ChessnutAir+ Electronic Chess Set with Full Wooden Board, Extra Queens, LEDs, AI Adaptive Game and App with Computer Chess Board for Ages 8 and Up, 2 Players

I rarely write reviews but this thing is so cool and oddly there aren’t many reviews yet. The technology is amazing and perfectly implemented. The wooden board and pieces are beautiful. It easily connects to your chess.com and/or lichess accounts for online live games via their app and bluetooth. Playing over the board is a lot of fun. Battery life is great - perhaps 20 hours of play on a full charge. You can use it as a regular board and no one would know the difference. Surely any chess fan would appreciate how cool it is. Very impressed. This review is for the Air + version. I also bought their carrying bag which holds the board and pieces nicely. Small enough to travel with. Buy one!

After watching segments of the movie "The Queen's Gambit" I got an urge to play chess again after more than ten years. But who would I play with? I am a senior and would be embarrassed since I would be playing like a novice after many years of not playing. Alas, this electronic chess set was an opportunity.The set does need an app to run. I used the iOS Chessnut app for my iPad. A Bluetooth connection needs to be established between the board and the app. This requires the app to be running with the board turned ON to seek a connection. There is a small icon in the top right corner of the app that needs to be selected for the pairing to be done. Once established, selecting the "play-game" will display the game settings which include the level and whether a computer or another person will be playing. After setup, the "start game" will show the board layout and verify the correct placement of the pieces. The board senses each piece that is moved and the app verifies whether the move is valid. If playing against the computer, the piece to be moved is shown by two LEDs indicating the from-location and the go-to-location. The app does placement validation. Castling seems to require that I lift the king to the position and then lift the rook. Also, the app can sometimes get lost which requires the app to be restarted; the board does not need to be reset. A situation arose after a game where two LEDs did not turn off. I eventually discovered that the app got confused and had to be shut down and restarted.I enjoy playing again and the computer is gracious in allowing me to win at skill level 1. I am advancing. Also, it is a joy to use the board to teach my grandkids. We would play against the computer together and I can guide them through the thought processes in playing the game. The board supports advance functions, but I am not there yet.I am a senior and I'm thankful I can still play and hone my skills. There is now always someone to play against. "Let's play" as the character Beth Harmon said at the conclusion of "The Queen's Gambit" movie.5/21/24Additional comments:The Chessnut app has an option for latency which clears up some difficulties in moving or sliding pieces. I found if I set latency for 750ms I can slide the chess pieces without picking up and placing a piece on the board.Also, my router blocked access to chessnut.com and inhibited me from creating an account. I needed to add chessnut.com to the router as an allowed sites after verifying it is an ok site.

The media could not be loaded. Don’t waste your time and energy. I have been eyeing chessnut for a while now. Literally over a year before finally buying one. It does not work! If I could add my images and video I would but I’m limited to just one. The led is tweaking randomly on squares that does not have pieces on them. My product also looked like it was tampered with and not new. On the app, it’s connects but it doesn’t register moves when moving on the board…..Chessnut customer service sucks. Amazon also tries to have you deal with them instead of Amazon taking the responsibility to help. The customer service for Amazon was like, “reach out to them and if they don’t get back to you in a couple days reach out and talk with us again.”I really don’t want to come off as an entitle jerk but this is a $400 product that is a BRICK. Just buy a $40 board set.

My 11yo daughter's been in her school's chess club for a few semesters now and really enjoys playing. We really enjoy how much she loves the game but don't always have the time to sit down and play a full round with her, so we were really excited to gift her with the Chessnut Air+ Electronic Chess Set in hopes that she could not only play solo but also learn a few things. She was thrilled when she opened it and immediately got it set up to give it a whirl. We had no problem installing the iOS Chessnut app on her iPad and getting it paired to the board. She was able to figure out the options enough to play several games over the course of the weekend and really enjoyed it. We were a little disappointed that the feature to analyze her moves didn't work but instead spit out a bunch of code that we weren't able to decipher.I've since signed her up for a Chess.com account in hopes that it will provide a more intuitive, robust platform and more options for her to choose from when she plays. She hasn't tried that out yet, but she and her sister like the board so much that they've been playing traditional, offline chess with it in the meantime. A bit pricey for offline chess play, but now that they're on summer break, I'm sure they'll find the time to try again. I love that the Chessnut Air+ will give both of my daughters the chance to play more chess and practice new strategies without waiting around for mom and dad (or each other) to have the time to sit down with them to play (or to have to sit around and wait for mom who takes forever and a day to make her moves when she does have time to sit down to play!).