DGT Bluetooth e-Board Walnut Review + Timeless & FIDE DGT Pieces
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Sounds like you are enjoying the DGT setup. Is this the Non E version?
Schachmonkey wrote:
Sounds like you are enjoying the DGT setup. Is this the Non E version?
It's the electronic bluetooth version. I did accidentally submit my post and edit it subsequently... it seems like on mobile you can only see my first submission, so not entirely sure if you can read the whole thing, but I go into detail about connecting it to the computer and whatnot. This is the one made out of wood, though, not the plastic one.
@Schachmonkey OP is definitely talking about the E-board. I'm glad to see that you're enjoying and getting usage from your DGT E-Board. I found DGT Shop to be better for my needs since I didn't need a board & piece bundle since. I have a DGT enabled NOJ Minceta set so only needed an eboard. If I didn't have the NOJ set I would've probably have went with HoS and their bundles. The Timeless pieces also come weighted if you really like how they look and want to get them weighted. On a personal note I like your choice of getting the non annotated version. When playing with friends we alternate colors after every game. While both annotated and non-annotated DGT boards would recognize the sides change it would bother me looking down and seeing my white King on d8.
KineticPawn wrote:
On a personal note I like your choice of getting the non annotated version. When playing with friends we alternate colors after every game. While both annotated and non-annotated DGT boards would recognize the sides change it would bother me looking down and seeing my white King on d8.
Yeah, there's something to the clean aesthetic that I really like. It does confer for me the side benefit of hearing the position changes and absolutely INGRAINING the square names in my head rather than having the numbers there as a crutch, so I suppose that's also helpful hehehe.
Yeah, this is why I started chopping off the annotations from my vinyl boards, too...I don't like having to flip the board when the colors change. 
Very nice write-up, @coccochess88, great photos, and good luck with the board! I love the FIDE pieces and any DGT board (mine is the non-e version).
@coccochess88 Excellent, well rounded right-up! Thanks for the good read this morning. These World Chess FIDE pieces go hand-in-hand with the Carlsen era. Great choice!
I still cringe when seeing how the DGT pieces are packaged with no packing materials. Just loose, rattling around in a plastic bag. My $700usd official World Chess weighted FIDE DGT pieces come loose in 2 plastic bags in the cardboard box. There were broken collars and dings straight out of the box. Reason enough to purchase from a trusted vendor with customer service for follow-up.
FYI: Those bottom color dot stickers are barely stuck on. If you don't want to lose any, peel them off and re-adhere them with a dot of Elmer's glue so they are more secure. Enjoy!
Yeah, it's *insane* how poorly they ship. With my DGT FIDE set I received a black pawn with the collar clear broken off. I did get a replacement from DGT but, still, it's the worst packaged set I've purchased while being clear and away the most expensive. Even a $75 german knight study set I received from Chess Bazaar was packaged better!
It’s annoying that I can’t see your update. Lol
lotsoblots wrote:
Yeah, it's *insane* how poorly they ship. With my DGT FIDE set I received a black pawn with the collar clear broken off. I did get a replacement from DGT but, still, it's the worst packaged set I've purchased while being clear and away the most expensive. Even a $75 german knight study set I received from Chess Bazaar was packaged better!
If you still have the broken pawn would you mind taking it apart? I'm curious as to how difficult it would be to take the sensors from a plastic set and installing it in a wooden one. I'm also curious as to how the weight the pieces so that it doesn't interfere with the sensors.
I do still have it. I gorilla-glued it back together so that I could use it as a possible spare if I lost or broke another one...I'll refresh my memory when I'm back home to see if it's good enough to be worth keeping or taking apart. Incidentally, I also managed to get the glue on my fingers and I think did permanent damage to them. 
Sorry you're having issues with the analysis board function. It was the easiest thing for me to set up and probably the one thing that I use the most. I would try re-downloading the latest DGT RabbitPlugin (https://digitalgametechnology.com/support/software/software-downloads). Uninstalling the old one, if it is installed, and reinstalling the newest one.
Typically, once I get the piece set up, all I have to do is pick up the kings and, for the side to move, make sure I play that king on the positions square LAST. Then whatever game snippet is chosen, I am ready to go. Also, the analysis function, at this point, is already functional. I have replayed many middlegame and endgame positions using this function. I would give that a shot.
Anyone in the US interested in buying DGT boards or pieces should buy from Schach Niggemann in Munster, Germany. Over the years I have purchased several DGT boards and pieces from them. Their prices are significantly lower than any US based seller. They ship quickly with the products well packaged. When browsing their website, note that their quoted prices include their VAT, which will not be applied to shipments to the US, and the quoted price excludes shipping. My experience has been for sales to the US, their quoted price comes pretty close to the final price you will pay with shipping to the US. They also sell pretty much every combination of DGT boards and pieces. The OP could have bought just the board he purchased and weighted FIDE pieces for far less then what he paid.
Hi coccochess88 and everyone!
Thank you for your review. I have the fide weighted wch set but still would like to buy in the near future the basic timeless set. Unfortunately only the unweighted set is available at the moment.
How light is it comparaed to you fide wch set? Does it still have a nice feel to it, or very light?
It does feel a lot lighter, but I dare say that may make even a nicer contrast for you since you already have the FIDE one, which is so heavily weighted. Moreso than the weight, though, what surprised me was the finish of the pieces themselves.... I don't know if maybe the weighted ones are done a bit better because of the price differential or what, but if I had paid the kind of money I did for the FIDE ones and got the timeless pieces in terms of quality, I think I'd be a little disappointed. They are well executed, look great, and fit the board nicely, but assuming the quality is the same irrespective of whether they are weighted or not, I think you are probably better off buying the cheaper set -- you'll have two different looking pieces, different sets of weights for whatever the mood strikes, AND you'll spend less money!
Thank you for your prompt reply.
I do not think the weighted ones will have better quality, and yes the simple timeless set is an affordable electronic set compared to the wch set, that is why I am considering it.
I bought a Timeless set from a member here the lightly weighted version feels great and looks very nice no chips cracks.. I think I’m going with the smart board waiting for a sale.
Schachmonkey, good to hear You like it, if You have time post some pictures pls!
I can’t post pics from iPhone and don’t use a computer but I’ll see if I can get some shots to send.
coccochess88 wrote:
Playing on Chess.Com
On Chess.Com, you simply toggle the DGT button on the play area and fire away. A litle text message appears on the right-hand side which helps you out, letting you know if the board is connected, in sync, waiting for a move, etc. If you are so inclined, there's also an extension which will read out your opponent's moves from you in Danny's voice (with additional color commentary from Danny which are at once hilarious and also get quite old pretty quickly). Overall, I'd say it works... ok. Unlike the Lichess integration, the Chess.com one doesn't really handle edge cases all that gracefully: You have to be very intentional when castling, and if you make mistakes on the board you might need to occasionally use the computer to play moves until the board starts recognizing your moves again. It's not a deal breaker, and these issues only happen occasionally; however, having played many, many games that went totally flawlessly on Lichess, its hard not to be a bit disappointed. It's definitely a bit immersion breaking to need to go back to the computer, and given the contrast between the support in both sites, I sure hope chess.com would invest in making it more ironclad, because when it works, the experience is just awesome.
The old 'Live' board worked (for most people) and the 'Play' board doesn't work properly with castling or check (moving into/out of). To call it an edge case is very generous of you 
.
Chess.com have been aware of the problems on 'Play' since last December . They have also been given the information to recreate the problem and told how to fix it (there are a couple of small bugs in the sites JavaScript), which they still haven't done.
BTW, castling does work as long as you do it very quickly and if you want to read about the check problems see this post.
Received the board and pieces this Friday and spent most of the weekend on it giving it a good kick of the tires. Overall, very impressed with it, but I remember having a few questions still outstanding when I pulled the trigger, so I felt I could write this to hopefully help someone out thinking about buying any part of this.
The Purchase Process
The board (with the timeless pieces) were bought at the House of Staunton, and the FIDE pieces directly through the DGT shop (it seemed to be the only place that had them). Price-wise, including shipping it seemed the better deal was to just buy the board from Staunton, and the DGT shop had no shipping estimate and I was hoping to get it super quickly, so it solidified my decision to go the Staunton route. To my surprise, however, the DGT shipment arrived in the same time, and in hindsight I might have considered simply buying it all there. Overall, however, both purchases were a breeze, and both packages were very nicely protected and arrived without incident.
The Board
Overall, super pleased with the board. It has a nice, solid weight to it, and the deep walnut color is nice. When seeing it on TV/broadcast, and even on the websites, sometimes the colors vary substantially and you may have the impression that it is much warmer of a color than it actually is. It is certainly a dark, greyish tone of wood, but I've seen it look different and a bit warmer depending on the lighting that it is under. On the sides, there's just the light, the on-off button, and the plug for the USB charger, fairly straightforward. Package comes with Fritz CD, USB cable, power plug w/ adapter for different regions, and a comically useless manual.
Timeless Pieces
It was quite fun just having watched the Tata Steel and immediately recognizing the pieces. They match extremely well in color and style with the board, and the overall workmanship on them is quite nice. I think the bundled set comes with the lighter, unweighted pieces, but they are certainly not too light. There are small knicks and things like that on the pieces, but it is probably something you'd expect. Overall, quite an enjoyable set to move around the table!
FIDE DGT Pieces
I'll be extremely blunt: This set blows the included Timeless set out of the water. Beyond the weight which makes it immediately feel like a more premium product, this set seems like it was polished more and definitely executed to a higher workmanship standard. I don't know if this comes down to difference in price (this is substantially more expensive than the timeless unweighted set), or something to do with the fact that it is the world championship set, but the difference in quality is almost night and day (the other one was great, but this is AMAZING). For folks who don't like this set because of the knight, I too had my qualms, but it really does look better in person. In terms of playing with it, the way this knight is laid out actually makes it really nice to maneuver around the board, and feels similar to the other pieces which are cylindrical in nature.
Part of my big issue before getting this set was coming down to the bottom of what actually was the "official" set from the world championships. I was confused because you can get the sets on the official world championship shop, yet they don't sell any e-board enabled pieces, and you can clearly see that Magnus and Ian, for instance, played their game on a DGT board. Additionally, the sets from the world chess shop feature a white felt on the white pieces, and black felt on the black ones. When I was looking back on the coverage of that match, I managed to catch a still of Ian playing with a piece:
You can see the bottom of white white piece is made of black felt, and it has this blue sticker on it. As it turns out, the stickers help DGT sort out which coil is what when the pieces are being put together. Lo and behold, I turned one of my pawns over and...
So, it felt nice solving the mystery! Overall, I'm most pleased with these pieces out of the whole thing. They've truly been awesome to play with.
Connectivity
I have an Macbook Air M1, Windows 10 Desktop, and iPhone. When I got this, the hope was to make it play nicely with my Air and have that next to me as I used it, with the hope of perhaps doing the same with the iPhone. I felt cautiously optimistic after reading lots of reviews, but I knew I could run into issues. Nevertheless, I felt that if all failed I could rely on my desktop PC if I needed to.
Playing Online
I essentially got this so I could have a nice experience and use it to play online. I'm... extremely aware that DGT and others make boards with that specific purpose and which, because of that, may even perform better on this dimension than the DGT board. However, I wanted this + something which was aesthetically pleasing and something which could act as a piece of decoration, of which this board does a nice job of. Having said that, the online experience has surprised me, in both good and bad ways.
Playing Online On Lichess (on Mac)
Lichess' integration of this board works essentially perfectly. You keep open a separate tab which gives you diagnostics on your board, and then open a separate window for your game. It recognizes your DGT automatically (once you fired up LiveChess on the Mac), and you can play away. Castling, promotions, etc. are all handled well. It also very nicely gives you warnings if your board position is invalid (you moved an opponent piece wrong, etc.) On several occasions I either forgot to move my opponent's piece and moved my own, or moved a piece to the wrong spot, and was always able to just fix the issue and keep playing the game. I honestly can't speak more highly of the experience on Lichess.
Playing on Chess.Com
On Chess.Com, you simply toggle the DGT button on the play area and fire away. A litle text message appears on the right-hand side which helps you out, letting you know if the board is connected, in sync, waiting for a move, etc. If you are so inclined, there's also an extension which will read out your opponent's moves from you in Danny's voice (with additional color commentary from Danny which are at once hilarious and also get quite old pretty quickly). Overall, I'd say it works... ok. Unlike the Lichess integration, the Chess.com one doesn't really handle edge cases all that gracefully: You have to be very intentional when castling, and if you make mistakes on the board you might need to occasionally use the computer to play moves until the board starts recognizing your moves again. It's not a deal breaker, and these issues only happen occasionally; however, having played many, many games that went totally flawlessly on Lichess, its hard not to be a bit disappointed. It's definitely a bit immersion breaking to need to go back to the computer, and given the contrast between the support in both sites, I sure hope chess.com would invest in making it more ironclad, because when it works, the experience is just awesome.
Using it as analysis board
By far my greatest disappointment with it is the relative inability to truly use it as an analysis board. It'd be simply brilliant to be able to spin up an analysis board here, for instance, and to make moves on the board and watch the evaluation in real time. Alas, neither here, nor on Lichess, not even in the bundled Fritz software, that seems to be an option. You can, at best, use it to set a position and then get the PGN/PEN of it, but that's about it. To truly move the pieces around and get an evaluation, as I'd hoped, seems to not be something supported.
Overall
Taken together, I'm quite pleased with this purchase. I can definitely recommend every part of this bundle for the physical quality, finish, and how well it operates. It is also clear from looking at the raw RabbitPlugin and LiveChess data that the info the board receives from the pieces is extremely reliable, and I dare say they are all detected flawlessly 100% of the time. For the pieces themselves, definitely a special shoutout to the FIDE pieces, although they are certainly priced accordingly at about 3x the price of the unweighted FIDE pieces. Lastly, for online play, the board works well, but here Lichess shines, not only in the functionality but in the fact that it allows you to play with the computer, which chess.com does not. If there is a disappointment, it is in the lack of analysis support and in the lack of TLC to the chess.com integration in the play area (it works, but could be better).
If you like what you see on TV and would like one at home but still want to get utility out of it, I think this is a great purchase. However, I concede that for FAR LESS money, you probably can get one of the other boards which treat online play as more of a first class citizen.