In recent years, Razer has moved away from showcasing traditional gaming peripherals at CES, and has instead focused on lifestyle accessories such as chairs, desks, and lights. The trend continued this year at CES 2025, where the gaming company announced a handful of Chroma-infused desktop accessories, including a sleek aluminum desktop monitor stand, standalone vertical lightbars, and “Project Arielle,” a concept gaming chair with integrated cooling and heating systems.
The $200 Razer Monitor Stand Chroma (yes, that’s what it’s called) is a sleek, minimalist desktop monitor riser made of anodized aluminum and has a matte black finish. It’s actually pretty understated, as far as Razer designs go (though it does fit kind of nicely with Razer’s monitor design), with the only real branding being Razer’s text logo, which is modestly stamped along the top front edge, and the signature Razer green peeking out of the USB ports. Oh, and, well, it also has a downward-pointing Chroma lightstrip along the front, because you probably don’t have enough Chroma-infused lighting in your gaming setup yet.
The stand measures 19.7 inches (502.41mm) long by 8.27 inches (210.06mm) wide. Razer didn’t list the height, but it looks like it’s at least high enough to comfortably slip a full-size Razer BlackWidow V4 Pro under. The stand features anti-slip rubber feet on the bottom and supports monitors (and/or other items) weighing up to 44 pounds (20kg).
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The stand has a built-in USB-C powered connectivity hub on the right side, with four ports — 2x USB 3.2 Type A, 1x USB 3.2 Type C, and 1x HDMI 2.0 — enough to connect a “suite” of monitors (according to Razer). I don’t know about a “suite,” but at least a couple — and that’s probably one too many, given that this is a single monitor stand. The USB ports are located along the right side of the stand, while the HDMI port faces the back. Next to the USB ports there’s a Chroma RGB button, which is set up to cycle through lighting effects (but can be remapped to any thing).
And… that’s it. Pretty minimalist — maybe a little too minimalist for the $200 asking price. You can grab any number of similarly-equipped (albeit less-sleek) monitor stands for half that price (or less).
Razer debuted its Aether lighting line two years ago at RazerCon 2023, and apparently this is still a thing. Last year we saw a dual-sided, Chroma-infused Aether monitor light bar at last year’s CES, and this year the brand is introducing more lightbars — but they’re not for your monitor, they’re vertical, and they’re not dual-sided though they do offer “dual lighting flexibility,” which is to say that they rotate.
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The Aether Standing Light Bars come in a pair, with 30 RGB LEDs in each vertical light… stick. They are, of course, part of Razer’s Chroma system and can be customized and controlled in a variety of ways, including through Razer’s Gamer Room app as well as through other smart home devices supported by Matter. The lightbars are designed to go on either side of your screen — they’re connected to each other and are powered by one USB-C power cable. They can be rotated in their base stands to face toward you (for immersive lighting) or away from you (for ambiance).
Finally, it wouldn’t be Razer at CES without a code-named concept project that makes you wonder, “is that something I would even want?”
This year, it’s Project Arielle, which is — according to Razer — the world’s first mesh gaming chair with integrated heating and cooling. Project Arielle is a mesh gaming chair (built on the framework of Razer’s existing Fujin Pro gaming chair) with an integrated bladeless fan system for three speeds of “personalized, on-demand cooling.” According to Razer, this fan system combined with the chair’s “airflow” (read: it’s a mesh chair) can reduce the perceived temperature by between two and five degrees Celsius in dry environments.
But wait, there’s more! For those on the opposite side of the thermal spectrum, the chair also features an “advanced built-in heating system” with PTC heaters that deliver up to 30 degrees Celsius of warm air. As far as convenience goes, the chair features a touch panel on the right side of the seat for temperature and fan speed control, as well as a quick-release cable so you don’t end up rolling too far from the plug and bringing your entire system down by accident. And since you have to plug it in anyway, it looks like it might have lighting, too… probably Chroma-infused.
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We haven’t gotten around to Razer’s booth just yet, but it seems like the cooling/heating system may be built into the chair’s frame — or, at least, around it, which would make it a more intriguing concept than other chairs we’ve seen with built-in heating and cooling systems. And we have seen other chairs over the years with built-in heating and cooling systems, though Razer might be able to hold onto its highly-specific claim of being the “world’s first” because other chairs haven’t had both heating and cooling, or haven’t been mesh, or haven’t technically had it built-in.
In 2017, Thermaltake’s X Comfort AIR featured four high-pressure fans in its base that shot air through perforated faux-leather (like a cooled seat in a car). The X Comfort Air was sold as a gaming chair, but it wasn’t mesh. A few years ago we took a look at X-Chair’s Elemax, an add-on unit for its task chairs that adds cooling, heating, and massage to the lower back area. Many of X-Chair’s task chairs are mesh but are not technically gaming chairs, and as the Elemax is an add-on, it’s not technically integrated into the chair. However, in 2023, Cougar showed off its mesh (well, mesh-backed) NxSys Aero gaming chair, which has a 200mm aRGB cooling fan integrated into the backrest… but it doesn’t have heating.
Touche, Razer.
We plan on heading over to Razer’s suite to see this chair in person later this week, so we’ll update with some thoughts once we get a hands-on.
The Razer Monitor Stand Chroma and the Aether Standing Light Bars are available to pre-order now — the monitor stand will retail for $199.99, while the light bars will cost $119.99/pair. Project Arielle is a concept and has no pricing or release date.
