Feature Idea for a Future ChessUp Board

General
21

Another SquareOff backer here. The tech is too gimmicky, pieces needed to be put just in correct place down to millimeter, pieces were too light due to magnetic hands being weakish etc. etc.

In theory self-moving pieces sound awesome but due to technological limitations it’s always tradeoff from something - unfortunately in the case of SquareOff though it was kinda tradeoff from everything else (partially due to ”world” happening, everything going bad for them for reasons necessarily not related to them and product being delayed to the point where most didn’t even believe it exists)

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22

Moving boards are almost as old as chess computers themself:

Here are the issues:

  1. Reliability - the boards have limited life span
  2. Noise - some are acceptable, many are quite loud mechanisms
  3. Speed - consider an online timed game in a time scramble. Many capture moves take up to 10 seconds to complete (depending on tech).
  4. Cost - There have been a couple of companies that solved the cost issue by just taking the money, promising too good of prices, and never delivering the product ( https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/infivention/square-off-neo-and-swap-board-games-powered-by-robotics-and-ai/comments ). This has happened 3 or 4 times (not just Square Off).
  5. Lack of other features - say goodbye to full-fill lights, touch sense pieces, and often piece ID as well. The function of these boards is often limited.

The only benefits are

  1. Puzzle setup… but there is a catch, only a board with parking slots can manage this. Several board designers did not get this right.
  2. The novelty wow - but that turns out to be short lived for most. Not everyone, but most.

I personally think a very nice looking wood board with weighted wood chess set - that is very classic looking - would be enjoyable as a moving set. We own a lot of various boards here in the office and most e-boards have such super cheap pieces and clunky move recognition and that just ruins a lot of the experience.

In terms of the offerings out there, the ChessNut Move one is actually one of the better thought through ones. Mostly because I do think you can trust that ChessNut will deliver it. I cannot vouch if it will work or not - but the system of independent piece movement maximizes the benefit of a moving board (rapid puzzle transition). They don’t have the scummy history of all the others (Regium was a pure scam, Square Off has not delivered Swap and Neo for over 6 years and counting, Phantom has not delivered their moving set for 4 years and counting, GoChess is years late and they keep asking for more money from backers - plus that project will be plagued with a bunch of tech issues as it is a poor design from the start).

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Anyways - it is not a never for us, but we believe there is much more value in other features that are in ChessUp 2. ChessUp 2 with touch sense and a human hand will always be the fastest board for timed games. You get full fill lighting, piece ID, touch sense, a touch screen display, WiFi, and onboard capability. You also get portability and really decent set of pieces. Moving boards move at the cost of most of the features I listed. Features that really lead to engagement and enjoyment of the board.

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