Introduction

CORSAIR has adopted RGB lighting like very few others have, which is further evidenced by their own Capellix LED IP they invested in a lot. In an attempt to go beyond the PC tower and peripherals for lighting, the company first stepped into the world of ambient lighting with the LS100 lighting strips that can, say, add lighting underneath your desk or behind a monitor, and CORSAIR today introduced the LT100 lighting towers meant to go alongside the monitor and on top of the desk. Thanks again to CORSAIR for providing samples to TechPowerUp!


We first broke news of the CORSAIR iCUE LT100 smart lighting towers (henceforth "LT100 lighting towers" in this article for ease of use and because these names are getting ridiculous in my opinion) earlier this month, when a snafu with their inclusion in an official photo of another CORSAIR product page and a premature Amazon product listing meant our diligent news team knew what it was exactly. Before our news post, however, there was speculation online based only on the photo, with people wondering if these were speakers. They are no doubt disappointed, but their form factor would have made speakers a hard thing to achieve. As ambient lighting towers, however, the LT100 adds to CORSAIR's portfolio of products to light up your workstation (and living room). We take a closer look at these today to help you figure out whether these are for you.

Packaging and Accessories

International travel limitations and lockdowns due to COVID-19 meant that I was residing out of a hotel room in Taiwan and without access to my usual photography setup at the time of testing. Regardless, we see that the CORSAIR LT100 lighting towers are sold similar to the older LS100 lighting strips in that there are expansion kits on top of the starter kit with which to add to the user experience. This starter kit comes in very familiar packaging if you are an owner of a recent CORSAIR product, with the cardboard box in a black and yellow color scheme and a plastic wrap. The box has an illustration of the towers lit up on the front, along with the company and product name and salient marketing features. This continues on the back in more languages for a strong brick-and-mortar store presence. There is a problem here, however, in that the required but included AC power adapter isn't mentioned anywhere on the box. The LT100 cannot be powered over a motherboard USB port by itself, so customers may be in for a surprise if they are out of spare power outlets.


I am a fan of CORSAIR's packaging engineer, who has again done a good job of designing a better unboxing experience than most would initially expect for the materials and the product inside. Cutouts in the inner cardboard layers snugly hold the various components of the starter kit, which includes paperwork on the product warranty and a product manual that helps you make the most of the LT100 lighting towers if you have no prior experience with CORSAIR or their iCUE software drivers. The AC wall adapter for the region is also seen here, inside another cardboard box for safekeeping during transit. I have here the US version with two prongs for 110 V/0.8 A at 60 Hz and a maximum output of 5 V/5 A. This means that the LT100 lighting towers can consume as much as 25 W, which is one of the reasons behind the use of an AC adapter. The adapter is quite large, however, and the prong orientation also means that it can take up 2–3 slots on an AC power strip, or even completely block off adjacent wall sockets.


The other included accessories are in a plastic pouch underneath the first layer, and we see a headset holder accessory made out of plastic, male micro-USB to male USB Type-A cable (sleeved, black), and male-male RGB LED adapter cable (flat, black). The base and tower units comprising the LT100 are separately packaged inside more plastic pouches, with a thin foam piece underneath and between the towers themselves to prevent any scratches or dents during shipping and handling.


As part of the review package, CORSAIR also sent along an LT100 expansion kit. For the sake of clarity, the starter kit comes with two towers and the cables to power and control them, and each expansion kit includes another tower and a Y (2:1) adapter cable to daisy-chain along the expansion tower. Power and control limitations (in iCUE) mean that you can have a maximum of four towers in the same setup off the same AC adapter and USB cable, so should you want to complete the set, you would need two expansion kits in addition to the starter kit. The expansion kit unboxing experience is nearly the same as for the starter kit, with more paperwork and the base/tower pieces placed inside as seen above.

Closer Examination

The base unit of the CORSAIR LT100 has an anodized black aluminium construction to match the tower and provide for a blank canvas for the light that shines through. The base is 95 x 95 mm with rounded corners, and the underside has a certification sticker as well as a white silicone rubber trim to provide friction against the resting surface while diffusing light through it. On the top is the mating platform with eight pins for the tower to click into. There is a CORSAIR logo on one side, presumably the side facing you as intended, and the opposite side has the cable connectors to be hidden from view. The primary base unit has three connectors in total for power and the RGB and USB connections. As seen in the images above, the other base units are interchangeable and only have the RGB port. The primary base unit also has the controller unit inside, with a push button on the top to toggle between eleven preset lighting effects as well as on/off.


The tower units are also primarily made out of aluminium and feel hefty and premium when taken out of the box. There is a white silicone rubber layer along one side of the curved cylinder, and for the light show, a total of 46 individually addressable RGB LEDs have been put behind it between each base (20) and tower (26). The silicone diffuses the light from the LEDs for a softer, more uniform light gradient than individual light sources. We have seen similar implementations put to good use on RGB fans and keyboards in the past, as well as CORSAIR's own LS100 lighting strips.

These units click into the base unit, which requires a decent amount of force the first time. The machined pieces should leave little tolerance gaps, and all three units fit in snugly. Once done, the towers rise up 422 mm as part of the combination. The next stage of assembly involves all the cables, with three going into the primary base unit. The AC power cable is 1.8 m long, and the RGB and USB cables are 1.5 m long. You can then place the two towers of the starter kit up to 1.5 m apart, which is also how CORSAIR put multiple monitors between them in their stock photos. The Y-adapter cable each expansion kit includes is the same 1.5 m long, and the daisy-chained connectors are very close to each other at the base. As such, a set of three LT100 towers is still within the allowed spatial distance of ~1.5 m; however, the fourth tower adds another 1.5 m for the four towers to approximately be at 0/1.5/1.5/3 m along the same axis. You can also have the third and fourth towers as corners of a triangular setup, which is really the best setup for a three-tower set in my opinion (think of two towers on either side of your monitor and the third behind the monitor pointing towards the wall).


The relatively premium-feeling base and tower units unfortunately make the provided headset holder accessory come off as an afterthought. Its molded plastic construction and double-sided adhesive tape for fixture do not help, and I am not convinced the adhesive tape is strong enough to support many full-sized headsets. I have none here to test it out, again because there is at least an ocean between me and the rest of my gear, but it is better than nothing, I suppose.