This is a really neat product! It's a large scale chessboard with embedded electronics, allowing you to pair with a computer or phone to play games online. The chess pieces all have individual tags in them that can be sensed by the board square by square, and detection happens pretty much instantaneously - so making a move with a piece in real life makes the equivalent move online/in the companion app. When the opponent makes a move, the gameboard lights up the piece to move and its destination square, so you can move the pieces in real life to keep the game state up to date.
The design here is super thoughtful. When check or checkmate occurs, for example, the system helpfully sounds a chime to alert you. Connectivity through the app and setup is quite simple - I was up and running within a few minutes of starting setup - and the app is well designed, with a reasonable engine for playing games built right in (plus connectivity to popular web chess platforms).
Well, I sort of fudged it a little bit with "up and running within a few minutes". The chessboard arrived with a totally drained battery, and for the first few hours I had it plugged in, it wouldn't turn on at all; it took about five hours before it would start, and i had to charge it overnight for it to be fully charged. Charging is super slow, so bring your patience, and definitely don't wait until right before a tournament to pull this out of the closet and start the setup process, since it can't run off of USB alone if the battery is discharged. If yours blinks red, have a few hours of patience and try again later.
The pieces are really lovely - they're satisfying 3D carves that feel nice in your hands. So is the board, which is a wood-grain veneer with a subtle inlay design. The material is a plastic/vinyl coating, not actual wood, but it looks so convincing you'd never question it as an art piece on display in a game room or in an office. The inset electronics bezel is also elegant, constructed out of metal with screw anchors at the ends.
If you have your own chess pieces you're really attached to, you can buy the tech components and install them in your own pieces as well - i appreciate having that option, although I'm happy enough with the provided pieces that I don't feel it's necessary.
This is a really fun, satisfying way to play chess online while still enjoying the feel and focus of using physical chess pieces. It's a really unique product and would make an excellent gift for a chess aficionado. This version, the Pro, is pretty large and makes a good showpiece, but there are smaller versions available too if a compact alternative is a consideration.
