Easy DIY that makes your favorite chess set compatible with SOP

Not a novel idea, but I glued disc magnets after peeling off the felt then re-felted the pieces so now they can work with the Square Off Pro. Some tips I learned while working on them:

• Try to find the biggest disc magnet that will fit flush or slightly smaller diameter than the base of the piece. If it's too small, the piece can wobble and has to be placed as close to the center of the square for the board to detect it. This won't be a problem if you plan on installing the magnets inside the piece itself versus just easily gluing them on the bottom.
• Hindsight, I wish I spray painted the magnets black so the edges wouldn't be so shiny and contrast to the piece and felt.

For this particular set, here are the sizes of magnets and felt pads I went for:

Chess House Inspiration set

• King height: 3.75"
• King base: 1.625"
• King weight: 2.5oz
• Set weight: 3 lbs

1x1/32" Neodymium Rare Earth Disc Magnets

1.25x1/32" Neodymium Rare Earth Disc Magnets

Good job! The shiny part doesn't look so bad, makes the pieces actually look more expensive. Curious about your statement about installing magnets inside the piece itself.. How strong of a magnet is required to be recognized by SOP? Side note: Why does your SOP board look like it's missing the black bar on the side ?

The magnets were just glued onto the bottom, not installed inside per se - which is why I scoured the internet for the thinnest disc magnets (which don’t have to be that strong. 1-4# pull force maybe?). The black bar is still there it’s just the lighting and the grey fabric puzzle board that’s underneath is making it look like it’s not 😅

I did something similar. I removed the 2mm felt on my wood HoS Championship Series pieces and used hole punch on the felt in order to glue 10x2mm neodymium magnets to the bottom center and reattach felt around. Since they're both 2mm width it worked out with no wobble so far, though likely quite a bit more work than your idea.