Razer Chroma adds new Amazon Alexa capabilities

Various companies are revealing significant crossovers with their services and devices at CES 2019 and Razer isn't being left out of the collaboration game. In addition to the new lineup of gaming laptops coming and the haptic ecosystem called HyperSense, Razer is bringing Amazon Alexa compatibility to devices via Razer Synapse 3.

“We’re thrilled to work with Razer and provide customers a first-of-its-kind integration that showcases how Alexa can enhance the gaming experience," VP of Alexa Voice Service Pete Thompson said in the press release for the announcement. "With Alexa, users can control compatible Razer peripherals while taking full advantage of other Alexa capabilities, including the ability to manage smart devices, access tens of thousands of skills and more.”

Razer Synapse 3 is the company's unified hardware configuration tool and gamers in the US and Canada will be able to set up Alexa voice-control for Razer devices within it sometime in Q2 2019. Simply, users will be able to control compatible devices by speaking through Razer headsets, standalone microphones, and laptop mics. The list of connected devices that will be able to function with this new capability includes devices from AMD, AOC, LSI, ViewSonic, and more. Here are a few examples taken from the press release:

“Alexa, ask Chroma to change my lighting profile to FPS mode.”
“Alexa, sync all of my devices to my team color.”
“Alexa, ask Chroma to start Overwatch”
“Alexa, ask Razer Synapse to decrease my DPI to 200.”
“Alexa, ask Razer to change Audio settings to Movie mode.”

“This is an amazing look forward for Razer into a future for gamers where the full potential of gaming gear is seamless and intuitively controlled through voice activation, synchronization, and connected cloud services,” says Razer Co-Founder and CEO Min-Liang Tan. “Razer Chroma is an incredibly powerful gaming feature, and we’re motivated to work closely with Amazon to build this integration with Alexa, enabling users to change lighting effects, profiles, start games, change settings and more.”

Razer also announced that the Razer Chroma Connected Devices Program is officially live with 15 new partners, bring the total of Razer Chroma-enabled devices to over 300. Stay tuned to Shacknews for additional CES 2019 updates.