EMB 1/5 1pm et | Razer
Razer’s lineup of gaming chairs is expanding into new territory with the Enki Pro HyperSense, a chair that can vibrate and wobble to the action happening in your games and movies. This model houses a haptic engine near the wheels that should deliver jolts of haptic feedback through the chair. Additionally, the Enki Pro HyperSense should tilt backward or lift you vertically by 1.5 inches with around 1G of force. It’s all done with up to a 5ms response time.
If this sounds familiar, what Razer’s going for is similar to D-Box’s movie theater seats that can rumble and move. In fact, Razer collaborated with D-Box to incorporate the haptics and movements into the Enki Pro HyperSense. Razer’s seems to differ in one key way: it’s on wheels. The Enki Pro HyperSense is still very much a computer chair but with some extra features, to put it lightly.
The big question with this chair is compatibility, which is a funny sentence to write. Razer says that over 2,200 games, movies, and music tracks offer native support. That seems like a lot, but in terms of games, Razer only shared Forza Horizon 5, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and F1 2021 as a couple of examples that will work. As it turns out, Razer’s mostly quoting games that are listed on D-Box’s page of compatible games. If Razer is leaving it up to D-Box, adding support for more games might be out of its control.
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A look at the haptics engine inside of the Enki Pro HyperSense. What’s not shown are the wires you’ll need to power it and connect to your PC.
To that end, it’s unclear whether Razer will ask owners of the Enki Pro HyperSense to download D-Box’s Game Center software, which can add specific motion codes to supported games to make them work with D-Box chairs or if it’s incorporating these features into its Synapse PC software. We’ve reached out for clarification.
The somewhat good news for PC gamers, though, is that the Enki Pro HyperSense can at least guarantee haptic feedback and movement via Direct Input haptics, “where controller, keyboard and mouse inputs will generate physical feedback when used.” The video demo that we saw showed the chair tilting forward while pressing the W key, to the left with the A key, and back with the S key. Seems fun, though potentially less immersive than having the chair responding to, say, explosions.
This chair was announced alongside Project Sophia, Razer’s CES 2022 concept that envisions a gaming desk that has a PC built into it, complete with a big screen attached to it. Razer didn’t share a price for the Enki Pro HyperSense as a spokesperson told The Verge that it’s technically still a concept product, but compared to Project Sophia, it sure seems a lot more real.
Razer isn’t the only gaming computer with skin in the vibrating chair game, though. Cooler Master teased a D-Box collaboration a few months back, but it’s yet to do a full reveal as Razer has at CES 2022.