Haptic Gaming Cushion For Your Chair

Summary

• Razer Freyja works on Windows 10 or 11 PCs and Android devices, but has limited native game support.
• Setup involves securing the cushion on a chair, supplying power, and connecting to an app.
• Freyja attempts to enhance gaming immersion with Audio-to-Haptics, but most of the time it falls flat and using the product when listening to music can become annoying.

Razer’s Freyja HD is a unique haptic chair cushion that lets you feel the direction, distance, and location of real-time audio events from your PC or Android device. While it works, the implementation and limited support lessen much of its impact.

Price and Availability

The Razer Freyja HD haptic gaming chair cushion is available from Amazon, Best Buy, or direct from Razer for $300. In the box is the cushion, 2.4 GHz HyperSpeed USB-A wireless dongle, AC power adapter with quick-release connection, and some paperwork.

The cushion works on a Windows 10 or 11 PC with the Razer Synapse app via the USB-A wireless dongle. It also works on Android-based devices using the Synapse Nexus app via Bluetooth Low Energy, including Google Fast Pair. The cushion needs to be wired to a power source via its included AC adapter to function with any supported device.

Setup and Connectivity: PC and Android

I placed the cushion on my Cougar Armor EVO M chair, which has a relatively standard design. The two elastic backrest straps and one seat strap clicked easily into place and helped secure the Freyja. The Cougar has a thick removable lumbar cushion, which didn’t work well with the Freyja.

I could have used the Freyja without a lumbar cushion behind it, but my lower back didn’t care for that configuration, so I put a thinner lumbar cushion in its place.

The Freyja doesn’t add much bulk, but the roughly 1.58 inches of extra cushioning is noticeable on the backrest and seat, and can throw off the ergonomics of your chair. As such, you’ll almost certainly want to do some fine-tuning on your chair’s controls with the Freyja in place. Even with some adjustments, I never ended up preferring sitting on the Freyja full-time, just when gaming. I liked the extra cushioning underneath me, but the backrest felt awkward and never quite right.

The power port cable comes out of the left side of the chair and can be fed into cable management loops. The power adapter is then attached to the power port cable and plugged into a power outlet.

There are four buttons on the left of the Freyja’s backrest for power, increasing haptic intensity, decreasing haptic intensity, and for switching sources between the Razer HyperSpeed Wireless Dongle and Bluetooth connections. The buttons are flat, hard to press, and commit the cardinal sin of being black on black which makes them hard to see. There are, however, indicator lights for power and Bluetooth.

To connect to my Windows 11 desktop PC, I inserted the Razer HyperSpeed Wireless Dongle into a USB-A port on the front of the computer and opened the Razer Synapse app that I already had installed for my other Razer brand devices.

The Freyja tab on the Synapse app is where you’ll find basic controls for haptic intensity in the upper back, lower back, right leg, and left leg zones, as well as overall haptic intensity with a slider from low to high. A button to launch the Sensa HD Haptics module provides additional configuration options.

Launching the Sensa HD Haptics module provides access to more features, including switching between Audio-to-Haptics and Sensa HD Games. Audio-to-Haptics, which is the default, lets the Freyja automatically react to any system audio.

There are four different Audio-to-Haptics profiles to choose from. Controlled is the default and offers a deep, bass-focused profile, which rarely triggers for voice or in-game chat. Balanced smooths out the response for mild scenes and may trigger haptics for voice and in-game chat. Dynamic is the most intense and will more often trigger haptics for voice and in-game chat. Custom lets you set your own preferences.

The Sensa HD Games option provides native support for a small selection of PC games. Since haptic support is built-in to these games, no adjustments other than haptic vibration strength are possible.

Using Freyja on Android requires you to install the Razer Nexus app and pair via Bluetooth. There’s a section of 18 Audio Haptics-enabled games you can download or purchase from Google Play, which, in theory, allow you to have the same experience you’d get on a Windows PC.

Unfortunately, I was never able to get it to work right with my Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra, but on paper it’s supposed to work the same as on PC with any source of audio. The main difference between Android and PC support is that, with Android, you can only control haptic intensity from the two buttons on the cushion rather than via software.

Immersion: Games and Music

For most use cases, you’ll have the haptic source set to Audio-to-Haptics, which is universal for everything but Sensa HD Games. The response across a variety of games and music ranged from impressive to annoying.

I tested a few non-Sensa HD games: Fortnite, Metal Slug Tactics, Diablo IV, and Dave the Diver. In a battle royale game like Fortnite, where there’s not constant driving bass unless certain music occasionally plays, the haptics are quite effective.

Freyja responded to every gun blast, busting through doors, explosions, the rumble of the train, when someone is floating behind you in the air after jumping off the Battle Bus, the rumble of car engines, and more. All of these haptics did a surprisingly good job of letting me know what direction the sound was coming from like gun blasts being felt in the backrest area.

For Metal Slug Tactics, which is a turn-based strategy game, other than feeling some of the music in the Freyja, only significant in-game events like gunshots and explosions are felt. As with Fortnite, this increases the impact and immersion of such in-game events. The only thing I didn’t care for was that the relatively persistent background music caused a regular low rumble in the seat cushion.

Diablo IV tends to rely on bass-heavy sound effects, so there were quite a few low rumbles in the seat. I felt every melee attack, every spell cast, and every potion drunk. Dave the Diver, in contrast, didn’t feature much nuance. The background music created a constant vibration, with the spear gun setting off additional haptic impacts from the Freyja. It’s an example of a game with little benefit from what Freyja offers.

Like with the Razer Kraken V4 Pro headphones, which also feature haptic effects, there are a handful of native Sensa HD Games that are meant to showcase what’s possible on the Freyja. Even now, only five of the 20 listed games are supported. These are: Hogwarts Legacy, Silent Hill 2, Final Fantasy XVI, Vendetta Online, and Frostpunk 2.

Unfortunately, just like when I reviewed the Razer Kraken V4 Pro, Frostpunk 2 didn’t work with haptics, which left me with Hogwarts Legacy from my collection of Sensa HD-enabled games.

As with the headphones, you can feel the “shape” and path of spells cast in Hogwarts Legacy, which is a wonderful effect. Unfortunately, unlike with the THX Spatial Audio support for the Razer Kraken V4 Pro’s, there’s nothing else special about Hogwarts Legacy when used with Freyja.

In fact, no other in-game events, including cut-scenes, trigger haptics. When it’s there, it’s wonderfully immersive, but it leaves you wanting so much more, like what you get with Audio-to-Haptics when not overpowered by background music. If only there was some happy middle-ground.

For music, I tested Audio-to-Haptics with Spotify set to its best streaming quality. A song like Aimee Mann’s That’s Just What You Are starts out promising with the opening drum beat, but less than 10 seconds in, it devolves into a constant vibration. Alanis Morrissette’s 2015 Remaster of Hand in My Pocket is a better example, as every bass hit creates an impact in the pad, but it too eventually devolves into something of a muddled mess.

Similarly, a newer song with a constant bassline, like Chela’s Hard 4 You, causes a constant vibration, with each hard drum hit creating an additional, larger impact on the pad. It’s certainly an interesting experience for the type of music like this you’d find in a dance club, but the Freyja is still not something I’d ever want to use for music. In short, if a song has any type of bass, even if it underlies the entirety of the song, the Freyja will specifically respond to that, which quickly proves irritating.

What’s unfortunate is that Freyja clearly has the ability to accurately respond to a wide frequency range, like when you use a bass demo on YouTube, which goes from 10 hz to 50 hz. It just seems that Razer hasn’t quite figured out how to more practically implement what the technology is capable of, which is shown even in how little difference using different profiles or adjusting vibration strength often makes.

Another irritation, particularly after long gaming sessions, is the Freyja’s fabric material. It’s not particularly breathable, so it tends to trap heat. You also have to be careful not to spill anything on the Freyja as it’s not washable (though you can wipe it down).

Should You Buy the Razer Freyja?

“Freyja” is one of the most well-known Norse goddesses, associated with love, fertility, war, and magic, the latter of which relates to seeing and influencing the future. Unfortunately, the Razer Freyja doesn’t really live up to its name.

When it works, it’s magical. But that magic proves illusory with how clumsy the overall implementation is. Limited compatibility, being practically useless outside of gaming, the clunky placement on top of an existing chair, and a tendency to vibrate either too much or not enough, all add up to a product that feels more like an expensive gimmick than an essential accessory.