It’s not a butt-dial, it’s Razer’s gaming cushion

Razer brought its Project Carol concept product back to CES this year, but it's got a new name, a better design and a lot more ambition.

Simply put, Project Esther is the next iteration of Razer's gambit to make haptic feedback as mainstream as gaming headsets by tackling the specific pain points that hold it back from wider adoption.

It's not there aren't any good gaming chairs with haptic feedback. If you've got the time to look, there are. However, even then, they've rarely been cheap and your options when it comes to styles have been pretty limited.

Project Esther aims to solve two of those problems at once. Rather than being integrated with the ergonomics of any specific seat, it's a BYO solution. You bring the chair. Razer's gaming cushion will handle the rest.

On the inside, Project Esther is powered by the same Sensa tech that Razer has been dabbling with since 2018. It features 16 haptic actuators plus adjustable straps that should allow it to fit most chairs.

As with Razer's other forays into haptics, the feedback you're getting here is going to be generated by what you're hearing in a given, but there is scope for game developers to do more with the hardware if they want to.

There's no word yet on when Project Esther will make it to market nor how much the final product might cost. Still, the fact that Razer is continuing to experiment with and invest in haptic hardware like this may suggest that it's only a matter of time.