🔥 Chessnut Move | Review | Are you ready for robot chess? 🤖♟️🤔

#chessnutmove #robotchess #review 

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The Chessnut Move is without a doubt, the best robotic chess board that is available for sale and within weeks of shipping. If you are looking for an electronic chess board, is it right for you?

TL;DR:

1. If you already own and like Chessnut products, are excited by seeing self-moving chess pieces, can afford the cost, and can live with just a little bit of jank, this is an easy recommendation. BUY!
2. If seeing chess pieces scurrying around the board doesn’t make you grin in a silly way, with an immediate urge to say, “wizard chess!”, you should consider the options as the Chessnut Move does have some compromises.

Note: I was sent this unit from Chessnut directly for review purposes. I have not been paid to undertake this review, and I am not sponsored by Chessnut. This review contains my genuine experiences and impressions, and Chessnut had no editorial control over its contents. Chessnut did not see this video or article before they were published.

A boy’s fantasy, and the story so far

I first became aware of the existence of electronic chess boards and computers as a boy when I saw an advertisement for one in the mail, sold at Tandy Electronics (the equivalent of Radio Shack in Australia) in the 1980s. My childish mind imagined a fantastical vision that these chess boards were robots with self-moving pieces, but alas, when I finally had an opportunity to see one in store many months later, it was but a mirage. However, that experience left me with a lifelong fascination and hope that one day, I would own a chess playing robot.

Over forty years have passed, and I’m now approaching fifty. I knew of the Square Off Grand Kingdom, which was released in 2019, but was disappointed by the slow movement of the pieces, and spooked by the mixed customer reviews. More recently, I took a chance with Square Off’s second-generation moving chess board, but that device was caught in development purgatory for years, and eventually, I pulled out. There were/are a couple of other Kickstarter / Indiegogo campaigns for moving chess boards, but both have been in development for years, have missed their initial shipping date by at least a year, and seem far away from an actual retail release.

Chessnut had advised me earlier in 2024 not long after the Chessnut Go release that they were working on a chess board with moving pieces and asked whether I would want to review one. I, of course, said yes, though I tried not to get my hopes up at the time. The engineering problems are substantial for a consumer electronic device of this nature: the mechanism needs to be quick enough that it isn’t a gimmick, but it also needs to be reliable, and at the same time, be cost-effective to manufacture so that it can be sold at a sensible price. So, when Chessnut publicly announced the Chessnut Move in late December 2024, with video demonstrations of a prototype device, an estimated shipping date of May 2025, and were taking orders, I was super excited!

I’d initially had hoped to get a review unit in February 2025, but that then slipped to March and then silence. One chess YouTuber received a prototype in April, and it seemed that Chessnut were still working out some of the engineering. I hadn’t lost hope, but I was concerned. It seemed likely that their shipping timetable would slip.

In June, I received a message from my Chessnut contact that they were ready to deliver review units! Around this time, Chessnut also released a public update on production and shipping confirming that all first-batch pre-order customers would receive their Move by the end of August. This was very reassuring as it meant that the retail unit was not only complete, but that the first batch must have already been manufactured, and possibly ready to go on, or already on, a cargo ship to the US and Europe (it takes up to 5 weeks by sea). My assigned review unit was sent by air and I gratefully received it last week (early July) in Australia. My mate @Whiggi , another Sydney-based chess Youtuber has also received his unit, and you should check out his unboxing video!

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What do we mean by chess robot?

In a nutshell, when your virtual opponent (either a bot, or a remote human player on Chess.com or Lichess) plays a move, this physically moves the corresponding piece on your 3D chess board.

What’s included in the Chessnut Move?

The Chessnut Move is a large and heavy unit. In fact, the shipping label had the entire parcel (which included the external box and packaging material) at over 10 kg (22 lb)!

Chessnut Move Board

This is a tournament size board with 55 mm squares. The surface is plastic and has black and white squares. Multicolour LEDs, invisible when off, are in the corner of each square and are used to provide visual indications when selecting which colour to play (white, black, or a human player for both colours), and the bot strength level (from 1 to 8). The LEDs also indicate the opponent player’s moves, or when pieces are on incorrect squares. However, as the pieces will move, these in-game indicators are mostly immaterial unlike on other electronic chess boards.

The board has a heavy wooden frame, which provides heft and sturdiness. To the left and right of the board playing surface (i.e., lateral to the a- and h-files), are the areas where captured pieces (and the spare queens) sit during the game.

All the manual controls of the board are on the front side edge of the board.

The right most button with the hand picking up the chess piece is magical, and I found myself mixing up the pieces on the board just to press it to see the pieces all simultaneously move and navigate back to their starting position! ☺️

The “brain” of the Chessnut Move lives inside the board, and the CPU controls the movements of the chess pieces through wireless communication. The board has a battery with up to 8 hours of up time, and is charged by USB-C. It had no problems with my PD (power delivery) charger.

Chess pieces

I received the wooden pieces. These are handmade with the white pieces made of stained boxwood, and the black pieces seem to be made of ebonised boxwood. The pieces have a semi-gloss finish. The set follow a Staunton design with a modern flair, most obvious with the bishops and rooks. I don’t have the plastic set on hand, but they appear to follow an identical design.

Each chess piece sits atop identical microrobot bases (see below), and this was factored into the piece design so that the pieces are largely consistent with tournament size pieces that pair well with the board. Different to a standard chess set, the diameter of the pieces is all the same, this being the diameter of the microrobot.

The pieces are quite light (my knight was 33.4 g on my scales), and this feeling is exaggerated by the fact that it looks like a wooden piece (so the intuitive expectation is the feel of a weighted equivalent), and the slight rattling from the mechanical bits of the microrobot. I suspect that this was a necessary compromise in the design: lighter pieces not only mean quicker performance from the motors, but better battery life and less wear and strain on the motor and gearing.

The microrobot bases

Chessnut has certainly taken an innovative approach, and a risk, in having each chess piece between a self-propelling microrobot. Most other robotic chess boards (e.g., the Square Off Grand Kingdom, and two other boards on Kickstarter/Indiegogo) use of a mechanism that lives under the board surface which moves the pieces on top of the board using an electromagnet. SenseRobot Chess, which was also released earlier this year, makes use of a robot arm that looks like a mini version of an industrial robot, and priced like one too at USD $1299.

The fundamental problem with a singular piece moving mechanism, especially an underboard mechanism, is that it tends to be slow. Or, if it were quicker, this would risk the mechanism being unreliable (for instance, knocking over other pieces, or pieces falling over), which would be very disruptive as the mechanism cannot correct a fallen piece without manual intervention. A single underboard mechanism also creates a critical failure point without much latitude. If the piece moving mechanism becomes even slightly misaligned, the board might not work practically. In essence, it means that the mechanism must be very reliable and robust, which is not easy to achieve, especially at the price point for a consumer electronic device.

By using the microrobot bases, Chessnut has decentralised the movement mechanism. Each base is really quite simple: it has two motors controlling two small rubber wheels, a sensor that very accurately determines its location and orientation on the board, and a wireless controller that allows the bot to communicate with and be controlled by the board computer.

As each piece is independently mobile and can very accurately report its position, they can self-correct and adjust their location on the board. For instance, if you knock a piece off centre, or accidently move the wrong piece, the board immediately corrects itself! The board movements are also substantially quicker as multiple pieces can move simultaneously. This also allows for much more complex pathfinding, and Chessnut makes use of this with the wider bases. Most chess robots use very thin/narrow pieces, so they don’t obstruct each other, but at a negative aesthetic cost. Thin chess pieces don’t look right. With the Chessnut Move, intervening pieces will temporarily move slightly aside to open the path so the bases can be wider, which creates a more cohesive appearance to the pieces on the board.

The compromise, however, is that with every chess piece being a robot, every piece becomes a point of failure. Before I received the board, I wondered how Chessnut was going to address this issue. When I opened the box, I realised that they had come across the right solution after all!

Although there are 34 points of failure, none of these points of failure are difficult to fix! The microrobots are essentially modular: if one fails, you can just take it off the offending piece and attach a new one. Chessnut includes four spare bases in the box and more can be obtained from Chessnut during the warranty period. We’ll have to see how these go but I suspect that if the pieces are given good care, they’ll survive the foreseeable lifespan of a device of this nature.

Charging plate

The 34 chess pieces will need to be charged, and this is definitely another concession of Chessnut’s design choice. A charging plate is provided; the pieces plug into recessed docks on the plate. An LED indicator is given for every piece — red is charging and green is full. The charging plate is powered via a USB-C port and it worked without issue with my PD charger.

Robotic chess board functions

The Chessnut Move works in a very similar way to Chessnut’s previous electronic chess boards (the Chessnut Air, Air+, Pro, and Go), and connects to the same app. So, it has all the functions of the previous boards. However, in addition to the self-moving pieces, it contains a welcome new feature compared to the previous e-chess boards, with a built-in chess computer; you can play against a bot without connecting the board to a companion device like a phone, tablet, or laptop. I demonstrate this in the video, and the system works very well. At the end of a game, pressing the button to set up the board for a new game is an amazing party trick!

The board functions without a companion device:

• Play against an on-device bot (new feature)
• Play against an OTB human opponent, record the game, and later retrieve the PGN

The board functions when connected to the Chessnut App:

• Play against a larger range of bots, including Maia (an AI-based bot designed to play like a human), Stockfish, and Leela Chess Zero.
• Control the board with your voice by speaking the moves (see below!)
• Connect to Chess.com and play against bots, friends, and games with random match ups!
• And you can do the same using Lichess.

All of this worked without issue. In fact, it worked brilliantly! I didn’t have a single game that aborted, or where the connection dropped. This is all highly consistent with Chessnut’s previous electronic chess boards which have been very reliable in game.

The voice control, however, is not ready. In their marketing materials, Chessnut describes voice control being an important new feature, and it is true that this feature is only possible with the self-moving pieces. There wouldn’t be any point in telling the board to make certain moves, if you would then still have to manually move the pieces with your hand! The voice control works by toggling on the microphone icon in the Chessnut App (see the video), and this works with both the included bots on the Chessnut App and when playing on Chess.com and Lichess.

However, I’m using the word “works” in only the technical sense. The feature exists; it does listen to your voice, and the app can interpret it to make moves on the board. However, the feature (at the time of the review in early July 2025) is quite half-baked. Firstly, you must give instructions in the form of the start and destination squares, which is not intuitive. So, rather than saying the words, “knight-F-three” to develop the king’s knight, you’d have to say “G-one-F-three”. Now, this might be tolerable if it mostly worked flawlessly, but as you see in my video review, there was an example where I had to say “D-two-D-four” three or four times before the app understood my intention.

In essence, the voice control is an exercise in frustration and practically unusable. To be fair to Chessnut, there are still a few weeks left before even the first batch of the Chessnut Move is in the hands of pre-order customers, and the functional problem is completely software related on the app. So, I expect that Chessnut should be able to fix this with an update to their app.

I would remark that I personally find voice control to be a rather niche feature, and I don’t think that I’ll use it even if it worked flawlessly. However, this is something that has been marketed as an accessibility feature, so there is an imperative and onus for Chessnut to deliver.

Overall impressions

To be frank, I was a bit worried that Chessnut wouldn’t be able to pull it off. Chess robots are a complex engineering endeavour. Chessnut has cracked making electronic chess boards with near flawless piece detection, but the addition of self-moving pieces adds a huge degree of complexity. The proof is in the Kickstarter/Indiegogo landscape. Most campaigns to produce an electronic chessboard have been successful, even if there were delays. Most campaigns to produce a chess robot look like failure (years in development, shipping delays measured in years, angry and disappointed backers making accusations that it’s a scam, etc.).

It works!

So, I find it remarkable that the Chessnut Move not only works but categorically works very well. There is a bit of jankiness. The pathfinding is not perfect and in the chaos of the board positions, sometimes pieces can find themselves behaving in not the most intelligent manner. However, this is mostly in the situation of resetting the board, so it’s kind of forgivable as it’s not a high stakes or time pressured situation. You’d see in the opening section of my video, two pawns accidentally have a little collision, which is kind of funny and endearing.

In game, the only time I encountered a problem with pathfinding has been when one side of the board became too crowded with parked captured pieces. A pawn was trying to get off the board but couldn’t quite get to the right place. This prevented the game from progressing, until I picked up and moved this pawn to the other side. Tip: place your captured pieces on the side with fewer pieces.

Software is okay

One marked difference in this review compared to the Chessnut Go (a year ago) and the Chessnut Pro (two years ago), is that Chessnut’s first party app has substantially matured. The software side of things has always been a relative weakness for Chessnut. For the Chessnut Move, it takes advantage of the fact that the app has been developed now for several years and is in a good state. I’ve previously described Chessnut’s software charitably as “bare bones” but now, I have no reservations in recommending it. For instance, the Chessnut app now connects to Chess.com officially using their e-board APIs. Previously, a change in coding on Chess.com could break the connecting function of the Chessnut app (it’s happened once or twice) until Chessnut scrambled to publish an update. This should no longer be a problem.

Chessnut has also demonstrated a genuine willingness over years to engage with and support third party software developers, to expand the function of their electronic chess boards. For instance, my preferred way of connecting my Chessnut Pro board with Chess.com is via the fantastic Chessconnect, rather than via first party software. Obviously, I can’t see the future, but the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. I’m mostly confident that we’ll see the full range of functions of the Chessnut Move (importantly, the self-moving pieces) also available in third party software.

The compromises for robot functionality

However, nothing is perfect and Chessnut needed to make some clear and obvious design choices for the Chessnut Move. The first is the cost. This is a relatively expensive board. With the pre-order discount (coupon code: CHESSNUTMOVE), it’s USD $608 with the wooden pieces, and $504 with the plastic pieces. Prices are likely to go up once the device is available retail. I’m a sucker for wooden pieces, but the plastic pieces look very sharp and is probably where the best value lies.

It should be noted that at this price, you do have access to a wide range of other electronic chess boards which can be shipped today, but of course, they don’t have robot pieces.

The second compromise is that the pieces are light and feel a bit toy-like. They look like nice wooden chess pieces, but they don’t feel like it. I personally love the tactile experience of holding and using luxury weighted chessmen and you won’t get that sensory pleasure with these pieces.

The third compromise is that this is a large and very heavy board, and managing the pieces are a bit fiddly. This is not a board that will be easy to simply bring out when you want to play and then put away once you’re done. It deserves its own place in the house, and it does take up a bit of space. With the robot chess pieces, you do want to look after them and take good care of them. For instance, I would not throw them around or drop them, not that you should do that to ordinary chessmen. However, a little bit of extra babying is likely wise. With the gears and motors, you’d want to keep the playing surface as clean as possible to avoid grime and wear. I have no idea whether the pieces are easy to disassemble and clean, but even if they were, I doubt that you’d want to do this. If ordinary chessmen get dusty, you can just wipe them off with a damp microfibre cloth. You’d want to avoid these chessmen from becoming dusty in the first place! Furthermore, plugging in 34 pieces into the charging plate is rather tedious. I’m sure that you’d get used to it and get quite quick, but this is a degree of maintenance needed for this board that doesn’t exist for other electronic chess boards.

The fourth compromise is that the cost of the opponent’s pieces being able to move themselves, is that you largely cannot move them manually in game. Let me explain. According to Chessnut, the robot chess moves usually take within 3 seconds. This is consistent with my experience using the board. Depending on the complexity of the move, the move occurs usually within 1 to 3 seconds. This is quite quick for a robot, but still much slower than how quickly a human can move a piece at maximum speed, which becomes relevant during a time scramble. No electronic chess board is especially well suited for very short time controls, and a robot chess board exacerbates that problem. The Chessnut Move is the best of the very small field of contenders, it’s much quicker than the Square Off Grand Kingdom, but I wouldn’t get it if your principal purpose is to play blitz and bullet.

My experience is that playing a game of 5-minute blitz is doable, it’s adequate, but I would highly recommend including an increment. The board is best for playing a longer time control such as rapid. If you’re ever in a situation of a time scramble, you’ll be at a big disadvantage losing time while the robot moves the opponent’s pieces.

The bottom line

The Chessnut Move is a good electronic chess board, and seeing the chess pieces scurry around the board under their own steam is initially astonishing, and always delightful. It’s fun, it works, and it works well. If you’ve dreamed of owning a chess robot like me and can afford the price, this is undoubtedly the board to get.

However, if you are not enthralled by the headline feature of this board, which is the self-moving pieces, or some of the compromises feel just a bit too much, you might be better served by another electronic chess board up to this price range.

Anyway, what do you think? Write a comment down below, including any questions that you may have. I’ll try to answer the questions that I can!

Post-publication updates!

8 July 2025

• Chessnut has confirmed that mine is a pre-production unit, and that the retail unit has some minor hardware differences.
• There is a ChessnutMove firmware update (1.0.14) that "upgrades the piece-moving algorithm for smoother gameplay"

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