Technology

Editornote: This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter. When readers choose to buy Wirecutterindependently chosen editorial picks, Wirecutter and TechCrunch earn affiliate commissions.

New and serious gamers know that it takes a significant amount of time sharpen skills, and to strategize ways to capture high scores. Staying ahead of player 2 is easier when you have the right gaming peripherals.

A monitor with a crisp display, a responsive gaming mouse, a comfortable headset—or all of these items combined—are what you need to take your PC gaming experience to the next level. We can&t promise that new equipment will keep you at the top of the board, but the best gear with accommodating features is essential to a great setup, and to helping you try.

G-Sync Monitor: Asus ROG Swift PG279Q

For the best option to pair with a Nvidia graphics card, we recommend the Asus ROG Swift PG279Q (Amazon) G-Sync gaming monitor. At 27 inches itbig enough to give off an immersive feeling, but not so big that visuals seem overwhelming. It only works over displayport and has two connection options (HDMI 1.4 and DisplayPort 1.2a). You&ll still be able to plug in peripherals like a keyboard or phone via its built-in USB 3.0 port. We tested it with a variety of games and it performed well with them all. This monitorluminance range is also pretty wide so it&ll display images nicely if placed in dim or bright areas.

Photo: Rozette Rago

FreeSync monitor: Asus MG279Q

The Asus MG279Q (Amazon), our top FreeSync monitor pick, is best for those who use an AMD graphics card. A gaming console and computer work well with this 27-inch monitor as itpacked with connection options (one Mini DisplayPort 1.2 connection, two HDMI 1.4 connections and one DisplayPort 1.2).

We like its adjustability and that you can detach it completely from its stand. It can be mounted on a monitor arm to better accommodate different setups. Though it supports FreeSync between 35 Hz and 90 Hz, it has 1440p resolution and a standard refresh rate of 144 Hz for clear, high-quality visuals.

Photo: Rozette Rago

Headset: Kingston HyperX Cloud

The excitement that comes along with gaming is largely attached to being able to clearly hear the action. A gaming headset that can offer all-day comfort, a high-quality microphone and full sound is a headset you want to go with.

Our top pick, the Kingston HyperX Cloud (Amazon), offers all of these features and after about 30 months of testing, itheld up well. It&ll still look as good as new after being tossed around, but more importantly, its headband and ear cups don&t feel heavy or constricting. You&ll be able to play online with teammates without hearing an overlap between headset and microphone audio. Italso a decent headset for watching movies and listening to music.

Photo: Michael Hession

Mouse: Razer DeathAdder Elite

The Razer DeathAdder Elite, our top gaming mouse pick, has a design thatideal for hands of all sizes. We like that it has textured grip, and that you&re able to get comfortable with preferred settings using its customizable buttons and scroll wheel. It isn&t clunky and you won&t press the wrong buttons, as they&re intuitive and well-placed.

Aside from its RGB lights that change color, it doesn&t look much different from a mouse you&d find at a work desk. It comes with RazerSynapse software (which works on Mac and Windows), and it has an accurate, exclusive Pixart PMW3389 sensor that tracks without issue.

Photo: Kyle Fitzgerald

Keyboard: Razer BlackWidow Tournament Edition Chroma V2

Though we like the multicolored backlighting on the Razer BlackWidow Tournament Edition Chroma V2 (Amazon), theremore than a few reasons why this compact mechanical keyboard is our top recommendation. Its removable palm rest makes getting comfortable in different positions easier and it comes with a durable protective case.

Its learning curve isn&t as steep as competitors, so if the Chroma V2 is your first gaming keyboard it won&t be long before you get into the swing of things. You can set macros to specific keys and applications and use a variety of switch options. Like the Razer DeathAdder Elite gaming mouse, it uses Synapse software.

Photo: Kyle Fitzgerald

PC gaming controller: DualShock 4 Wireless Controller

Gamers who prefer playing on consoles will enjoy using a PC gaming controller with a computer. The DualShock 4 Wireless Controller (which comes with the PlayStation 4) is our top pick, because itthe most capable PC controller, as well as a few extra features: The touchpad can be used like a mouse cursor and it has an internal rechargeable battery. It connects over Bluetooth or USB and is best used with a separate gaming headset, as its audio jack doesn&t function properly with PCs.

The controller works great with Steam, though in order to get it working with MacOS or non-Steam Windows games, you&ll have to adjust some settings. We think itworth the effort for a responsive controller thatcomfortable to hold for long periods of time.

Photo: Andrew Cunningham

This guide may have been updated by Wirecutter.

Note from Wirecutter: When readers choose to buy our independently chosen editorial picks, we may earn affiliate commissions that support our work.

French startup Tempow has raised a $4 million funding round. Balderton Capital led the round, with C4 Ventures also participating. The company has been working on improving the Bluetooth protocol to make it more versatile.

Smartphones, speakers and connected devices all use Bluetooth in one way or another. There are only a handful of Bluetooth chipset manufacturers in the world, such as Qualcomm and Broadcom. While Bluetooth chips have become incredibly efficient as they use much less power than they used to, itbeen stagnant on the software front.

Tempow is a software company that wants to rewrite the Bluetooth stack from scratch. The company started with an audio profile.

Thanks to Tempowtechnology, you can connect a phone to multiple Bluetooth speakers at once. This is just a software improvement — it works with standard Bluetooth chipsets and all Bluetooth audio devices out there.

Lenovo liked this idea and licensed the technology for its Moto X4 handset. More than 5 million devices with TempowBluetooth stack have been sold.

With todayfunding round, the startup wants to tackle more use cases. For instance, Tempow wants to optimize the pairing process, enhance the security of the protocol and work on battery consumption. &Maybe you could pay using Bluetooth instead of NFC,& co-founder and CEO Vincent Nallatamby told me.

At the same time, the startup is negotiating with multiple manufacturers. You can expect to see Tempowtechnology in more devices in the future.

The company currently has 7 patents pending and just got its first patent last week. Eventually, Tempow thinks it can build a team of Bluetooth experts who push the protocol forward.

Superpedestrian, a Cambridge, Ma.-based company, has been known until now for its electric Copenhagen wheel, which a user attaches to his or her bikes and operates through an app.Itessentially a circular unit that houses a motor, a battery and sensors and is placed in the middle of the rear wheel, measuring how fast and how forcefully someone is riding and adding a little electric oomph when a bikepedals are pushed.

Riders love the wheel, but now, Superpedestrian is shifting gears. It isn&t abandoning its consumer base. Instead, ittaking the wraps off an entirely new second business that plans to use the one million kilometers of data it has amassed from Copenhagen customers to improve the offerings of urban mobility companies. More specifically, it wants to sell them hardware and software that will keep their fleets up to snuff.

It doesn&t matter if these companies are renting out electric bikes, scooter, mopeds or all three. Superpedestrian is µ vehicle& agnostic, suggests itsfounder, Assaf Biderman — who&d earlier spent 10 years working at MITSenseable City Lab. In fact, he says Superpedestrian has been quietly modeling out this business-to-business diagnostics business since nearly the companylaunch five years ago but was waiting for small motorized vehicles to gain momentum.

Now, of course, scooter and e-bike sharing services are suddenly booming. Enter Superpedestrian, which says ittime for the companies that are peppering city streets with their vehicles to improve their quality, and that Superpedestrian can help make them more reliable, easier to track, and more cost-effective over time.

Biderman is, alas, a little vague on some of the specifics. For competitive reasons, he declines to discuss how much Superpedestrian will charge for its technology or precisely how a customer like an Uber or a Spin or a Scoot would incorporate its tech into their products. He also won&t say whether Superpedestrian is already selling to any of these, or other, mobility companies already.

He is comfortable talking broadly about the sensors, embedded controllers, and software that Superpedestrian has created and protected thanks to the &dozens of patents& that the company has secured over the years, &from Japan to China to Europe to the U.S.& He suggests that what Superpedestrian has built in some ways mirrors the smarts in self-driving cars.

When a car opens in front of a rider, for example, that personnatural inclination might be to slam on the brakes, but Biderman argues they aren&t always able to do this on pedal-assist bikes, which are actuated by sensing rider pedaling but have &very limited ability when it comes to sensing what the rider is actually doing with his or her feet.&Delays in power output due to controls, or gear lag, can also prove dangerous if theexpectation is that a bike will push in synch with how the pedals are pushed. Superdestriantech gives riders more control over the bike because it ensures the power is better synchronized with pedaling motions, he says.

The technology doesn&t just protect riders. Bideman says companies that work with Superpedestrian can also better protect their products. For one thing, he says, its technology can ensure their batteries don&t overheat. (As we&ve seen with autonomous cars, laptops and mobile phones, lithium-ion batteries can, on rare occasion, catch fire and explode.)

Investors certainly like Superpedestriannew direction. The company, which employs roughly 50 people, just closed on$16.5 million in Series B1 funding expressly to introduce its products and services into the e-bike and electric scooter sharing market. Designer Tony Fadell, investing from his investment and advisory firm Future Shape, participated in the round. So did Spark Capital, General Catalyst, and Charles Kim of Extol Capital, who also serves as managing director at China Renaissance in the U.S.

The new round brings the companytotal funding to $44 million. Biderman sounds highly motivated to put it to work, too.

&Itgreat that micro mobility is becoming a reality in cities,& he says. He&d become obsessed long ago with how to squeeze more capacity out of roads, and nothing makes him happier than &one-person vehicles, because they&re occupied at 100 percent,& unlike cars that are &usually 60 to 80 percent unoccupied& and the &wrong scale as cities become more congested.&

Still, he continues, these new vehicles &need to have a different brain in them.& If he has his way, Superpedestrian will design it.