Square Off - Chess Set

Kickstarter update: Neo and Swap first shipments ETA January 2022

They're now taking orders for the Swap on their website...

Check availability at

If I like the SOP I may go for a Neo if they get the bugs out of the software program.

The fact it takes so long when it only has one legal move makes you wonder about the logic the program is using.  I asked them this question and they emailed me back "they are working on the problem".  I hope when they get fixes it will update the SOP automatically or by asking you. If you can't update the program running the SOP or any of their units coming out that would not be good. 

I CANNOT WAIT!!!! Finally getting excited

I really like the Kingdom lineups prestigeous aesthetic, but due to their slowness and poor preformance I would never buy one. When I heard about the Neo and Swap I got excited, as they seem to have improved everything that was poor with the kingdom sets. But I absolutely hate how cheap and electronic they look.. so I reached out to SO and asked if they would ever make a board with Swap's technology and Grand Kingdoms appearance, and they replied "Currently, we do no have such plans."

Really dissapointing! They have the technology and they have the design, but they refuse to combine them. I'm sure a "Grand Kingdom 2.0" would sell a lot better than the Swap ever will. Not to mention I don't even care about checkers, I just need the Swap for their alleged x3 speed and built in battery.. or I'd have gotten the Neo. Such a waste

@DanielRomarEllis:

Absolutely agree!  And the sad thing is folks have been complaining about the look of the Swap since they first unveiled the design.  Don't get me started on marketing the ability to play checkers to chess players...

What about the NEO? any updates?

Well the Kingdom boards worked well for many, I think they will be fine. Time will tell

How expensive would the Kingdom board be with the new technology integrated into it? The cheaper tech is already a $500 board and the craftmanship of it wasn't even to the level of less expensive boards. I'm sure they have data to validate their decision in going plastic to lower the price. A $700 board with mediocre craftmanship would be a tough ask.

I periodically click on an ad to see what the estimated delivery will be for a new Neo/Swap preorder.  This doesn't look promising at all....

Delivery by 15th May, 2022

I thought the Neo's were heading out shortly

The company quietly announced all the proc sensors they bought failed QC, and delayed the product rather than ship a faulty product.  It is good they delayed it, but it is terrible that they didn't come out and say what was going on. 

And again, quietly, they announced that the first 10 test units had some issues 3 days ago, giving them more delays.  

I think it wouldn't be so infuriating if they just kept us in the loop. 

Thanks for the info.  So i'm going to guess that this is probably going to delay their estimated delivery date of may 2022 which is what their website shows.  Chessup looks good from the recent videos i've seen even though it doesn't have utomatic movements.  But since the NEO is supposed to be delivered in May I thought i would wait the extra month (chess up estimated for april).  Now i'm thinking if the NEO gets delayed then again i'll just order the chessup.

I'm sure square off will eventually get it right but I just can't wait much longer.

Where were these items announced please?

On the Kickstarter, not a direct announcement, simply a comment in the comments section.

As for the latest delay: 

This was posted January 18, 2022:

[quote]- Hi, so far the testing has been good. We recognized some assembly mistakes that factory workers made in these units and subassembly. Thus to standardize the assembly process our contract manufacturer is making some more jigs that will further assist in the first 100 and future product assemblies. The current setup at our contract manufacturing factory can produce 50-100 units per day once the process is streamlined. But we are working with them to start parallel assembly lines to multiply the daily output. Thanks![/quote]

I'm going to look for the other delay, which is why they missed the December deadline. 

The announcement for the faulty magnetic sensors was in the November 2021 update on the kickstarter. 

[quote]This interim delay due to the faulty sensors unfortunately prevented us from shipping out the first batch of NEO & SWAP as promised in November.  [/quote]

At least these issues were discovered by the QC team rather than the end users who would have had to return them for replacements or repairs. I'll continue to wait patiently and hope the received product will be resilient to faults.

Thanks for the info, I appreciate it.  I dont keep tabs on all the kickstarter comments, I do read their formal email updates though, but must have forgotten about that.

I'm not in any huge rush ( thankfully! ) . I backed on kickstarter so very long ago that it'll be a nice surprise when it eventually ships

I would rather have a working product than something that doesn't work at all, but they should be more open with the problems they have been having.  We've blown by the third deadline with no "official" word on why.