In Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure, what device reads the toy figures' tags?

In Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure, the Portal of Power reads the tags in the toy figures.

The game’s signature technology is a toys-to-life system: placing a physical Skylander figure on the Portal of Power makes that character appear in the game. The figure’s base contains an RFID chip, which communicates wirelessly with the portal and identifies the active character.

The portal does more than recognize a name. It can store important gameplay data, including a character’s level, gold, upgrades, and progress in Heroic Challenges. That data lets players move figures between supported consoles while retaining their development. Two figures can also be placed on the portal for cooperative or competitive play.

A common mix-up is confusing the Portal of Power with the game’s Elemental Gates. Elemental Gates are in-game barriers opened by Skylanders of matching elements; they do not read the physical toys. Spyro’s Adventure, released in 2011, was the first Skylanders game and used eight core elements: Air, Earth, Fire, Water, Magic, Tech, Undead, and Life.