Review: Quntis RGB Pro+ light bar with wireless controller and premium craftsmanship

Over the years, I have noticed that more people are using light bars on "post your workstation" threads on forums and social media. Personally, they never appealed to me, but the more that time went on, the more curious I got, as I often find myself editing or gaming in the dark with only some corner uplighters for illumination.

I wanted something a bit more focused, just lighting up the desk area or the wall behind the monitor. Enter the light bar...

... More specifically, a message from Quntis offering a look at one of their new models, the RGB Pro+.

Look and feel

Out of the box, the RGB Pro+ kit consists of the light bar, mounting base, USB-C cable and the wireless controller puck. Three AAA batteries are included, and these seem to last a very long time, as at the time of writing, I have had the light bar on long-term daily use for just over two months.

The controller has an orange LED that is always on, even though the batteries are still going. Both the bar and the controller are made of a mixture of materials. The bar's metal shell contains some plastic and rubber, whilst the controller has tempered glass on the top fascia for the touch controls, surrounded by what feels like sandblasted aluminium all around the edge, giving it a premium feel.

The underside has very grippy anti-slip pads, and due to the weight of 3x AAA batteries, there is an additional element of premium feel from the extra heft.

The styling and overall craftsmanship seem to be well executed, too. All branding is subtle, nothing is too over the top, and because there are no glossy or reflective distractions, it all just blends nicely into any desktop setup.

The mounting base offers a range of length and height adjustments to suit multiple types of monitor frames and bezels, again, further evidence that Quntis is considering potential complications. The USB cable is detachable, so you could use a shorter or longer Type-C cable if needed.

It all seems to be rather excellent quality, given the price.

The controller

There is no dedicated app for the RGB Pro+; everything is done via the wireless controller.

The buttons are capacitive touch areas on the glass panel; the left mode button controls the brightness, and the right mode button controls the colour tone.

Long-pressing and holding either button increments the brightness or colour in single steps; quick pressing will increment them via four built-in preset ranges. For colour, these presets are 6500K, 5000K, 4000K and 3000K.

The centre touch button turns the light bar on or off, with the RGB presets button just below it to cycle through the various RGB lighting modes for the backside LEDs.

The controller LEDs emit a soft whining noise for as long as the adjustment indicators are on. They go off after a few seconds, and the whining noise goes away with them. It's a hard noise to capture on camera, so trust me on this one—my ears are sensitive to such things!

The light bar

The RGB Pro+ consists of two illumination areas. The front of the bar houses the LED array; this is what the colour temperature range adjustment is for. Quntis claim a maximum brightness of 832 lux, which I am pleased to say seems about right. There is plenty of illumination, to the point that I often lower the brightness a few notches for my own personal comfort.

The backside is where a dua -bank of RGB LEDs resides to illuminate the wall behind the monitor as well as the ceiling, depending on your configuration (more on this later). This gives eye strain relief and provides a nice level of ambience against the frontal illumination area.

Here's how it can look in practice:

The above photo shows the RGB lights set to the white preset and the main LEDs set to a warm white tone. The illumination surface area is wide enough to comfortably cover beyond my 1.8-meter-long desk, and the spill is wide enough to even highlight my speakers.

Unlike the controller, I found that at no brightness setting did the light bar emit any whining noise.

This example shows the RGB preset set to one of the multi-colour modes, whilst keeping the front lighting at a medium white tone and slightly lower brightness.

Even though this light bar is not curved, I found no problems using it on my 32" curved QD-OLED monitor. The 1800R curve is subtle enough not to be an issue it seems, though people with more aggressive curves may wish to look at dedicated light bars for curved monitors.

If set up right, then there's no glare from the main LEDs, at least on my desktop anyway. Take a look below, this was taken at exact eye level with how I sit at the desk:

You don't have to have the bar in front of the monitor, though. I was able to place it beyond the monitor and aim the main lighting downwards, leaving the RGB lighting to light up the wall and ceiling behind the monitor:

This configuration is what I found the most pleasing, though your mileage may vary. It provides a soft diffused illumination of the wall directly behind, whilst still lighting up my desk area enough to be able to see what I'm doing in the dark.

Perfect for those late-night editing sessions.

As well as conforming to the IEEE and IEC standards, Quntis says that the RGB Pro+ also emites zero harmful blue light, a welcome touch, though it's likely that most people don't use the reading mode on their displays anyway so how much this mitigates any blue light issues is uncertain in the grand scheme of things.

Conclusion

The RGB Pro+ was a nice surprise. It is my first hands-on with a light bar after putting them off for so long. I fully expected to box it back up and give it to a niece or nephew as they have recently got deep into the desktop build rabbit hole... Yet here I am, using it daily, adjusting the colour and brightness each day depending on my varying use cases.

These are simple products with very little process involved in getting up and running. An external power supply is not even needed; this is being powered by the USB port built into the monitor, for example.

The RGB Pro+ is affordable and high-quality, and the remote controller is not only convenient but has a seemingly never-ending battery life.

There isn't much to complain about really, but if I were to nitpick, then it would be nice to have a couple of memory slots to store custom presets, especially useful for those like me who do the same sort of editing and prefer a certain colour tone and brightness for the lighting.

The Quntis RGB Pro+ light bar is currently available for £58.99 in the U.K. or for $61.99 in the U.S.