Nzxt smart device review in Spanish (full analysis)

NZXT Smart Device features
Resource Monitor
Full screen mode
Equipment information panel
Fan and cooling management
Adaptive noise reduction with Smart Device
RGB control
Other CAM functionalities together with NZXT Smart Devcice
FPS meter
Overclocking
Smartphone app
Final words and conclusion about NZXT Smart device

NZXT is not only good at designing chassis and other gaming-oriented products, it also wants to equip them with intelligence for component management. NZXT Smart Device is the microcontroller in charge of providing this intelligence to the chassis with the brand's “i” logo, such as our NZXT H500i. Thanks to it we can control its lighting, provide an adaptive fan configuration and thanks to the CAM software that it incorporates, we can even monitor the state of our equipment, in addition to other interesting utilities. We will see in this article what Smart Device is capable of, Let's get started!

We must thank NZXT for giving us its chassis to carry out the Smart Device tests

NZXT Smart Device features

Currently there are a large number of programs and devices that are able to more or less accurately monitor the operation of our equipment, view temperatures and control the speed of the fans to adapt them to the temperatures of the components of our equipment.

In this sense, the chassis already implement in most cases physical controllers to allow us to modify the fan speeds or control the RGB lighting mode with a button. NZXT has gone a step further, or rather, a few, to create an intelligent chassis capable of significantly expanding these functions.

Smart Device is a microcontroller that, thanks to the free software of the brand, NZXT CAM, will have the ability to record the noise produced by the ventilation of our chassis to intelligently adapt their speed and performance to the best possible cooling, but always with as little noise as possible.

And not only this, since it will be able to provide intelligence with the RGB lighting of our chassis to mark temperatures, audio output and even FPS. You will also have the ability to monitor such important aspects as the resources of our equipment, CPU, graphics card to know the state of the equipment at all times through the graphic interface of CAM.

Smart Device is incorporated into the chassis with the brand's distinctive “i”. And the software can be downloaded for free from the official website. At the time of this review it is found in version 3.5.9 and the firmware version is 1.07 for our chassis. After installation, it will automatically detect the hardware of our equipment together with Smart Device to start managing it. Among its main characteristics are:

Intelligent airflow and noise management tool in the chassis Performance HUD monitor from our team. CPU, GPU, fans and Hard disk Fan performance customization (connected to the microcontroller) RGB lighting control (connected to microcontroller) Information panel of all the information of our system FPS and gaming performance meter Utility for overclocking to the graphics card Android app or iOS for remote control

We can see that it has a large number of applications. Next, we will see each of them in more detail to see their performance, of course

Resource Monitor

The first option that we have in this NZXT CAM is a resource monitor where we will have the following information displayed in real time:

CPU: Temperature, Load, Clock Speed, and Fan RPM GPU: Temperature, Load, Clock Speed, and Fan RPM RAM: Load Storage: Installed hard drives and occupied and free space

The panel is extremely clean and clear to read and we also have an option to display these results in graphical form in order to have better control.

To check if these results are really valid, we have compared them with another program that we know are working correctly. This is HWiNFO.

As we can see, the results are practically identical, so the software we are testing works perfectly.

Full screen mode

If we access the full screen mode using the button located in the task bar, we will be able to see much more complete information about our team. Such as the performance of RAM memory, voltages, core graphics, network status, etc.

The information is very useful and very well structured, perhaps from programs with a better representation of it.

Equipment information panel

This panel shows us a little more detailed information than seen in the previous section. As for example architecture of our processor, motherboard, hours of operation of hard drives, information about RAM, among other things.

It is not too much information, but the truth is that all that is shown is very useful and well structured, we hardly need any more for a glance of the characteristics of our equipment.

Fan and cooling management

NZXT Smart Device ventilation

From this section we can manage the operating curve of our fans. The number of fans to manage will be the one that the Smart Device supports. In our case we have three installed and connected directly to the chassis so those will be the ones that we can manage, in addition to the graphics card in the overclocking section.

Selecting a fan or all, we can choose a preset profile or create a custom one, it is very intuitive and simple. We can configure the operating curve according to the temperature of the GPU or the CPU. Depending on what we choose in the right part of the window.

Without a doubt, what we are missing is being able to also manage the CPU fan, just as we can do with the graphics card fan. For this, we would need to have the fan connected directly to the microcontroller.

This functionality is offered by many motherboards with their software and this is why the Smart Device has gone one step further, and it is the true utility of the microcontroller as we will see below.

Adaptive noise reduction with Smart Device

With this latest functionality, NZXT CAM will perform a performance analysis on our equipment at maximum load. In this way, the Smart Device can automatically configure the operating profile of the fans so that the best relationship between performance and noise is established within the chassis. It is without a doubt the most attractive option available to you, and the true meaning and usefulness of this device. Let's see how it goes.

To start the software data collection process we will have to go to the last section of the software and click on Start. The program will alternate process with the equipment under maximum load and under minimum load.

NZXT Smart Device smart analysis

As we can see, it takes the temperatures of both the graphics card and the CPU, although at the dates of this review the ambient temperatures are quite cold and after a process of stress from the team we have obtained quite low temperatures. We also see that the chassis is continuously at about 54 dB

Well, once the smart profile is defined, we will subject our team to maximum stress. We start from a resting state with the CPU at 22 degrees and the GPU at 27 degrees. All three fans in the chassis are off and the rest are on. We have used FurMark software to continuously stress the graphics card and see how fans respond with smart mode.

After 30 minutes of stress to this, we have verified that the temperature, reaching 73 degrees, has remained approximately at this level all the time.

We have also performed a stress test on both CPU and GPU with the aim of being more exhaustive in the response of the smart mode of Smart Device. The problem in this case is that we have not been able to raise the temperature of the CPU, despite being at maximum load due to the heatsink that it has installed. This is shown, in addition to the temperature graph, on the RPM graph.

We must say that at the moment of starting the tests, all the fans have started to increase the air flow. In this way, constant maintenance of temperatures and noise has been ensured.

NZXT Smart Device Graphics

Based on the results obtained, we can say that the software together with the Smart Device work correctly, although the truth is that the temperature limit of the graphics card is kept too high. In this regard, we do not know if it is really the Smart Device that is responding or if it is the graphics itself.

These tests are pending to repeat for really demanding ambient temperatures and see if clearly Smart Device also does its job as we have seen here.

RGB control

Without a doubt, this is another section where we will spend more time. NZXT CAM has a huge number of control profiles for the RGB lighting strips installed in our chassis. Obviously, these bands must be connected to the Smart Device to be manageable.

NZXT Smart Device lighting

It will be best to quickly comment on the most interesting types of functions in a list:

Custom lighting settings (PRESET tab): we choose the colors and animations. Temperature monitor SMART mode: the lighting will vary depending on the temperature, either from the CPU or from the GPU. We can modify the color scale CUSTOM mode: we can change the colors of each LED of each lighting band one by one AUDIO mode: the lighting will be synchronized with the audio output of the system GAME mode: it is supposed to be activated automatically when we are playing to monitor the character's health

All modes work perfectly except GAME, at least for Far Cry which is where we have played. So we assume that the list of compatible games will be a bit out of date. Nor is a gaming mode interesting in this regard.

Other CAM functionalities together with NZXT Smart Devcice

FPS meter

NZXT Smart Device FPS

One of the features that we hoped to test with the most interest of this NZXT CAM was precisely this, the possibility of measuring our FPS during games. If we go to the configuration panel we can configure the different options of this tool as if it were FRAPS.

We will be able to show quite complete information about our team wherever we want on the screen. We can also configure the hotkeys to activate or deactivate the CAM Overlay utility to show the statistics in real time also in-game.

With the corresponding button on the panel, we can monitor a graph of FPS, its average, CPU temperature and CPU. In our tests with the team, this tool was not shown while we were playing, although it has worked correctly from the panel that has the program incorporated.

In this aspect it still needs more development so that this type of errors do not occur, but the utility works well and gives complete information.

Overclocking

Through this section we can overclock our graphics card. It seems that we will not have the possibility to do it to the RAM or the CPU. Through this utility we can raise the power limit, core frequency and VRAM memory frequency. The operation is very simple and intuitive and gives us detailed information on recommendations depending on the brand of our graphics card.

In addition to this, we can also control the operating profile of the graphics card fan and adapt it to a personalized one. Right below we will have information about the status of the GPU to have it controlled at all times.

Smartphone app

Regarding the extra functions of the program, we could comment on the possibility of configuring the notifications of it to inform us of critical temperatures.

We also have a Smartphone application on both iOS and Android to monitor the state of our equipment. For this we will need to be registered with a user account in the program on both devices. Apparently we cannot modify parameters from this application to see them reflected in our team.

Final words and conclusion about NZXT Smart device

NZXT CAM is really interesting software for users who have a brand chassis with Smart Device installed. We believe its use is mandatory, of course. It's free and provides tons of useful information about the equipment and features to get the most out of the hardware and chassis possibilities.

After tests, we have determined that the Smart Control function of Smart Device works correctly, although we see some shortcomings in terms of CPU fan management. On the other hand, it keeps the temperature of the graphics card very high. It seems to prioritize noise over temperature. Obviously if we want a quieter team.

The most outstanding aspects of this are undoubtedly its clean interface, very easy to manage and interact with it and the large number of options that it brings, which is not only limited to configuring the equipment fans and RGB lighting. And we have an app for our Smartphone from which we can monitor the status of the equipment. Although it is true that this could be made more of in the future.

We leave you with what in our opinion are the advantages and disadvantages that we have seen in this Smart Device together with CAM

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ INTUITIVE AND VERY WELL ORGANIZED INTERFACE	- CANNOT CONFIGURE CPU FAN PROFILE
+ INTELLIGENT ADJUSTMENT WORKS WELL	- GRAPHIC CARD TEMPERATURES TOO HIGH
+ VERY COMPLETE MONITORING OF THE EQUIPMENT
+ VERY COMPLETE LIGHTING CUSTOMIZATION
+ HAS OVERCLOCKING TOOL AND FPS COUNTER