offerings, combining two widely recognized technology and product adoption models, but adjusting their core attributes to better match the idiosyncrasies of subscription-based offerings. Second, new features/services need to be added over time to maintain or increase the overall price of a given subscription bundle. And lastly, companies need to take into account how susceptible the demand for a given offering is to changes in price.

Lets dig in with an example to show this biphasic monetization strategy in action.

Recently, traditional automakers alongside software juggernauts including Apple, Google, Amazon, and Baidu have embarked on a tight race to offer the most advanced and well-integrated automotive software-as-a-service subscriptions, making them ideal candidates for deploying a biphasic monetization strategy.

Lets explore a simplified example of how that could work.

A hypothetical automaker has already introduced a basic subscription bundle consisting of three car-connected services: road navigation, road assistance, and remote start. The bundle is offered to all prospective car owners in the form of a subscription for $89 per month. Ten thousand car owners have already subscribed to the basic subscription, generating $890,000 Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) for the automaker.

Lets assume that the same automakers R&D unit has developed two new connected services that are ready to be launched: Over-The-Air software updates (OTA) and Semi-Autonomous Driving (SAD).

The marketing department has conducted a market segmentation study according to which, the automakers Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM) consists of a total 10,000 existing drivers, out of which 9,000 are low-income earners and 1,000 are high-income earners. Through various A/B tests conducted in the past, the automaker found out the Price Elasticity of Demand (PED) for the basic bundle is 0.9 (quite elastic). This means that an increase in the overall price of the bundle will result in an almost proportionate decrease in demand. The company also defined the minimum prices of the two services to be $5/month for OTA and $15/month for SAD based on the investment size required to develop each service.

So, how would the company deploy a biphasic monetization strategy?

Companies need to measure the maturity of an offer to determine the overall market readiness for a new service. The Unified Subscription Adoption Model (USAM) is a hybrid framework for assessing the end-to-end potential of offerings, measuring attributes that will impact potential adoption, including: functionality, reliability, usefulness, usability, efficiency, and desirability.

To use the framework, you measure the service quality attributes by asking a series of core questions. For example, for Desirability, the pertinent question is Does it make the user care? and what you are assessing is the measure of positive emotions, such as desire and pleasure, that a service generates for the user. Similarly, for Usefulness, the question is Does it solve real problems? For each attribute, you rate on a continuum of Low to High and then tally the results for a total score.

If we use this framework for our two new hypothetical connected services, we clearly witness that the two services differ across the board. The first service (OTA) is a very mature service (scoring 55/60 points). In contrast, semi-autonomous driving is more of a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) scoring 32/60 points.

The overall service quality is very often a reliable indicator of both market maturity and market penetration. The ratings for OTA indicate the service is well diffused/adopted in the market (past the late majority of the consumer population). In other words, OTA is an existing feature in most if not all cars. Car owners expect that their cars software can be updated remotely (i.e. over the air), similarly to how laptops or PCs do. In contrast, SAD appears to be a novel service still in the early adoption phase (early majority of the consumer population). It is widely seen as a nice-to-have feature, not really a necessity.

Lets start by hypothesizing that the automaker decides to add both services to the existing basic subscription offering.

Approach 1: All-in Bundling Strategy

Once the automaker adds both services to the existing basic bundle, the subscription fee increases to cover the R&D costs incurred to develop the OTA and SAD services. In consequence, 2,000 subscribers representing 20% of the overall subscriber base cancel their subscriptions. The increased subscription fee is barely enough to offset the subscriber churn, leading to a 2% reduction in the automakers Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) from $890k to $872k.

Lets think about this dynamic. Once the automaker adds a nice-to-have service to a bundle consisting of basic services and uses that to justify a fee increase, car owners feel like they are asked to pay for a feature they dont need and never asked for. Since the basic bundle includes services with close substitutes, they wont hesitate to cancel their subscription.

Lets now see how the biphasic monetization strategy can provide a much more profitable alternative. Exhibit 2 shows the impact of adding OTA to the existing basic bundle and launching SAD as a standalone subscription service.

Approach 2: Basic Bundle + Stand-Alone Strategy

The OTA service matches closely the overall maturity of the basic bundle already adopted by 10,000 subscribers. By adding it to the bundle, the automaker increases the overall subscription fee to cover the R&D costs. In consequence, a portion of subscribers still cancel but the churn, in this case, is much lower resulting in a net MRR gain.

The gains do not end here though. The manufacturer launches SAD as a standalone subscription at $15/month and targets only those drivers in their subscriber base that demonstrate the greatest willingness/ability to pay for additional features. The car manufacturer now has two recurring revenue streams.

Over time, semi-autonomous driving will mature as a capability as an increasing number of car manufacturers offer it and its overall quality increases. It will eventually be adopted by the early and late majorities of the consumer population. At that point, the standalone subscription fee wont be justified, forcing the automaker to make the feature part of the basic bundle and, perhaps, using that as a justification for an increase in its subscription fee.

To avoid losing the second revenue stream altogether, the car manufacturer will need to launch a new service as a stand-alone subscription to replace SAD. This process creates a continuous innovation cycle that can help subscription businesses stay competitive while growing their revenue and minimizing risks associated with new launches.

***

All in all, the biphasic subscription monetization strategy poses a proven, logical, and practical solution to the dilemma of launching novel services as standalone offerings versus adding them to existing bundles in the fast-moving subscription economy.

Success, however, comes with conditions. For biphasic monetization strategies to succeed, companies must maintain a constant flow of innovation, know their costs, study their subscribers, and analyze acquisition and retention drivers. Its a tall order, but the benefits make it worthwhile. Just ask Amazon.

Read the original:
What Belongs in Your Basic Bundle? - Harvard Business Review

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IBM posted better-than-expected second-quarter financial results, driven by strength in both software and services.

For the quarter, the enterprise tech giant reported revenue of $18.75 billion, up 3% from a year ago, and about $450 million ahead of the Street consensus at $18.3 billion. Adjusted for currency and divestitures, revenue was about flat compared with a year earlier.

The stock gained 3.2% to $142.60 in after-hours trading.

IBM (ticker: IBM) said non-GAAP profits were $2.33 a share, four cents above the Street consensus view of $2.29 a share, up 7% from a year ago. Under generally accepted accounting principles, the company earned $1.47 a share. On a non-GAAP basis, gross margin inched up 0.3 percentage point to 49.3%, while pretax net income was up 0.7 of a point, or 70 basis points, to 13.5%.

Revenue in the companys cloud and cognitive software segment was $6.1 billion, up 6.1%, or 2.5% in constant currency, and ahead of the Street consensus forecast of $5.9 billion.

Global Business Services revenue was $4.3 billion, up 11.6%, or 7.3% in constant currency, and ahead of the consensus estimate of $4.1 billion.

Global Technology Services, the companys IT outsourcing business, had revenue of $6.3 billion, up 0.4%, but down 4.1% adjusting for currencya result that was slightly above Street expectations. Systems revenue, which includes mainframes, was down 7.3%, or 10.2% adjusting for currency.

IBM said total cloud revenue in the quarter was $7 billion, up 13%, or 9% adjusted for currency, which was a deceleration from the first quarter, when the company posted 21% growth, or 18% adjusted for currency. Revenue at Red Hat was up 20%, or 17% adjusted for currency, an acceleration from 17% reported growth (15% adjusted for currency) in the March quarter.

IBM repeated its previous forecast for full-year adjusted free cash flow of $11 billion to $12 billion, excluding $3 billion of expenses related to cost reduction moves and the pending spinoff of the Kyndryl services business.

We built on our progress last quarter, IBM CFO Jim Kavanaugh said in an interview with Barrons. This is a continuation of that. Clients are adopting our hybrid cloud model. He notes that IBM has paid down almost $6.5 billion in debt through the first half, and has now reduced borrowings by $18 billion since it completed its acquisition of Red Hat in July 2019.

Kavanaugh said the Kyndryl transaction is on track to be completed by year-end.

Asked about the environment for IT spending, Kavanaugh said that conditions are encouraging. He said that demand has improved in markets that are recovering from the pandemic, with revenue growth in the latest quarter in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., France, Italy, and Spain. Kavanaugh cited continued challenges in some Asian markets, including India.

Write to Eric J. Savitz at eric.savitz@barrons.com

See the original post:
IBM's Revenues and Profits Beat Forecasts. Software and Services Were Key. - Barron's

Microsoft has announced Extended Security Updates for Windows Server 2008 and 2012, and for SQL Server 2012 and made it free if you run them in its Azure cloud.

The current extended support offering for Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2 ends on October 10, 2023. However, Monojit Bhattacharya, a product management leader for Azure and member of Microsofts Windows Server Team, has revealed that Redmond is offering Extended Security Updates for three years.

SQL Server 2012, for which extended support ends on July 12, 2022, has also been given an extra three years of security updates.

Microsofts made this an offer thats hard to resist by making it free if users move their workloads into Azure. They also must apply the Azure Hybrid Benefit a scheme that allows use of on-prem licences acquired under Software Assurance.

Azure Hybrid Benefit includes lower Azure prices than are available with other offers. Microsoft seldom tires of pointing out that the Benefit therefore makes Azure the cheapest place to run Windows Server and SQL Server in the cloud.

If you persist in running on-prem, Microsoft will ramp the price of the extended update offering. In year one itll cost three quarters of your licence costs, in year two the price will be at parity, and in year three Extended Security Updates will cost 125 per cent of the license cost.

Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server has also been given a little extra love, with one more year of updates offered but only in Azure.

SQL Server and Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 Extended Security Updates are currently scheduled to end on July 9, 2022, and January 14, 2023, respectively.

News of the Extended Security Updates was revealed at Microsofts partner centric Inspire virtual gabfest which, in addition to the announcement of cloudy Windows 365 desktops, saw Redmond reveal:

Inspire continues tomorrow.

Read more from the original source:
Microsoft extends security updates for Windows and SQL Server 2012 and 2008 - The Register

People all around the world deserve the right to have a private conversation. Communication privacy is a human right, a civil liberty and one of the centerpieces of a free society. And while we all deserve basic communications privacy, the journalists, NGO workers and human rights and democracy activists among us are especially at risk, since they are often at odds with powerful governments.

So it is no surprise that people around the world are angry to learn that surveillance software sold by NSO Group to governments has been found on cellphones worldwide. Thousands of NGOs, human rights and democracy activists, along with government employees and many others have been targeted and spied upon. We agree and we are thankful for the work done by Amnesty International, the countless journalists at Forbidden Stories, along with Citizen Lab, to bring this awful situation to light.

"A commitment to giving their own citizens strong security is the true test of a countrys commitment to cybersecurity."

Like many others, EFF has warned for years of the danger of the misuse of powerful state-sponsored malware. Yet the stories just keep coming about malware being used to surveil and track journalists and human rights defenders who are then murdered including the murders of Jamal Khashoggi or Cecilio Pineda-Birto. Yet we have failed to ensure real accountability for the governments and companies responsible.

What can be done to prevent this? How do we create accountability and ensure redress? Its heartening that both South Africa and Germany have recently banned dragnet communications surveillance, in part because there was no way to protect the essential private communications of journalists and privileged communications of lawyers. All of us deserve privacy, but lawyers, journalists and human rights defenders are at special risk because of their often adversarial relationship with powerful governments. Of course, the dual-use nature of targeted surveillance like the malware that NSO sells is trickier, since it is allowable under human rights law when it is deployed under proper necessary and proportionate limits. But that doesnt mean we are helpless. In fact, we have suggestions on both prevention and accountability.

First, and beyond question, we need real device security. While all software can be buggy and malware often takes advantage of those bugs, we can do much better. To do better, we need the full support of our governments. Its just shameful that in 2021 the U.S. government as well as many foreign governments in the Five Eyes and elsewhere are more interested in their own easy, surreptitious access to our devices than they are in the actual security of our devices. A commitment to giving their own citizens strong security is the true test of a countrys commitment to cybersecurity. By this measure, the countries of the world, especially those who view themselves as leaders in cybersecurity, are currently failing.

It now seems painfully obvious that we need international cooperation in support of strong encryption and device security. Countries should be holding themselves and each other to account when they pressure device manufacturers to dumb down or back door our devices and when they hoard zero days and other attacks rather than ensuring that those security holes are promptly fixed. We also need governments to hold each other to the necessary and proportionate requirement of international human rights law for evaluating surveillance and these limits must apply whether that surveillance is done for law enforcement or national security purposes. And the US, EU, and others must put diplomatic pressure on the countries where these immoral spyware companies are are headquartered in to stop selling hacking gear to countries who use them to commit human rights abuses. At this point, many of these companies -- Cellebrite, NSO Group, and Candiru/Saituare headquartered in Israel and its time that both governments and civil society focus attention there.

Second, we can create real accountability by bringing laws and remedies around the world up to date to ensure that those impacted by state-sponsored malware have the ability to bring suit or otherwise obtain a remedy. Those who have been spied upon must be able to get redress from both the governments who do the illegal spying and the companies that knowingly provide them with the specific tools to do so. The companies whose good name are tarnished by this malware deserve to be able to stop it too. EFF has supported all of these efforts, but more is needed. Specifically:

We supported WhatsApps litigation against NSO Group to stop it from spoofing WhatsApp as a strategy for infecting unsuspecting victims. The Ninth Circuit is currently considering NSOs appeal.

We sought direct accountability for foreign governments who spy on Americans in the U.S. in Kidane v. Ethiopia. We argued that foreign countries who install malware on Americans devices should be held to account, just as the U.S. government would be if it violated the Wiretap Act or any of the other many applicable laws. We were stymied by a cramped reading of the law in the D.C. Circuit -- the court wrongly decided that the fact that the malware was sent from Ethiopia rather than from inside the U.S. triggered sovereign immunity. That dangerous ruling should be corrected by other courts or Congress should clarify that foreign governments dont have a free pass to spy on people in America. NSO Group says that U.S. telephone numbers (that start with +1) are not allowed to be tracked by its service, but Americans can and do have foreign-based telephones and regardless, everyone in the world deserves human rights and redress. Countries around the world should step up to make sure their laws cover state sponsored malware attacks that occur in their jurisdiction.

We also have supported those who are seeking accountability from companies directly, including the Chinese religious minority who have been targeted using a specially-built part of the Great Firewall of China created by American tech giant Cisco.

"The truth is, too many democratic or democratic-leaning countries are facilitating the spread of this malware because they want to be able to use it against their own enemies."

Third, we must increase the pressure on these companies to make sure they are not selling to repressive regimes and continue naming and shaming those that do. EFFs Know Your Customer framework is a good place to start, as was the State Departments draft guidance (that apparently was never finalized). And these promises must have real teeth. Apparently we were right in 2019 that NSO Groups unenforceable announcement that it was holding itself to the highest standards of ethical business, was largely a toothless public relations move. Yet while NSO is rightfully on the hot seat now, they are not the only player in this immoral market. Companies who sell dangerous equipment of all kinds must take steps to understand and limit misuse and these surveillance. Malware tools used by governments are no different.

Fourth, we support former United Nations Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression David Kaye in calling for a moratorium on the governmental use of these malware technologies. While this is a longshot, we agree that the long history of misuse, and the growing list of resulting extrajudicial killings of journalists and human rights defenders, along with other human rights abuses, justifies a full moratorium.

These are just the start of possible remedies and accountability strategies. Other approaches may be reasonable too, but each must recognize that, at least right now, the intelligence and law enforcement communities of many countries are not defining cybersecurity to include actually protecting us, much less the journalists and NGOs and activists that do the risky work to keep us informed and protect our rights. We also have to understand that unless done carefully, regulatory responses like further triggering U.S. export restrictions could result in less security for the rest of us while not really addressing the problem. The NSO Group was reportedly able to sell to the Saudi regime with the permission and encouragement of the Israeli government under that countrys export regime. The truth is, too many democratic or democratic-leaning countries are facilitating the spread of this malware because they want to be able to use it against their own enemies.

Until governments around the world get out of the way and actually support security for all of us, including accountability and redress for victims, these outrages will continue. Governments must recognize that intelligence agency and law enforcement hostility to device security is dangerous for their own citizens because a device cannot tell if the malware infecting it is from the good guys or the bad guys. This fact is just not going to go away.

We must have strong security at the start, and strong accountability after the fact if we want to get to a world where all of us can enjoy communications security. Only then will our journalists, human rights defenders and NGOs be able to do their work without fear of being tracked, watched and potentially murdered simply because they use a mobile device.

Link:
Pegasus Project Shows the Need for Real Device Security, Accountability and Redress for those Facing State-Sponsored Malware - EFF

Its easier than ever to find components, peripherals and accessories that feature RGB lighting. In fact, its often harder to find PC parts without them. The hard part is making all those RGB glow in harmony, at least if they arent all made by the same company. Manufacturers have to decide if theyre going to offer their own lighting app, support an established synchronization platform (say, Asus Armoury Crate or Razers Chroma RGB), or just leave customers with a few preset effects to choose from and be done with it.

WhirlwindFX seeks to change that with SignalRGB sofware. The platform is supposed to make it easy to sync RGB lighting across devices regardless of their manufacturer, and the company regularly adds support for new hardware and releases new software integrations that can make an entire setup respond to in-game events. Users can submit their own lighting effects, too, and everything is managed through the central SignalRGB app.

Weve spent a few weeks experimenting with SignalRGB Pro to see if the promise of keeping every aspect of your setups lighting in sync is too good to be true. Were going to share our findings below. But before we do, we want to warn anyone with photosensitive epilepsy that the SignalRGB landing page, as well as several of the effects found within the app itself, feature very fast-moving, strobe-like lighting. Proceed with caution.

WhirlwindFX offers two versions of SignalRGB. The free version includes full hardware support, access to lighting effects, and the ability to manage a mouses CPI. SignalRGB Pro expands that feature set with game integrations, one-of-a-kind audio visualizers, an advanced pixel accurate screen ambience effect, and early access to upcoming features in exchange for $4.99 per month or $35.88 per year at time of writing.

The company gave us access to SignalRGB Pro for evaluation purposes. That access was provided to us via promo codes, however, which means we experienced the sign-up process ourselves. And thats where the problems start. Signing up for SignalRGB Pro is a multi-step process that requires an FAQ article to explain, which exceeds the amount of effort wed put into joining a new service on our own time.

Canceling the subscription also requires multiple steps. WhirlwindFX does email you before youre about to be charged, which is nice, but that email doesnt include a link to a page where the subscription can be canceled. Instead the service requires you to launch the SignalRGB app, navigate its menus, and then follow a link to the cancelation page--a process we only discovered because we searched for a support article.

Managing an account shouldnt be this frustrating. It would be bad enough if signing up for SignalRGB were a hassle, and weve become far too accustomed to companies making it difficult to cancel a subscription. But the lack of account management options available on WhirlwindFXs website (or in SignalRGB itself) is exacerbated by the fact that the sign-up page doesnt let you disable automatic renewals. Nothing about this aspect of the service left a good firstor lastimpression, even though we had free access to it.

That doesnt mean SignalRGB should be overlooked. There is a free tier, after all, and the cancelation process shouldnt bother folks who never stop using SignalRGB Pro. But account management is an important aspect of any service, and its worth noting SignalRGBs flaws in this regard at the start. Now lets talk about the utility itself.

SignalRGBs claim to fame is that it allows you to control and sync your favorite RGB devices from any brand with one free application. WhirlwindFX isnt pulling off any technical wizardry to automatically support every RGB-equipped product on the market, though. Instead the companys developers have to manually add support for specific devices to SignalRGB. A list of compatible hardware can be found on the services website.

We asked WhirlwindFX for more information about how often it adds support for new devices to SignalRGB. The company told us it added support for 16, 15, and then 13 unique SKUs, respectively, during a three-week period in May and June. Most of those products are peripherals, a company rep said. But its recently introduced support for a number of motherboards as well. Users can also request the addition of support for a specific device via its website.

So far as existing device support goes, WhirlwindFX says that SignalRGB currently supports nearly 200+ [sic] of the most popular PC gaming peripherals, including products from brands like Razer, Corsair, SteelSeries, HyperX, Logitech and more. Those products are spread across mice, keyboards and headsets, monitors, mousepads and microphones, as well as a variety of other categories. (Theres also a promise of supporting memory kits soon.) More information about supported devices can be found here.

Supporting roughly 200 devices is a feather in SignalRGBs cap, but the nature of the platform means that its value will vary from user to user. Some people will find that SignalRGB already supports all of their devices; others wont be able to get it working on any of their hardware. People using older devices and early adopters will both likely find themselves waiting for WhirlwindFX to expand SignalRGBs support to their equipment. [Editors Note: In the custom rig Im writing this on, the software recognized my Asus motherboard and Corsair headset, but not my RGB-enabled Team Group SSD or Zotac graphics card.] Whether or not the app is worth using in the meantime largely depends on your willingness to use (and perhaps even pay for) a product on the promise that it will improve in the future.

SignalRGB is supposed to make adding lighting effects to supported hardware easy. In theory the process should be:

This process isnt foolproof, however. For a while we could get the app to control the lighting on our SteelSeries Rival 3 Wireless, for example, but not the Logitech G Pro keyboard (the old version with Romer-G switches, not the most recent version). The G Pro was initially supported, but then it stopped working. Its not clear why. The app is supposed to support the keyboard, and we dont have any Logitech software installed, so its not like the keyboard was struggling to resolve conflicting settings. This problem was eventually fixed, presumably because of an update to the app, but the inconsistent experience still left us wanting more.

SignalRGB also offered to control the RGB lighting on the Logitech G Pro X Superlight which doesnt actually have any LEDs to control. The preview images shown for both the G Pro X Superlight and the G Pro keyboard were also incorrect. The image shown for the Superlight looks like a Razer mouse, and even though the keyboards image at least appears to be on-brand, its still not the right device. That would be a minor problem if the rest of the app worked as intended, but as it stands, the app just seems like its broken.

WhirlwindFX also recently introduced a new feature called Layouts to make setting up multiple devicesthe apps raison dtreeasier by showing them all at a glance. We couldnt test the feature ourselves due to a lack of supported hardware. But if it does work as intended, this should go a long way toward helping SignalRGB serve its intended purpose. Unfortunately the rest of the experience makes that a big if.

SignalRGB is also supposed to offer integrations with more than 70 games so it can make your systems lighting react to in-game events. WhirlwindFX has published many YouTube videos showcasing integrations with popular titles like Fortnite, Valorant and Minecraft, to name a few, and most of them make sense. Taking damage in Apex Legends makes some lights flash red to mimic blood splatter, for example, while walking into lava in Minecraft will flash orange particles.

These videos offer excellent previews of the lighting effects triggered by in-game actions. They dont appear to be available within SignalRGB itself, though, with the app instead requiring you to install and apply the integration without knowing exactly what it does. Would it be difficult to Alt+Tab over to a browser window to preview a specific integration? No. But the experience would be greatly improved if SignalRGB offered an idea of what to expect before that integration is applied.

Even applying an integration wont necessarily offer more information, until the relevant game is launched. This is the preview displayed if you apply the Valorant integration when the game is closed:

That image exposes some of SignalRGBs inner workings. This suggested the app was reading the screen and looking for specific visual cues rather than relying on a behind-the-scenes API, and WhirlwindFX confirmed that is the case. This kind of screen-reading will likely inspire privacy-minded users to leave SignalRGB behind. But even if you dont mind this process, its still jarring to see it in action. The man behind the curtain shouldve stayed there.

This doesnt seem to be the most efficient of processes, either. Valorant itself likes to use as much of our Intel Core i5-7600K as possible, with Task Manager typically reporting 90% usage in-game, but SignalRGB was quick to take up the remaining 10%. The end result was unbearable frame drops that had us scrambling to close the program. Better hardware might solve that problem, but its a shame people using older hardware will probably have to avoid the app. (Although Microsoft may be solving the old hardware issue its own way with Windows 11.)

These are essentially lighting effects that react to currently playing audio. SignalRGB doesnt separate these visualizations into their own section of the app; theyre intermingled with other lighting effects. Mirroring these visualizations to RGB hardware is fairly interesting, but the visualizations themselves arent particularly novel, so dont expect to be blown away the next time you listen to some Taylor Swift.

We couldnt test this feature because we dont use Philips Hue lightbulbs or have dedicated light strips behind our monitor. We do have one smart bulb, a Nanoleaf Essentials A19 controlled via HomeKit, but neither that lightbulb nor that platform is SignalRGB-compatible. But the basic idea is that the app will sample whats happening on-screen to decide what colors to project to enable improved ambience. These capabilities are also offered by other lighting solutions, but having them included here is still nice.

Its not hard to see why RGB fanatics might be curious about SignalRGB. Keeping an entire systems lighting in sync with unique effects that respond to whats happening on-screen or in-ear is a compelling enough proposition. The effort to support as many devices as possible is also commendable.

But, the execution simply isnt there -- at least not yet. When we tested SignalRGB in June 2021, device previews were incorrect, there were no previews for lighting effects until they were installed, and lots of RGB devices (particularly on the component front) just werent recognized by the software at all. In short, several aspects of the platform feel like a work in progress at best, and far from a polished solution. Is that better than not being able to keep your hardwares lighting in sync at all? Maybe, if you happen to have peripherals that work. But the performance overhead and lack of integrated account management features would be enough for us to stop using SignalRGB even if it did support all our devices.

WhirlwindFX is making steady advances toward a more refined SignalRGB. The company regularly adds support for new devices, expands to additional product categories, and introduces new features. The company also told us its working on a significant overhaul to the dashboard user interface to provide a clearer experience that includes previews for lighting effects and game integrations. A rep told us the update will arrive by July 31st at the latest and will also include GPU and RAM support (although its obviously not clear which models), an in-app notification system for updates, and a tutorial and free one-month trial of the Pro version.

The promised updates sound good, but this isnt a proof of concept looking for beta testers. This is a promise of future potential being marketed as a finished product. Maybe check back in 3-6 months to see how much the device support, features, and overall feel has improved. In the meantime, most people should probably stick with the (likely multiple) pieces of software they currently use to control their RGB devices. The long-dreamed-of world of simple RGB synchronicity still isnt here yet. Maybe it never will be.

Read more from the original source:
One RGB App to Rule Them All? Hands On With WhirlwindFX SignalRGB Software - Tom's Hardware