Roccat Peripherals at CES

Wrapping up the last of my Tuesday meetings (yes, I’m that far behind – I blame the “black plague” that I picked up that knocked me out for the weekend), Roccat – pronounced “rocket” apparently and not “ro-cat” like I’ve been saying in my head for years – had some new keyboards, mice, and headsets to show off at CES. While they don’t have RGB LED backlighting for their Cherry MX keyboards (yet?), they did have a keyboard with Cherry MX keys and per-key backlighting, and as a further cool feature they had a smartphone app called Light FZ that could control the intensity, patterns, and other aspects of the backlighting. I believe the app will work with their other devices as well, offering different features depending on the device. In the mice department, Roccat like others commented on the laser vs. optical question, and apparently they’re weighing in more on the optical side of the argument. They also had a trio of new Naval Storm mice sporting military garb.

Roccat also has several new headsets coming to market, along with some earbuds. At the high-end is a set of open-back headphones offerings 5.1 surround sound via USB, with a controller hub to provide easy access to volume control. Moving down the range was another set of headphone without the USB support (so analog input only), followed by a 2.1 set geared more for the music and movies market. I’m not the best one to rate quality of headphones, so I won’t say much on how they sounded. They were comfortable to wear, and assuming pricing is appropriate they’re worth a look. Headsets are a crowded market, and coming up with differentiating factors can be quite difficult, but Roccat is a relatively respected name in the computer gaming industry and I certainly wouldn’t mind wearing a pair of their cans given the chance.