Chessconnect: a free chrome extension for electronic chessboards

Do you know which permissions are required? I'm still getting the NotAllowedError even with 0777 permissions. I tried chmod on the device as well as a udev rule. By the way, my udev rule looks like this:

SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="2d80", ATTRS{idProduct}=="8003", MODE="0777"

This produces the desired effect on device permissions but doesn't fix the error. The default permissions without the udev rule are 0664.

I've played a lot of games on chess.com using the extension, without "unfair play" accusations. However, just to be safe, I make sure my move accuracy rate is tanking, and my win/loss record is pathetic

Tried and tested way that proved that a player did not cheat: low Elo rating

Problems with the Chessnut Go have been solved. I'll put the fix in version 3.4 which will most likely be released next week. Thanks to @vitualis for the help.

Picking up on Chessconnect becoming accepted by chess.com: Things are starting to look somewhat promising. Let's keep our fingers crossed.

Nice and thanks for your work. However, it is my wish that in the future there would be an application for Android in this way, as DGT Pegasus has, otherwise via bluetooth, for LiChes. Tabutronic can be connected directly to a phone or tablet via a cable and provides energy and receives and transmits data. Otherwise, this is how the White Pawn application works, but only for LiChess. Thanks again with the wish for such an application on android.

@KNAVFAR: Chessconnect does run on Android using the Kiwi browser. So far this only supports BLE. But you can still power the board from your phone. That's how I use it when I am travelling. An Android/USB implementation is in the pipe.

Outstanding! This is fantastic news.

@joernupbde - I just got a Chromebook, has an i5 processor in it.

I tried it out this morning with the Chrome browser. I set the flags mentioned on the web page but it did not seem to work. Is there something special to get it working with Chrome?

I did test it with the Kiwi browser on the Chromebook and that took a bit to get it connected but then it worked fine. This thing is pretty nice, 16" flip screen, has touch, fast and pretty good amount of RAM (16GB) and storage (512GB with a 1TB card coming).

I love all the options your extension has given us to use our e-boards.

How is your coffee fund?

@Rsava: I am developing on a Chromebook. So, yes, it should work right away. Except for Chessnut+USB+Chromebook. I gave up on that. So, can you please describe in more detail, what "does not work" means? And probably send me a console log?

I think, you know the drill by now.

This is an aside I suppose, but why there is no UCI like analogue for any chess website (or GUI) to connect with a chess device over a physical layer (like USB/BT/Serial) is beyond me. Software glue layers (like chessconnect or grahm's drivers) wouldn't need to exist if the device manufacturers would implement that (base functionality) directly in a standardized way. Thankfully, people like joernupbde step up to solve this given the lack of a standard on either end (afaik). Pushing the "standard protocol" implementation to the board itself makes sense because chess i/o is a well defined and limited set of command and status operations and they have to implement some protocol anyway. A standardized protocol extension mechanism could be included to allow for proprietary features or future revisions that won't break the base support for prior applications. Every new board or website that comes along will necessitate yet another update to the glue code on one or both ends since both ends don't seem to be beholden to anything. Thanks again for your efforts!

As much as I enjoy providing the glue: you are absolutely right.

Exactly my gripe since I discovered how increasingly cumbersome it was to interface with a serial DGT board to a PC over the years.

Thank you Chessconnect developers. I greatly appreciate the time and energy that went into this.

Using the current “stable” version 3.3.26, I played over a dozen games against bots on both chess.com and lichess.org using my Android Tablet (via BT) and my MacBook Air (via USB). About 75% of the games did not behave properly.

I experienced board LEDs indicating different moves from what is the correct move made by the bot.   In another case, the game became stuck after 6 moves, with the LEDs for the last moves made by black and white still illuminated.  In most cases, the game progresses normally pretty far before strange things happen.   I had a case, where deep into the end game, white’s moves (I was white) stopped registering from the e-board, but I could make the moves using the browser.  Black’s moves where still registering from the pieces on the e-board just fine.
And, in one totally bizarre case, the bot/computer actually made a move for me — sacking a bishop of course!    These types of issues occurred using both the MacBook via USB (Edge browser) and the Android tablet via Bluetooth (Kiwi browser).  

After switching to the recent Beta Release, version 3.4.3, all problems have gone away! Only a few minor glitches to report. A couple of times a move made by the computer did not light up the board LEDs. I moved the pieces correctly and played on. When this happened again, in a different game, I waited 5 to 10s and the LEDs eventually came on. But this is really minor for me. I also noticed that more random LEDs are lighting up than in the 3.3.26 version. In 3.4.3, random LEDs are coming on pretty often. Not an issue for me!

ver 3.4.3 is wonderful. Thank you!!!

In case it is of interest, my hardware setup is:

Android Tablet Samsung Galaxy A9+ (< 1 week old) using Kiwi browser.
Macbook Air (M2 2022 version) running Mac OS Ventura 13.0, using Edge browser
Certabo Fazio board
Certabo Old-style bluetooth module (ras pi zero)


it’s just one developer, I believe. Joer.

@spaceview214: Thank you very much vor the detailed report. I wasn't aware that 3.3.26 had problems with Certabo. But I am more than happy that theese seem to be solved in 3.4.3.

I am in the process of finalizing 3.4 for release and this includes lots of testing in various configurations. I will give the Certabo a closer look. With these boards one has to find the sweet spot between speed an reliability. Maybe I should swing a little bit more towards the latter.

I have started a new cooperation with Millennium trying to bring Chessconnect to their new Phoenix device. I am actually pretty excited about this.

Woah. It interfaces with the raspberry pi of the Phoenix instead of direct to their boards? Crazy. 
Hope you get to play with the upcoming Phoenix module which should use the latest Pi models with more memory, too.

Wow, that is a very expensive piece of kit. Great that you're getting that opportunity Jörn. That will be amazing. Great work.