Dynamic Lighting

Hardware makers, particularly those that serve video game fans, have long provided customizable multicolored RGB lighting capabilities in their mice, keyboards, game controllers, and other PC hardware so that customers can have a more immersive visual experience that extends past the screen. But these solutions are unique to each hardware maker, with each requiring a separate configuration app, making it difficult to mix and match peripherals from different companies.

Windows 11 version 23H2 introduces a solution to this fragmentation problem via a new Dynamic lighting feature that centralizes the management and control of the RGB lighting across all of your compatible devices. Now, you can easily apply the same RGB lighting effect to multiple devices at once, regardless of which company made each. And you can do so without installing any third-party apps.
Dynamic lighting requires hardware makers to make their products compatible with this feature. Microsoft maintains a list of compatible products on its Microsoft Learn website, but it's always out-of-date, and so you are better off consulting with individual hardware makers. Leading RGB lighting companies like ASUS ROG, Razer, and others each have their own lists of compatible products.
Get to know Dynamic lighting
When you connect an RGB lighting device to your PC, the Settings app will display a notification banner if it's compatible with Dynamic lighting.

You can then click the "Setup" button on the notification to open the Settings app and view the Dynamic Lighting page. But you can configure Dynamic lighting and any compatible devices at any time by opening Settings and navigating to Personalization > Dynamic Lighting.

Each compatible device is represented by a card at the top of this Settings page. You can click a device card to view and configure Dynamic lighting features for just that device. Or, you can access the same options under "Manage all dynamic lighting devices" to view and configure Dynamic lighting features for all connected devices at once.

Those options are:

Use Dynamic Lighting. This option is a toggle for Dynamic Lighting (globally or by device), and it is configured to "On" by default. If you only use RGB lighting products from a single manufacture and prefer their configuration software, you can change this to "Off."

Compatible apps in the foreground always control lighting. This option determines how Dynamic lighting interoperates with the configuration app provided by your RGB lighting product maker, if installed. When set to "On," Windows 11 will give precedence to the third-party app when it's running alongside a game or other app, ignoring the Dynamic lighting configuration; otherwise the Dynamic lighting configuration will be used. But if it's set to "Off" (and "Use Dynamic Lighting" is "On"), Windows 11 will ignore the third-party configuration app.

Background light control. Third-party RGB lighting apps can also run in t...