Every gift guide you’ll find this year will have a huge number of headsets, keyboards, mice, and other accessories for a gamer of every age and platform preference. We wanted to take a moment to look at some gifts that will truly be something that a gamer never knew they wanted! There’s a lot of RGB-enabled stuff on this year’s gift guide but with so many gamers shifting into online streaming, they certainly could use some decorations to spice up their streaming backdrops!
DropLabs EP 01
Chances are, the gamer you’re shopping for already has a headset in mind for their console of choice (and if not, definitely check out our gift guide for 5 perfect headsets!). One gift they certainly won’t be expecting is a pair of shoes that can link together with their music and gaming for a whole body sensory experience. The DropLabs EP 01 are a fantastic pair of shoes with embedded speakers that react in sync with whatever you’re listening to, whether you’re listening to music, watching a Michael Bay film, or playing a game on the go. These sync together with any Bluetooth 4.2 capable device, or with an optional $24 Low-Latency Sync Cable, can be hooked up in line with anything that offers a 3.5mm cable. With compatibility with most VR headsets, both next-gen consoles, and so much more, the possibilities are endless.
Price: $299.99
Selk’bag Lite 6G
Move over 5G, 6G is the new must-have tech addition for gamers. Depending on where you live in the world, winter will soon be approaching and that means you’re going to need some way to stay warm when your hot streak starts coming to an end. As the winter months are starting to roll in here in Ohio, I’ve been using the Selk’bag Lite 6G for a few weeks and despite looking like the strange crossbreed between a sauna suit and a Snuggie, it’s been insanely comfortable to just lounge around and get some late night Black Ops matches in. If the world was in the right state for midnight launches for the new consoles, this is the kind of outfit I’d wear to make it through the cold hours. It even comes with removable booties if you want to wear the Selk’bag Lite 6G around the house and not get cold feet! Could be a nice gift even for non-gamers.
Price: $99.99
Razer Kraken BT Kitty Edition
Razer’s mantra of installing RGB on every device they make certainly hasn’t missed their line of headsets. Their Kraken headsets for PC were a huge hit when they launched with online influencers and they even released a set of clip-on cat ears to accessorize the popular gaming headset. Now, Razer has combined their love for pink cats and RGB together in a unique headset that puts those cheap Brookstone models to shame. The Razer Kraken BT edition headset is a comfortable Bluetooth gaming headset that features two internal beamforming mics for clear voice chat on streams as well as up to 50 hours of battery life (20+ if you opt to leave the RGB lighting on for the cat ears and earcups). The headset also features a low latency gaming mode if mobile gaming is your passion and you don’t want to miss an enemy sneaking up on you.
Price: $99.99
Twinkly Smart Decorations
Continuing the trend of RGB lighting for gamers, Twinkly has recently launched a set of sound-reactive curtain lights that can make for a great backdrop for Twitch streams or even around the house for those small group get-togethers this Holiday season. The new Twinkly Music USB dongle can even take any music source and provide a reactive backdrop to your holiday parties or Twitch streams. With Razer Chroma RGB integration, the Twinkly suite of smart lighting can loop in together with your Chroma-enabled keyboards, mice, and even those RGB Kraken BT Kitty headphones above. Great gift for the Holiday season.
Price: $54.99-199.99, $29.99 for Music attachment
Corsair iCue LT100
If the gamer in your life can spare some extra desk space and wants to turn their whole gaming setup into an audio-visual centerpiece, Logitech has some mood lighting that’s perfect for the occasion. The iCue LT100 smart lighting towers can be placed anywhere and link up to four towers together for some awesome ambient lighting. Each tower comes with 46 addressable RGB LEDs that can synchronize with the whole computer system via the iCue software, react to audio, and even extend beyond what’s happening onscreen either beside the display or behind it for bias lighting. The $129.99 starter kit comes with everything you need to set up two LT100 towers while additional expansion towers can be purchased for $59.99 each.
Price: $129.99
Garmin Instinct Esports Watch
Normally I wouldn’t consider a watch to be gaming gear unless it can do something unique when it comes to gaming. Many modern smartwatches offer biometric readouts to analyze your heart rate and stress but they typically don’t give you an easy way to access that information especially if you’re in the middle of a high stakes Call of Duty Warzone match. Garmin’s Esports edition of the Instinct line of smartwatches remedies that with the inclusion of their STR3EAMUP! software. Through integration with OBS and other streaming software, gamers can add in their stress level, heart rate, and other biometric data into their online streams and even trigger events and overlays if their stress reaches a certain point. The Esports features aren’t limited to just streaming either; gamers can use the various biometric trackers to analyze their training routines (including real workout routines and not just some CoD bot matches) to train smarter, not harder.
Price: $299.99
Need other gift recommendations? Let us know in the comments below and we’ll seek out other items to focus on in our holiday gift guides. When all else fails, a gift card for Steam, PlayStation Network, Nintendo eShop, or the Microsoft Store all make excellent stocking stuffers when you know what console the gamer in your life plays on but don’t want to accidentally purchase them the wrong version of Call of Duty.