The one thing I like about my ChessUp (and probably the only thing) is that there are 12 levels of difficulty on the board - Meaning, I don't need to fire up the app or connect the board to anything to play a decent vs. computer game. Does the Chessnut Air have anything like that - or is it all only in the app?
Chessup vs chessnut air vs square off swap
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Mar 24, 2023
0
#23
Chessnut Air is just a board - you need to go through the app to play. It would be nice if it had an onboard engine, so was completely self-sufficient. That would make it perfect! I still think it’s great though and love mine.
The CA, the DGT Pegasus and the Millennium eOne are designed for just online play, they're simply I/O peripherals with no "wired logic" inside. Of course, you can use any engine you like (in offline mode via BLE, through a GUI like "Chess for Android", "Chess Dojo" or other). For those who like "hybrid" chess boards (that is, with "embedded" AI and online play), better keep an eye on the ChessUp smart board. Ciao 
I think I'm going to go for a more straightforward, online only board. If anyone is interested, I just put my ChessUp on that website where lots of people auction things. Same handle as I am here. I think I put up a fair price...
Until I finally decide - I'll stick to my old-fashioned boards. I have four various Saitek chess boards. I mean, "Endorsed By Garry Kasparov" - How can you go wrong? 🙂
Mar 28, 2023
0
#26
For the past 3 weeks my finger has rested on the order button for a Chessnut Air. Suddenly the iChessONE came up and now it's hard to make a decission once again 
winebarrel wrote:
For the past 3 weeks my finger has rested on the order button for a Chessnut Air. Suddenly the iChessONE came up and now it's hard to make a decission once again
Looks nice! But at 410 US, it's not going to work for me. That 200 for Chestnut says "I'm not as cool, but I'm much more affordable". 🙂 Also, I think I'm getting burned out on Kickstarters. I Kickstarted ChessUp, I Kickstarted Crownes Chess (the cool-looking stacking chess set). Products received, but they were very bumpy rides...
The Tabutronic has been released too. It's from the same guy who makes the Certabo, a good track record.
winebarrel wrote:
For the past 3 weeks my finger has rested on the order button for a Chessnut Air. Suddenly the iChessONE came up and now it's hard to make a decission once again
Ordered the Chessnut Air a couple days ago. I recently bought a DGT Centaur which is very nice, and I planned to modify the hardware later on to enable it to access the web. However, I found the Air and figured that it has everything I'd like except adaptive AI. I don't mind the smaller size, either.
I've been pretty much away from chess for many, many years and am not a strong player. However, I'd like to play against some bots and get my skills and confidence up before I play human opponents.
Looking forward to checking out the Air.
Gathomblipoob wrote:
winebarrel wrote:
For the past 3 weeks my finger has rested on the order button for a Chessnut Air. Suddenly the iChessONE came up and now it's hard to make a decission once again
Ordered the Chessnut Air a couple days ago. I recently bought a DGT Centaur which is very nice, and I planned to modify the hardware later on to enable it to access the web. However, I found the Air and figured that it has everything I'd like except adaptive AI. I don't mind the smaller size, either.
I've been pretty much away from chess for many, many years and am not a strong player. However, I'd like to play against some bots and get my skills and confidence up before I play human opponents.
Looking forward to checking out the Air.
Isn't there an add on that allows you to interface the board to a pc? One where you could use a fritz or Shredder? https://www.chessnutech.com/pages/platform
Let use know if you try any of them.
Looking to get an e-board so that I (through an app) can play with my son (using a physical board) when I am traveling for work.
My two questions for this group of seemingly experienced e-chess players are...
1. Is there a time limit on turns? With me being in different time zones and working and him having school and other activities...it might be challenging for us to find time to both play a game in real time...so I might make a move while he is sleeping and vice versa....can we do this with the chestnut air? Will the service/game/device timeout?
2. My son doesn't have free use of a tablet or computer....and my wife is not very tech savvy...can someone describe the "setup" process we would need to go through each time he wants to start a new game? My understanding is he would need some smartphone or tablet. Prob have to pair it with the board and then open some kind of app....once you get it working the first time is it fool proof after that?
Just to say, I have a ChessUp board, used 3 times, that I'm looking to move on. It had spare pieces, checkers pieces, carry bag, and phone stand.
Considering putting it on THE famous auction site, but if anyone is interested then please get in touch.
DV_SS wrote:
Just to add here, there is Square off pro as well which doesn't includes automated movement. You can find plenty of videos online.
Yes, I own a SquareOff rollable pro, it is so sensitive that any mistake in movement crashes or makes it very difficult to continue. For me quick play on the internet is impossible. I REGRET my purchase. Would be happy to send it back,
JCBrixton wrote:
Chessnut Air is just a board - you need to go through the app to play. It would be nice if it had an onboard engine, so was completely self-sufficient. That would make it perfect! I still think it’s great though and love mine.
How would it compare to Chessup which has the features you miss? Based on your review I am now leaning to Chessup.
Kromok2 wrote:
The CA, the DGT Pegasus and the Millennium eOne are designed for just online play, they're simply I/O peripherals with no "wired logic" inside. Of course, you can use any engine you like (in offline mode via BLE, through a GUI like "Chess for Android", "Chess Dojo" or other). For those who like "hybrid" chess boards (that is, with "embedded" AI and online play), better keep an eye on the ChessUp smart board. Ciao
Based on your review I am strongly leaning Chessup, if only it was a larger board.
AbundanceEd wrote:
Go on youtube and search for Chessnut Air and Chessup reviews. Plenty of them there if you want to see video reviews.
I think your decision should be Chessnut Air vs Chessup. From all my research these are the two best e-boards and trust me nobody in this forum has done more research on e-boards than me. I spent months researching before I bought the Chessnut Air. I compared all of them before making my decision.
I would recommend the Chessnut Air over the Chessup for the simple fact that the higher price of the Chessup is not justified if you won't use the AI assist stuff. If all you're doing is playing online then you will never use that stuff. Playing against the computer gets boring quick. The fun is in playing against other people online.
The Chessnut Air is also better looking in my opinion and it has real piece recognition (it actually knows if a king is a king so it actually knows the individual pieces and what they are etc while Chessup doesn't from what I remember).
I have played hundreds of games on the Chessnut Air and i wouldn't trade it for any e-board out there.
What are the sizes of the squares of the chessup and chessnut? so far I have not found this question answered?
Chessnut Air field size: 35mm
ChessUp field size: 38mm (kind of like the DGT Pegasus one)
I recently bought the chessnut air with a discount for EUR 169. After watching some reviews - which are quite numerous on YouTube - I went for that option. One important aspect of the entire thing is to test out if the entire playing online with a board delivers on the promise without spending too much money. I would recommend that for everyone, also considering you can easily sell the board as used if you don't like it. I find the air to be big enough for playing.
Important compared to the Square off is the possibility to flip the colors quickly because playing online you don't know which color you get beforehand. What I like: the board is well done from a craftsmanship point if view. The app is solid, connecting is fairly intuitive. I had some problems playing in chess.com, it connected but just would not find opponents. Lichess works without problems. I attribute that rather to chess com frequently changing their apps and not being as open and consistent from a programmers perspective as Lichess. So chessnut has to play constant catch-up. The support is friendly and helpful and I need to get back to them to sort things out, because it will be surely solvable. For the time being I am happy to play on Lichess.
What could be improved: the fact, that the LEDs are in the corner if the squares can lead to wrongly understanding a move. Some boards offer a circle Led spanning the entire square, which is for sure better. But I do not want the multi-colored lightshow some of the boards are doing. I find that distracting, I want to be as close to an OTB experience as possible. But what works very well is the board recognizing if you executed your opponents move correctly. The LEDs sta lit until you placed the moved piece in the correct square. Sometimes I even get confused, play in the Smartphone for a few moves and don't move the pieces in the board. Even that is not a problem: you just move all pieces to their current squares. When all LEDs are off, everything is correct. When some LEDs are still lit, you have to correct some pieces.
The most important thing is that the company keeps working on the software and ironing out bugs.
So far the board helps me with one important thing: apart from giving me more of an OTB experience, it also helps with the detrimental habit to start a new game seconds after losing the last one. And so on until it is two a clock in the night and you wonder how you got here and why you cannot find the stop button.
This for me is the biggest problem of online chess and talking to others I learn that I am not alone with that problem.
The board provides you with an analog delay. The 10-20 seconds it takes to set up the pieces for the next game are enough to gather your senses and realize it is time for a break or even stop playing today altogether. This alone is well worth the money for the board for me.
I got the square off pro Christmas. Sent it back for a refund. My wife bought it thru Amazon. It was to buggy. Lights and it would make noise in between moves for no reason. It was not pieces being misplace on a square. Their support sent a firmware update that would not load. I tried that on two different Wi-Fi networks. I do not recommend square off at all.