iChessOne has announced its plans to sell a foldable, full-sized tournament chessboard with classical Staunton pieces. This could change the landscape of how e-boards are used in practice and in tournament play. I haven’t got my hands on one yet but when I do, expect to see a detailed Better Chess review!
Electronic chessboards have been around for decades. They come in all shapes and sizes but recently iChessOne developed the first full-sized portable chessboard with pieces that can be used to play games on the Internet (see below)
The board and set are self-contained. The pieces are stored individually inside the wooden board. It looks like a felt-backed case where each piece gets its own housing. Some travel chess sets use a similar design — remember that this is a full-sized set. The wooden device you see in the middle is the smartphone stand – these guys have thought of everything!
My understanding is that the iChessOne does not ship with a power supply. After all, this is designed to be portable which means you will need a fully charged power brick to accompany the device wherever you take it.
Another important item to mention is that it can record in-person games. That means you can take the iChessOne to a friend’s house for a blitz session and have the software record all the games for you. If this feature works the way they say it does, it will change the landscape of eboards for the better!
iChessOne features:
- Portable – dedicated contactless data transmitters enable signal transmission between the two halves and assembly of the chessboard
- Light indicators – LEDs let you know when to start, where to move opponent’s pieces as well as inform you about an incorrect movement
- Pieces recognition – smart RFID sensors recognize all the pieces on the board
- Bluetooth LE – low power consumption wireless connection of your chessboard to our app
- Classic wooden chess board – for fans of naturalness, it is a traditional foldable wooden tournament chessboard with electronic features
- Tournament size – tournament size chessboard with Staunton 5 pieces, which is officially approved by the International Chess Federation
- Magnetic connector – allows you to connect power source (i.e., power bank) to the chessboard
- Dedicated application – enables integration with global chess platforms like lichess.org and the analysis of games played
- All in one – all components: 34 pieces (with two extra queens), USB cable, mobile phone stand and a pen are inside the chessboard, which makes it an elegant wooden case easy to transport
- Develops creativity and unconventional thinking!
