“I was apprehensive at first about the smaller size of the set, even canceling my first order while it was still in production, but I got brave and ordered it last month. All is good as I manage with my shaky hands thanks to the heavier than expected pieces. I'm looking forward to an upgrade where the board can be setup to do puzzles.”
“ChessUp is a fantastic product!! I have never played chess before and my husband had very little experience. This board makes learning the game really fun and super easy! Even our 4 year old loves learning to play - and we love it because it’s not a screen! It’s definitely our family’s favorite new activity! Buy this board - it’s worth it!! High quality design, craftsmanship, and functionality. We know this board will last many years to come!”
“Let me start off by saying this is one of the coolest things i have ever used.
[Build quality]
They ran it over with a car and it still worked.
Feels like it has weight to it. High quality plastic. Doesnt bend.
[Feel]
As someone who went from online play to local over the board games. I can say that its very intuitive to use. You do not have to apply any pressure for the squares to light up.
You can castle and take peices in many different ways and the board will pick it up just fine from my experience.
[Lights]
Very bright and responsive.
The light does very slightly bleed into the next square but its not bad and only on the brightest light setting. (Barely noticeable)
[Peices]
The peices are a good size. Comfortable weight and high quality felt on the bottom.
White peices have a marble to them which looks nice but if you dont like it for some reason you probably wont even notice it.
[Standalone]
As the android app is soon to be released this is all i can cover.
The AI has great opening knowlage for being this early into the project and the skill level they gave it. (It even knows a bit of fried liver theory for those of you who love it)
The standalone AI is not the fastest but it is quite similar to sitting across from someone and waiting for them to think (i think it being slow helps a player improve faster anyways as it forces you to think in that position for a tad longer)
[Android app]
Will update when it releases
[Conclusion]
Besides one small bug with the assistance giving a poor move as the best option. (One occurrence) It has been a flawless experience that i can only expect to improve as the project moves out of "beta" and into the hands of the broader public.
Im excited to see bryghtlabs vision with this board and other STEM learning tools they make.”
“I received my board today. I got the "walnut" color. My first thought was packaging is really nicely done. The lid was so air-tight it didn't want to slide, separating the box apart. (A hole on the bottom of the box may fix that). The box it came with is nice enough to want to keep as it's travel/store-away container. The walnut color on the board is dark enough I thought perhaps I might have gotten the black version by mistake. The wood grain pattern was perhaps the only walnut giveawy. The wood color has a "faded" appearance due to the clear, matte protection film over top the entire surface. Not sure if it's feasible to give the board a more "wood" finish or not. Perhaps ditching the wood and going with another color is another option?
The welcome to the family and recalibration card is nice. An instruction handout explaining the standalone modes would be better.
The over all look and design of the board is fantastic though I'd prefer a small LED screen to show the current mode, chess pieces promotion, and perhaps the move notation and clock timer. A small LED screen between the two sides to show bluetooth, battery level... maybe as a future deluxe model??
A card explaining the "standalone" features would be nice considering that's kind of the point of standalone (not able to access the online info)..
Check the videos.. The Chessup progress/waiting indicator video in the start page needs updated.. the lady was supposed to move a piece in the video but their hand bumped another piece so fixing the bumped piece is a distraction enough that the person set the piece on the starting square instead of the square they were supposed to move to. So let's upload a new video for that.
I've played several games on the board and it's fun and haven't encountered any bugs. If I do I'll keep you informed.. make the chessup Android release a priority!!
Last part is advertising!! We have to get our name out there.. we have a far superior chess board than anything else currently out but while researching electronic chess boards It took about a week to find you. Pay Hikaru to "beat" the AI or GothamChess...
Anyway.. keep up the great work!! Happy to be part of the family!!”
“I kickstarted this product, and got my board today. Wow. I’m really impressed. It does everything as advertised and more. Setup and configuration is easy, it has a ton of options, and is easy to use. I had an 8 year old girl using it in 10 minutes. I’ll be using this as my learning board and as my regular board all the time! No more annoying tutorials on the screen. I can learn and get better on a real set. Easily worth the money.”
“So I've been researching best electronic chess boards for about a week so far. I play a lot of online chess and wanted to move it to the board so I was looking at either the DGT Pegasus (no built in AI so it's online play only and many reviews claim tons of connectivity issues and poor follow up with updates) or the SquareOff board (which only allows online play through their own app so users complain about not being able to find games to play). I'm so glad I found chessup before I spent the money on a different product. You guys got to get your name out there! You combine the features of multiple types of $300 chess boards all rolled into one even better product and I had never heard of you!!! Anyway I'm very excited and can't wait to receive mine.”
