Square Off Pro - A Review After 2½ Years

Square off is not providing much variations in terms of chess pieces designs. Do they have any DIY kit to customise a chess set to pair with their boards.

Hallo

I will revive this thread a bit as I am on the edge as far as buying a full size board. I have Chessnut Air+, which after many upgrades (new app) works like a charm. Unfortunately, the board is too small for my comfort. Tournament board gives better picture for my eyes.

I have ordered Chessnut Pro (as always they have weird shipments problems, so I will need to wait for two separate packages: the board and the pieces). The only disadvantage I can expect form the board is (paradoxically) its size. So I figured to try Square Off Pro, as it seems much easier to be stored. Then I decide which one to keep.

I know that SO app

• requires subscription and I can live with that
• Connect only with Lichess and that is also fine

My question is: are there any caveats / traps as far as SO app? I would like to connect to my iPad, not phone, as the tablet is bigger and easier to operate.

Hello

I purchased a Chessnut Air and a week later I discovered the Square Off Pro in October 2023. I only played around with the Air , it connected to Chess.com and Lichess , no problem . Also it will connect to a PC which I did . I too prefer the tournament size pieces that is why I purchased the Pro . I have been playing on Chess.com only 60/G for about a year , well over a hundred games. I have played acouple games on Lichess .The board has been great with no problems , you do have to get the feel of it . Stay in sequence , no shortcuts and let the move set before moving again . Play bots before you attempt live opponents. I don't think it would work on 15/G or less , but I stick to classical 60/G . Other then that I have really , really enjoyed it . I like the feel of the pieces , however the white pieces are two different shades. I do not have a SO subscription, I don't think it is necessary. I don't use any of the SO stuff , they have a group of players, analysis and some other stuff in their app. I just ignore it. It is really a big bang for a little over $200 , it may have been on sale at the time .

Seems to be all App and Subscription dependent. Not a big fan of that. You never know the future pricing model and if the board will be supported with furture versions of Apple/Android models.
Would be great if it would offer offline bots built in to the board that do not require online or connection with any app. Which looks like is not offered.

I have a SOPro and am also an embedded s/w engineer. The SOPro is decent hardware, the firmware is adequate but unfortunately degraded in its latest release (3.0.5), the app is crap and the company and their treatment of customers was terrible. Reading between the lines they went bust 2+ years ago and were sold for beans to another Mumbai startup called Miko who make little robots with Disney TV screens, the idea being to 'educate' your kids and to add chess to this mix. In terms of customer support Miko is as bad as SquareOff and the SOPro is the poor cousin to the piece-moving boards. TLDR = the SOPro is effectively a dead product and when chess.com and lichess.org update their APIs the SOPro will go from being an eboard to a dumb-board. This already seems to be the case for most if not everyone.

Because the SOPro is good hardware I'm looking to see if I can develop a universal bluetooth bridge to it, so that it can be controlled from other chess apps (cutting the crap SO app out of the loop). If you want to be notified (if I succeed) please DM me.

DocM

@feardearg - That would be great if you could develop a blue tooth bridge to be able to use the SO Pro board play on the major platforms. I agree that the board is great for what it is (even without full piece identification) and would like to be able to use it independent of the legacy Square Off / Miko app. There is no other rollup eboard option so this is all there is...Good luck with your project!

Sharing the recently posted video for the Bluetooth bridge...looks promising! https://www.facebook.com/share/v/18aJtWnWDq/

Thanks, Jim ... yes, if you would like to learn more about my little 'BillyGate' bridge and how it can Make SquareOff e-boards Functional Again please follow the project at https://www.facebook.com/billygatechess.