Gaming tech has always been weird. Reaching back to the wonders of the Virtual Boy and the Power Glove all the way to last year's Playdate, there's a certain joy to owning something that turns heads. Though overblown RGB and funny motherboard screens have taken much of the spotlight here, there's so much to uncover.
This is why when Nerdytec reached out to me about the Couchmaster Cycon 2, I felt like I had to give it a try. Turning your sofa or chair into a gaming setup, there definitely feels like there's a market for a product as weird as this.
Though I have some problems with setup and price point, it offers a surprisingly attractive package to an especially lazy gamer. PC gaming has always been a little rigid in practice, so this feels like a pretty good way to get a console-like experience out of all that power.
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The pitch
The Nerdytec Couchmaster Cycon 2 is essentially a cushion setup that you place on a sofa in order to play on your laptop. You place a cushion on either side of your legs with one on top to keep your laptop and accessories on. You can then plug it in, essentially operating as a power bank to charge up your laptop.
It has a relatively niche use case as you need to have a setup that allows for slightly longer wires, but it can work with a monitor and a Steam Deck or Nintendo Switch. Laptops are already partially designed to work on the go, so this is at its most effective when you want to game from a sofa but don't quite have the facilities to do it effectively.
For this reason, the chance of the Nerdytec Couchmaster Cycon 2 working out well for you could be pretty slim. It doesn't ease the burden of craning for a keyboard and mouse, but can offer a more casual feel when you do. It just so happens that, with multiple friends coming around to play games, I managed to get quite a lot of use out of it.
Setting up
The cushions themselves are quite comfortable and even managed to get used outside of the main setup. They don't clip together like one might expect, which means you feel like they could come loose at any moment. Despite this, they never did. Some way of locking them together would make me feel a little more comfortable mid-game.
As well as this, the section to plug everything in lies at the bottom of the Cycon 2, which wouldn't be a problem but you have to unlock with an Allen key,- something not provided in the box itself. Luckily, I had one from a previous build, but this oversight is quite an annoying one.
Finally, you have to essentially lock wires in place with this Allen key, which makes setup up a little bit of a bore. If you want to move your setup back, you have to unscrew and unplug everything, taking a few minutes at a time.
In practice
For the most part, the Couchmaster Cycon 2 is a pretty great piece of kit. It is comfortable, you can customise how much room you have pretty quickly, and small pockets at the side make for easy storage. This means you can charge your phone or plug in a hard drive on the side. If you happen to have a keyboard with extra USB slots, this storage is made even more effective.
This all being said, at a price point of £140, I expected a little more out of it. Things are just a little too finicky to pick up and put together, and I don't know if I see myself getting the most out of it in just a few short months.
It's an idea I feel I could get a lot of use out of but, in practice, it becomes rather cumbersome.
The Nerdytec Couchmaster Cycon 2 was provided by Nerdytec.