Using Lumea.

First connection

1. Scan — lists the strips nearby. Lumea never touches Bluetooth before you scan, so opening it can’t steal a connection from anything else.
2. Tick the strips you want, then press Connect. Double-click a row to give it an alias; the bin icon (or a right-click) forgets a saved strip.
3. Pick a colour. Commands go to every connected target at once.

The same button turns into Disconnect once everything ticked is linked, and drops every connection.

Ticked strips, aliases, presets and each strip’s last colour are saved, so the next launch picks up where you left off — you only scan and connect again.

After a minute without changes Lumea lets go of the Bluetooth links, so idle strips don’t compete with your headphones; the next colour you pick reconnects them. Effects and music keep the links up, and a link that drops on its own is retried.

Editing one strip, a few, or all of them

The Editing chips choose what the picker drives:

• All — every ticked strip gets the same colour, brightness and power.
• A single strip — click its chip to edit it on its own. Its own last colour loads into the picker.
• A few — click more chips; they get what you pick next. The row scrolls sideways when the chips outgrow it.

The strips never report their state back, so what Lumea shows is the last command it sent. Each strip remembers its own.

Colour, brightness, power

Drag across the colour square and the hue bar, or type a hex colour into the field under the presets; the strips follow live. Brightness scales the colour itself rather than sending a firmware command, because that command differs between strip variants and isn’t confirmed.

Power is the pill at the end of the brightness row: off sends the strips their power-off command and turns the USB devices black; on brings the colour back.

Presets are the 12 dots: left-click applies one, right-click saves the current colour into it.

Effects

The Effect chips under Brightness animate every device the picker drives:

Speed sets the pace. Only one effect or music mode runs at a time. Bluetooth strips get about 12 frames a second.

Music mode

Install Music mode from Settings › Manage plugins; its Music chips appear under Effect and make the lights follow the system audio — a loopback of what your PC is playing, so no microphone and no virtual audio driver. It works on Windows and macOS 13+. On macOS allow Lumea under Screen & System Audio Recording when asked, then relaunch it: macOS has no audio-only permission, and Lumea reads the audio alone, never the screen.

Sensitivity — how loud the music must be to light up fully: raise it for quiet tracks, lower it if everything sits at full. Low / Mid / High turn down a band that dominates, usually the bass.

Bluetooth strips may lag behind the music: BLE only carries so many updates a second, and fewer the more strips are connected, so frames it can’t keep up with are dropped. Music mode listens to the output device that is the default when it starts; after switching speakers or headphones, pick the mode again.

PC RGB (Windows)

Install the MSI Mystic Light or SteelSeries plugin (Settings › Manage plugins) and the device shows up in the list, always Connected. Tick it to make it part of All, or click its row (or its Editing chip) to edit it alone, like a strip. Both are driverless — no MSI Center, no SteelSeries GG.

MSI Mystic Light — the motherboard and its RGB/ARGB headers. Static colour only: Lumea never sends firmware effect bytes, which have bricked boards, and the writes are volatile, so a reboot restores your BIOS lighting. If your case fans run off a case controller (e.g. MSI Gungnir), set it to motherboard control (JARGB) so they follow. Verified on an MSI MPG Z790 CARBON WIFI; other boards are detected and left untouched.

SteelSeries Apex 3 and Rival 650 — each appears as its own row. Static colour, nothing written to onboard flash. Other SteelSeries models are left alone.

Like a strip, a USB device is driven while it’s targeted: ticked in All, or picked on its own. Effects work on it too.

Plugins

Settings › Manage plugins lists optional add-ons. Install one and switch it on; plugins update from the same page, without a new Lumea release. Needs a newer Lumea on a plugin means it was written for a newer app than yours — update Lumea; Needs a plugin update means the installed copy predates this Lumea’s plugin API — press Update.

Remote control drives Lumea from a phone, tablet or another computer’s browser on the same network: colour, brightness, presets, effects, music, the devices and the settings. Switch it on, then scan the QR code shown under it — or open the address and enter the PIN. Windows asks once to let Lumea through the firewall: allow it on private networks. If several PCs run it, the page lists them all and switches between them.

Tray and settings

Closing the window keeps Lumea in the system tray; quit from the tray menu. The menu has quick colours, power and settings, and the tray icon can show the current colour.

Settings (the icon in the title bar, or the tray menu):

• Theme — Auto follows the system; or fixed Light / Dark
• Tray icon colour
• Updates — checks GitHub for a newer version and installs it
• Manage plugins — install, update, remove and switch plugins on or off
• Send anonymous usage stats — see the FAQ