Razer Is Making a Gaming Haptic Pad for Your Chair | Lifehacker

Following Razer’s wide release of its controversial Snap Tap feature earlier this week, which arguably gives owners of its keyboards such an advantage in some games that Valve has banned it from Counter-Strike 2, the company is now announcing even more pro-level hardware. This includes the expected pro update to its Kraken V4 headset, but more interestingly, there’s also new tech like a laptop cooling stand and what I can only describe as a gaming massage pad. 

Kraken V4 Pro

Credit: Razer

The Kraken V4 Pro is the most obvious announcement here, giving the existing Kraken V4 headset an OLED control hub that puts it in closer competition with the likes of other premium headsets like the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro. There’s also 9-zone RGB, as is typical of Razer, and conveniently, the option to connect via Bluetooth, USB, a 3.5mm cable, or Razer’s 2.4 GHz Hyperspeed wireless dongle. Active noise canceling is absent, and in its place are the same vibrational motors that give the headset rumble features akin to a controller. Razer makes a big deal of the immersion these provide, but at $399, that price tag is still a big ask for a headset without ANC.

Razer laptop cooling pad

Credit: Razer

Also a somewhat big ask is the new, $149 laptop cooling pad, which is essentially a laptop riser with fans built in and a USB hub included along its backside. Razer’s rendition aims to be more premium than the $30 versions you can buy from generic brands on Amazon, also coming equipped with a dust filter and three magnetic frames to ensure a tighter air seal with various sizes of laptops, plus adjustable motors with “smart cooling” that automatically changes fan speeds to balance noise with cooling.

Razer promises the cooling pad can lower temperatures by as much as 16 degrees and that noise is low thanks to a “vacuum tight” air seal, although time will tell—this type of device needs testing more than most, especially with such a premium attached to it.

Razer Freyja

Credit: Razer

Razer’s most exciting announcement, surprisingly, is more reasonably priced for what you get. Finally, Razer’s taking one of its more promising CES concepts and making it real. Originally teased earlier this year as Project Esther, the Razer Freyja bills itself as “the world’s first HD haptics gaming cushion,” and while there have been a small handful of similar products before, it does offer a lot for its $299 price point.

Rather than needing you to buy a whole haptic gaming chair, the Freyja is more like a massage pad, so you can lay it out over a chair you already own. Straps are adjustable to help it fit different chairs, and there are six haptic motors around the device, plus a control panel to adjust the intensity of the haptics.

I actually got to try the Freyja out when it was still the Esther, where I was impressed by its versatility. In Street Fighter 6, I felt hadoukens as they flew across the screen, and each punch genuinely made an impact on me. It wasn’t as simple as a binary on/off, too, as the direction and position of attacks and characters played into what I felt.

Credit: Razer

This works thanks to audio haptics, which means the pad can automatically generate vibrations based on the game’s audio, so you don’t have to worry about whether your game specifically supports the Freyja. Instead, the pad will use factors like bass intensity and which channel sound is coming out of to decide how to use its motors. It’s similar to how the vibration on the Kraken V4 Pro works, and this also means you can use the Freyja with music and movies, too. Still, Razer said it’s working with the devs of games like Hogwarts Legacy to design haptic experiences specifically for the Freyja, which is where its “HD” claims come in.

The Freyja connects over either Bluetooth or a Razer Hyperspeed 2.4 GHz wireless dongle, although it does need a cable for power. For safety, the cable is quick-release, so you won’t trip over it if you need to quickly get up.

Both the Freyja and the Kraken V4 Pro are available starting today, although a release date for the laptop cooling pad still has yet to be decided.