Square Off

Can you write some more details? Im interested at PHANTOM aswell, but I don't wanna risk it and pre-order. Where did you find PHANTOM?

I know, but I think they are on somewhat early stages according to their updates

So today is the day mine (Swap) was supposed to be shipped. No word. I visited their website, and the Neo and Swap aren't even on it anymore?!

From their website chat: "The Neo and SWAP boards are unavailable at this time. However, we will surely announce it if its coming back."

I'll reach out via email...

They were simply projected to ship now.  The reality is that you are looking at June if you ordered from the website. If you believe squareoff's current estimate. 

They are off the website simply because they oversold them.  

Sure, except I ordered it over a year ago. "We will surely announce it if its (sic) coming back." The word "if" doesn't sound very confidence inspiring. We'll see. I'll update with what comes back from support. At least they do respond.

Might be my patience has finally run out.

I am one of the Kickstarters, so I have been waiting since 2019.  Only 100 of the SWAPs from the Kickstarter has been delivered so far, with our estimate being February before I get mine.  

February 28, 2022 was my original estimate. As a matter of fact, it still says that date when I click the tracking on the original order. Have you been in contact with them?

2019, wow. I'm a bit surprised to learn that. I haven't noted all of your replies, but didn't you advise people to wait until it's available on Amazon?

You can email them at hello@squareoffnow.com, and they seem to be responding within two weeks.

I haven't personally been in contact with them, but i have been following the Kickstarter and Indiegogo religiously since 2019, so i have seen things. 

The reason i suggest people use a 3rd party, like Amazon or HoS is because square off's customer service has historically been lacking.  Returning it to Amazon or HoS is much easier than square off themselves.  If you bought it from Amazon, you could get your money back now.

They did a really poor job with defective Grand Kingdom sets. They have been better with returning bad Neo units, so I have to give them credit for that.

As I said, they have been responsive via email, faster than two weeks. They've given me several new shipping date estimates.

So, you're going to stay the course?

I purchased the Square Off Neo from their website in May 2022, with an ETA delivery date in June.  This was not a preorder.  They had listed the device as being immediately available.

I later received a notification that "logistic problems" meant that delivery would be delayed to August.  Quotation from the email:

"Due to an unanticipated logistic glitch that arose recently, we are expecting a delay in the shipment.  Your board will now be delivered to you by August 30, 2022. You will receive a tracking link as soon as your order ships."

Needless to say, August came and went, and after a month, I contacted them again.  On 3 October 2022, I received the following message, which reading this thread, seems like a minimal effort canned response:

"Thank you for contacting us.

We understand your disappointment with the delay in delivery, we really do. But, our team is working really hard to get things sorted.

We would like to inform you that your order is in process and it is estimated to be shipped by March 2023.

Once the order is dispatched you will receive the tracking details on your email address.

Please be rest assured that we have notified the logistics team to ship your order on priority once we receive the stocks at the warehouse.

If you have any further queries, please feel free to revert and we will be glad to assist you."

What is obvious to me now is that Square Off doesn't actually hold any stock of the Neo, and obviously didn't hold any when they had it listed as available on their website in May 2022.  They clearly knew that they were not going to be able to deliver the device to me by June 2022, or August 2022.  I highly suspect that March 2023 is not possible either.

And fundamentally, I think that this is irrelevant.  This demonstrates to me that the leadership and governance team of Square Off lack integrity in addition to any issues of competence that they have in managing their supply chain and operations.

I've already asked for an immediate refund, but I wouldn't be surprised if they won't respond acceptably and I'll have to escalate.  I wish I read this thread before ordering and knew that original backers were still waiting for their devices 2+ years before ordering.  Doing a bit of googling, it seems that Square Off has been acquired by a larger toy company, Miko in October 2022.  If I were running that larger company, I would look at Square Off's product lines and simply delete the ones that obviously problematic.  I'd be extremely surprised if the Neo and Swap ever ships and this might have been the reason they were removed from pre-order on their website.

They told me that the replacement Neo (mine was defective) would ship in "some weeks".  I guess I shouldn't hold my breath for that replacement.  My expectations are low.

Squareoff grossly misrepresented the state of the project for the kickstarter and especially indiegogo.  

The kickstarter claimed it was going gold before the end of the kickstarter, when in reality they were nowhere close to gold.  Indiegogo is intended for products that are in pre-production, so past gold.  They went gold 2 1/2 years past their Indiegogo date, so that campaign should never have taken place.    

They have also given several new dates to the kickstarters, including asking for accessories early 2022 when they weren't even gold.    

That said, they have a history of delivering a product, even if late.  They are still operating a company that is selling Grand Kingdom and Pro sets. It appears that they have fulfilled US kickstarter backers for the Neo, even if there is a number of defective products.   

So, I am willing to wait.  I do think that I will eventually receive a product, but I don't believe in any sort of date that they give me.  I am operating on the idea that it comes when it comes.

Hi…I got a question that maybe someone here can answer.

I got my grand kingdom set and little niggles aside it works pretty well.

my problem is the AI. Now I’m a pretty bad player, but I can beat chess.com elo 1100

bots all day long, and do ok with the 1200 ones.

the square off AI? Levels 1-3, my cat could beat. It’s brain dead. 
level 4 and above is unbeatable for me. 

But like I said, I’m not good at chess and maybe it’s just me? But man. Level 1-3, too easy. Level 4, I can’t keep up with. 
anyone else have any thoughts on this?

also their “adaptive AI” isn’t working. Keeps

playing at level 1, no matter how many time I beat it, or how fast or how easily.

I have a Neo and it's feels very cheap and more like a toy then a chessboard but the biggest problem is the App. It is very poor designed especially for online play. And there is a big jump in the AI between Lvl. 3 and 4. The adaptive mode works a little better for me. It tells you after each game in the stats wich level you have played against and that's ok. There is a workaround for playing the Maya Bot on lichess. You have to connect the board in the Square Off App then open the lichess App and start a game against a Bot ( or Human) and then go back to the Square Off App and start a new online game via lichess and it tells you that you already have a running game and let you play it on the board. Maya is by far the best adaptive AI for chess so give it a try

Hmmm that didn’t work for me. I started the lichess game but when I then used the square off app to do a random challenge against lichess it had me play against a real person. They pushed an update shortly after Xmas - maybe it’s changed now?

Also, I have the exact same problem you do. Level 1-3 is laughable, too easy, then at 4 and higher I get crushed over and over. It’s no fun.

Here's what I received via Email:

"Thank you for your order with us.

Squreoff made a legal agreement that they can't sell you a board until Indiegogo gets theirs, so after / during the US's date would be when you would get yours. 

I received an e-mail today from Square Off giving me a return label.  They said that once they received back my defective board, they would send a replacement.  I'll let everyone know when I receive the new board and whether it works properly or not.