PHANTOM: The Automated Chessboard

Here's a video:

It's a surprisingly high quality board even beyond being robotic. Really nice weighted pieces and walnut finish.

Glad you received it! I'd be furious about the damaged battery after all this time.

I’d be lying if I said it didn’t irritate me, but ultimately, I can still use it with the cord until a replacement comes, so there’s no rush to get a replacement. I’ll just use it with the cord until then, and then solder the replacement on when it arrives. I think what happened is one of the magnets in the h bot array, which was loose but luckily not damaged, rolled and hit the battery during shipping. It’s not really their fault, it’s the fault of the shipping company. Still though, they offer replacements for any issues whatsoever and I’m sure their batteries don’t cost much for them to ship.

I received my board today! It’s beautiful and just looks and feels like magic. It’s not Chess.com enabled though. Lichess (which I will need to join) and StockFish.

While I cannot stand the pieces (although I do understand the reason for the design), I think the board looks sharp.

I just received my Phantom board (order #140-something) in the UK, after having almost given up the ghost (or phantom). So the good news is that it’s not a scam and the better news is it’s actually pretty neat. To reassure fellow investors I posted a brief blog video at https://billygatechess.blogspot.com/2025/07/phantom-robotic-chessboard-made-of-real.html. I’m into chess e-boards and am working on a universal BLE gateway to make e-boards less dependent on their manufacturer apps.

Looking forward to more reports by backers as they receive their boards. Your board looks really good.

I'm sure the chess community would love to test out your interface for use here on chess.com.