Razer, a global lifestyle brand for gamers, announced on Thursday a partnership with home networking partner Ignition Design Labs, creators of the Portal Wi-Fi router. The companies collaborated to optimize features and performance of the Portal router specifically for gaming.
While evolving its ecosystem of hardware and software for gaming and entertainment, Razer identified device connectivity as a major area needing improvement. A sub-par router is often the cause of lag, screen tearing and buffering, three issues that commonly plague gamers. Mesh-capable Portal Wi-Fi routers help prevent these glitches.
With key technologies, Portal successfully addresses the demands of high bandwidth gaming and streaming applications.
Founded in 2005 and dual-headquartered in San Francisco and Singapore, Razer is backed by institutional investors including IDG-Accel, Intel Capital and Horizons Ventures. The company has a global footprint with nine offices worldwide and is recognized as a key brand for gamers in the USA, Europe and China.
The Portal router offers patented congestion-busting technologies enabling fastest speeds and lowest latency, critical for ideal gaming experiences. Its FastLanes simultaneous multi-channel DFS technology enables devices to operate in exclusive radar-protected channels avoiding unreliable and slow WiFi during peak hours; while its SmartLanes Intelligent Active Traffic and Interference Avoidance technology steers devices to uncrowded, clean, fast channels
It also includes new generation quad-stream 802.11ac with Wave-2 MU-MIMO providing powerful Gigabit connectivity for advanced mobile and gaming devices; delivers advanced QoS (quality of service) management prioritizes gaming traffic for optimum speed and latency; includes Mesh 2.0 establishes a blanket of fast, ultra-reliable WiFi coverage for homes up to 6,000 sq. ft. using about two Portal units (where other competitors require three units or more); and WiFi AutoPilot adaptive roaming technology that steers high bandwidth client devices to the fastest channel and the closest mesh node for optimum performance.
“Razer continually transforms categories to redefine the meaning of ‘ultimate performance,'” says Razer Co-Founder and CEO Min-Liang Tan. “Now we’re elevating Wi-Fi to meet that standard. It’s vital to creating the best gaming and entertainment experiences for our fans all over the world.”
“As engineers, we’re passionate about technology and beautiful design. We’ve built high-performance Wi-Fi solutions for some of the most iconic names in consumer electronics,” said Terry Ngo, CEO of Ignition Design Labs. “We’re thrilled now to be partnering with Razer to transform Wi-Fi networking into a competition-beating advantage for the world’s foremost gaming and entertainment ecosystem.”
The WiFi router is currently available at Razerstore with worldwide availability set for the first quarter of next year. IT comes with a price tag of US$149.99.
