Air Electronic Chess Set, A magnificently Handcrafted Wooden Chess Board with Extra Queens,LEDs, AI Adaptive Electronic Chess Set Game and App with Computer Chess Board

After rediscovering chess, I found myself playing games on chess.com every day. Even after thirty minutes, my eyes would get bloodshot from being fixed on my tiny phone screen. I did a lot of online research to find an eboard, and settled on the Chessnut Air. I was deciding between Chessnut Air, Chessnut Air+, Chessnut Pro, Chessnut Evo, and Chessup.First I ruled out the boards with onboard computers (Evo and Chessup), since my favorite thing to do is play real opponents and I like using game analysis on my phone. Chessup was easy to rule out from one look at their product support forum and all the raging users telling the founder that he had swindled them.I then ruled out Chessnut Pro. Due to the board's massive size, it would take over half my desk, and it would be too easy for that symbolize the impact of chess on my life. Also consider that, with online play, you will need to rotate the board depending on if you are black or white, so the board takes more space than it appears to. The smaller size of the Air has not been an issue for me.I chose the Chessnut Air due to the crudeness of the wooden pieces on the plus. I like the aesthetics of the plastic Air pieces. Also, the board and pieces look enough like wood or ivory that the effect is about the same, for me. After all, it is an e-board, so I'd rather have a plastic one that looks like wood instead of a wood one with crude pieces.A common complaint I have seen on boards like the Air is something like, "You could just put your phone next to a regular board and do the same thing." From my experience there is a HUGE difference. Yes, there is a chessboard UI on the phone during the game, but I forget my phone is there and never look at it. When I do look at the phone, it is to glance at the clock, or confirm which piece my opponent's pawn is promoted to. The lag hasn't been a problem. It seems to be less than a second per move. I have not experienced a single issue using this board after a month of daily use. I was concerned that worrying about the board's reliability could affect my games, but I am not even thinking about the board while playing. Both chess.com and lichess integrations work flawlessly. Both integrations work within the Chessnut app using the chess.com/lichess website, not the mobile app. Some people complain about this, but I don't care, considering I am not looking at the app during the game. After the game, I go into the chess.com app and analyze it. It's possible to analyze through the Chessnut app, but it's more awkward since it is a website on phone through an app. The board UX is great. If the king and queen are in the wrong spot or you knock a piece over, the leds just light up and you swap them. Battery life lasts for lots of games - too many to count, maybe ten or fifteen. At first I was leaving the board plugged in, until I read that the battery life will probably exceed the life of the board. If the battery ever fails, an external battery would work.The only minor hiccup was setting up chess.com integration. It wasn't letting me do it, and I found that I needed to convert my gmail SSO password to a local password. Considering this integration is a core feature of the board, it would have been nice to have a little card in the box explaining this, instead of needing to google it.Ultimately, this board has greatly improved my enjoyment of playing online chess.

Like many chess enthusiasts, I have played most of my games online. I have the DGT Centaur board, but after awhile the inability to play a live opponent and easily review/analyze your games afterwards left me wanting more.I researched a few boards that integrate with Chess.com, and I settled on the Chessnut Air. I could not be more thrilled with the board. You must use the Chessnut app and login to your Chess.com account through that, but this minor inconvenience is easy to forgive. The pros and cons of this board:Pros:- Seamless integration for Chess.com (you can connect to Lichess as well).- Automatic piece recognition. This is helpful when playing blitz and promoting to a queen. Just simply take the pawn off the board and replace it with a queen (or rook, knight, etc.) and it will know which piece you chose.- Review and analyze games online.- Play against Chess.com bots and live opponents.- Can solve puzzles on Chess.com as well if you have the patience to manually set up each position.- Aesthetically pleasing chess board.Cons:- The pieces are smaller than I anticipated and they are quite light.Overall this is an amazing board for any chess player wanting more over the board practice while still getting credit for online games played. The reason for 4.5 stars in the title is for the small pieces. Everything else is 5 star quality.

I would guess my rating is 1800 or so. I'm not real bad but many many players are at a level higher than me. I've played quite a few games where The chess app has beaten me. From what I understand its an older stockfish engine. I am not sure on that. There were two main reasons that I purchased this. One was to play against the chess engine itself. Two, I wanted to play OTB with Chess.com or any other chess website. I am still unclear on the engine. Why? I have three draws against the engine at its highest level with me taking as much time as I want. If this were a very strong engine I don't feel that the positions that I was in would lead me to a draw. The final draw a had was a clear loss that the engine gave me a perpetual. From what I understand there are apps to download. I think I can use these apps based on videos to pump up the engine so it would beat the best of the best.My second reason again was the access to the chess websites. This is an awesome feature making the purchase well worth the price. The easy access and very infrequent if ever disconnects works well with the chess website. Of course the problem is to play fast enough but that is obvious with this type of play.The pieces are nice however I wasn't looking for a luxurious board. If you don't already know they do make another set that is higher prices with quite nice pieces. These are fine and well-crafted and am quite happy with that.Finally, the connection to Bluetooth is good along with the battery length. Overall, I would highly recommend and again I must say that I will have to find the apps to strengthen the engine just a tough, so I don't draw in an obvious lost position

I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of this (chessnut air) board and the mobile app. Simply put, it puts its competitors to shame. I was skeptical because it's made in HK but rest assured it functions as advertised without significant quirks. Major props to the developers, they really made an amazing product.