Chessconnect: a free chrome extension for electronic chessboards

Can you explain what chess.com features are available with Chessup 2 and Chessconnect, but not with just the Chessup 2 board? I'm asking because I mainly use Chessconnect to play other people online and to play the bots using my DGT and Millenium boards, and I understand that Chessup 2 supports both of these features w/o using a phone or computer to connect to chess.com

Do not get me wrong: the ChessUp2 is a great board and the ability to play on chess.com with just the board is nothing but awesome!

I know the developers behind the board and they are still very actively adding features. So, my statement can only reflect the current state of their development.

As of now, you can play against your friends and against the bots on chess.com. Some things like e.g. playing against random opponents, tournaments or Chess960 are not (yet) available.

If anybody wants to jump in on this, I suggest we start another thread for discussing the ChessUp2. Most likely, there already is one.

The only problem I envisage with playing tournaments on here, with any board, is that there is no time to re-set up your pieces. Unless you have a speedy game. I have only played tournaments on Lichess and there is time, as I recall, to get your pieces in order.

Hi - I'm trying to use chessconnect with a new Chessup 2 board. I'm running chessconnect in Chrome on WIndows 11. I have no issues pairing with the board, or playing bots on chess.com. But when I try to play a live match, the "connect" button changes from green to light blue and no moves from the board are recognized.

What does the light blue mean? Anyone know how to troubleshoot this?

Thanks

@CFossa: The light blue means that Chessconnect has switched from using simulated mouse clicks (green connect button) to the ofifcial API (green blueish button). The color change is actually more a debug feature for myself. That's why it's so subtle.

I will look into your problem with live matches and the ChessUp 2. This board is very new and I did not have much chance to fully check it out, yet.

@Joern thanks! FWIW my ChessUp board is not allowing me to play live games through it's internal connection to chess.com. There seem to be a number of other users with the same issue. I tried to get around this by using Chessconnect. So, the problem I'm having may just be Chessup.

@CFossa: is this with the regular version of Chessconnect or with the beta?

@CFossa: I just tried a live game with ChessUp Firmware 1.4.0 and Chessconnect 4.4.7 without problems. You can send me a console log, if you like. Maybe I can see something.

I fail to see why a live game should be different from a bot when using Chessconnect. The ChessUp board should not be able to tell the difference.

@Joern turn out this was some kind of issue on the Chessup side. They sent out an email about the problem saying they had solved the problem with instructions to log out of chess.com on the board and then log back in. This fixed the problem for me

@joernupbde I downloaded chessconnect version 4.4.8, I set the chessboard as ChessUp (I have a ChessUp 2 running version 1.4.0). When I'm on chess.com, I clicked the connect button and was able to connect to my board, it even shows on the board that its connected. I noticed that when I clicked on play bots from the main page, after it loaded the play bots page, it disconnected my board and didn't automatically try to connect like in the video tutorial showing you how to setup the board. After I reconnected my board, I started a bot game. It showed that the board was connected on the website and on my boards screen, but when ever I tried to make a move, it just shows a purple square under the piece. I even re logged out of chess.com on the board, then re logged in. I even restarted my computer and the board. Still isn't working and every time I navigate to a new page, it drops the connection and i have to manually re connect. Is there a step I missed or something I'm doing wrong? Any advice would be helpful.

Also just noticed, there is not battery life percentage under the connected green box like in the video.

Cheers

@PBK_Studio: I just played a game against a chess.com bot with the exact same setup. No problem and battery percentage was showing. I even one the game!

Can you please verify that you have ChessUp selected in the Chessconnect options? Sometime people (including me) forget to click "ok" at the end. If that's not it, you can make sure that you do not have two versions of Chessconnect installed. E.g. the beta and the regular one. Then you can check that there is only one browser tab with chessconnect in it. I.e. one tab running either chess.com or lichess.org. If that's not it, you can DM me a console log as shown in the troubleshooting video.

@joernupbde I know I hit ok yesterday because I tried to confirm the settings a few times. I did go ahead and reselect the chessup board and clicked ok. Still not working, everything looks to be connected. When I pulled up a daily game and then hit connect, all the squares lit up. So it seems to be kind of working. How can I tell if I have downloaded the beta and regular version? I didn't see anything about a beta when installing the extension. I uninstalled the extension and reinstalled it and I'm still having the same issue. I emailed you a console log. Also just cleared my cache and cookies and browsing history and still same issue.

Thanks for all the help

@joernubpde Thanks for your amazing work on this extension looks like something really cool. I just received my chessup 2 board and for some reason it's not connecting when I click on the "Connect" button, even if it looks connected from the laptop's perspective. Any idea what could be the problem? I just wanted to add that the extension is working like a charm with my chessnut air device on the same laptop

@zonArt777: Can you send me console log as described in my troubleshooting video?

I test the chessup2 connection. It works well with the actual firmware and chessconnect version it works without a problem to play with a bot on chess.com

Well, I really have not much logs beside a warning about the bluetooth web interface which is experimental, apart from that nothing since when scanning for a board it never detects it. Here is the log:
blemanager.ts:71 Web Bluetooth is experimental on this platform. See https://github.com/WebBluetoothCG/web-bluetooth/blob/main/implementation-status.md
sentry.client.f7f39777.js:14 User cancelled the requestDevice() chooser.

As I said previously, the chessnut air is working flawlessly on the same device and as far as I know it also uses BLE, meaning this shouldn't be the issue. Don't know if I need a beta version of the extension to use the chessup2 or not

This is what happens when using chessnut air:

2025-01-09 12:46:01.805: received: {"type":"board-position","fen":"8/p4k2/6p1/2N5/PnP1K3/1P6/7R/8 b - - 0 41","actions":["resign","offer-draw"]}
blemanager.ts:71 Web Bluetooth is experimental on this platform. See https://github.com/WebBluetoothCG/web-bluetooth/blob/main/implementation-status.md
sentry.client.f7f39777.js:14 smartboard connected 1
sentry.client.f7f39777.js:14 ---- new site position for board 8/p4k2/6p1/2N5/PnP1K3/1P6/7R/8 b KQkq - 0 41(2025-01-09 12:49:08.375):
sentry.client.f7f39777.js:14 8 ........
sentry.client.f7f39777.js:14 7 p....k..
sentry.client.f7f39777.js:14 6 ......p.
sentry.client.f7f39777.js:14 5 ..N.....
sentry.client.f7f39777.js:14 4 PnP.K...
sentry.client.f7f39777.js:14 3 .P......
sentry.client.f7f39777.js:14 2 .......R
sentry.client.f7f39777.js:14 1 ........
sentry.client.f7f39777.js:14 2025-01-09 12:49:08.418: Board orientation remains normal
sentry.client.f7f39777.js:14 ---- onBoardChanged 1(2025-01-09 12:49:08.418):
sentry.client.f7f39777.js:14 8 ........
sentry.client.f7f39777.js:14 7 pN...k..
sentry.client.f7f39777.js:14 6 ......p.
sentry.client.f7f39777.js:14 5 ..p.....
sentry.client.f7f39777.js:14 4 PnP.K...
sentry.client.f7f39777.js:14 3 .P......
sentry.client.f7f39777.js:14 2 .......R
sentry.client.f7f39777.js:14 1 ........
sentry.client.f7f39777.js:14 2025-01-09 12:49:08.418: modified fields: c5 b7
sentry.client.f7f39777.js:14 2025-01-09 12:49:08.418: 2 LEDs need to be lit
sentry.client.f7f39777.js:14 2025-01-09 12:49:08.418: Lighting 2 LEDs
sentry.client.f7f39777.js:14 2025-01-09 12:49:08.733: results in move: undefined, move.player=undefined, player=0

@zonArt777: To get the obvious out of the way: You did select ChessUp as the board manufacturer in the Chessconnect Options and save?

You will not need the beta. The official release (usually) works fine with ChessUp and ChessUp 2.

Can you send me the full log along with a screenshot of your Chessconnect options? And please do not cancel the pairing dialog (that is assuming that the ChessUp2 shows up).

My bad I was so full dumb, didn't realize that there are configuration step on the extension so that you can chose the type of board which should be connected. I now chose chessup and it all looks much better connected (even if moving piece still doesn't seem to work but at least now I should be able to provide some logs)

@zonArt777: That's good! Can you please also verify that your ChessUp is running firmware 1.5?