Suggestion: Visual Low-Time Alert

I’d love it if the ChessUp 2 board could provide a visual warning, such as flashing or highlighting certain squares, when my time is running low. This would help me quickly notice when I’m nearing the time limit without having to constantly glance at the clock. I don’t know if this has already been suggested, but I think it would be a great feature.

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The clock itself turns red when time is low.

@Richard - do you know the table of when the clock turns red vs time format?

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As for a visual indicator on the board, as you said you do not want to have to glance at the clock - I am not sure what would be universally understood to indicate low clock.

I am curious if other people would appreciate something like 4 corners blinking or if they would find it distracting?

The clock change of color should grab attention even in peripheral vision - but maybe that is not enough.

Anytime the clock drops below 20 seconds, the clock field turns red and displays tenths of a second.

The last 2 games I lost on time, I didn’t even notice the change of clock color :frowning: I find the 4 corner squares blinking a very good idea. Let’s see if some others are interested or have better suggestions…

Jeff-

For what it’s worth, because there’s no onboard speaker or ability to connect to an external speaker, I think the board does need to lean a bit more on animating the squares for certain notifications.

Low time is a good example. Both chess.com and Lichess have very distinctive low time alert sounds on web/mobile, and they often come as a surprise when I hear them because I wasn’t able to read the clock in my periphery while calculating a mate in 3!

Another one would be for when you are matched with an opponent and the game starts. I’ve been playing 15+15 Lichess with the board, which is a pretty rare time control and it can take a few minutes to find a game. I don’t mind waiting but it’s really painful to have to stare at the board for several minutes straight so you don’t accidentally abandon a game. When you get the black pieces, it’s not so bad because the opponent’s first move lights up the board, which will definitely catch my periphery way better than two clocks popping up on the little LCD.

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For game start you can be more liberal with colors and animations because it’s not a pressure situation that will be interrupted. For low time I agree there’s no perfect solution - Maybe just a red ring around the board flashing twice? Four corners might be mistaken for a check. Not sure.

If you’re hovering around the alert threshold you might get it a bunch of times in a row which could be really distracting. Maybe there could be lights just the first time you enter time trouble.

And preferably, all of this would be optional, of course.

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I really like the idea of some kind of flash indicator to let me know that a game was found.

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