Square Off Chess Set - an Electronic Chessboard, which Moves The Opponent's Wooden Chess Pieces on its Own. Kids or Adults can Play Against The AI or Any Online Chess Player Across The Globe.

The box came in a nice sleek box, very similar to Apple's packaging, most of set up was fine, except that it skipped over the fact that you need to set up the board before starting a game if you want to play against the computer. Once I had all of the pieces on the board, than the rest of the setup was very smooth.I liked using the app on my phone to select the level and see where the moves were happening. Also being able to continue to play on the physical board while out of my house by using the app was really cool, BUT make sure you put the board somewhere that dogs (and probably cats) can't get to it, as my 6 month old puppy grabbed one of the pieces while I was playing remotely which was an issue.I hadn't seen the latest commercial, before I started playing, but the idea that you can play a game from long distance, is REALLY cool, and I'm going to try that next time I play.My lone complaint after playing a couple of times, is when I had to put it away to make room on the table, storing the game pieces in the bland box they came in could be improved, just to make the piece holder with a bit more personality.The overall quality of the board, pieces and presentation is high end, and you feel like you have a very high quality product.

Was super excited about this product. It worked great for 9 Months and then showed erratic movements some of the time. i replaced the charger, updated the firmware and finally contacted customer service 3 months out of warranty (1 year). At this point, it wasUnplayable.. got sent on fools errand, sent videos,Reset, raindance .. finally said it needs a new motherboard and its out of warranty's so wanted to charge $150 + shipping to me to fix myself if they sent motherboard. Expensive white elephant at this point.Bad quality product and bad customer service.

My son and I have been playing chess nonstop since Christmas Day.I must say this unit is a lot of fun.For me, the look, feel, and finish of the board and pieces are acceptable at it’s price point.The robotics that move the chess pieces is somewhat loud .... it could be distracting for some people.I do feel the robotic movements sound a little bit “clunky”.But I also think the noises can give the unit a bit of character.It just depends on how you adjust your own attitude ... if you like the noise or not.Today, at the end of a game, a person from Italy asked if I’d like to play a game with him.This was done through the app that controls the game.Wonderful stuff !!!!All in all, this unit accomplishes its goal… It is super super fun… And it looks nice while doing it… Nice job square off chess team.- Doug Ingram

The packing is quite well but the holders for the chess set are cheap plastic I doubt they will last long. The chess board itself is well made with only small flaw on one corner and is acceptable. However the chess sets itself are cheap. It has no weight and the quality is equal if not better than the Walmart standard. And one of the white bishops is cracked, that means it has poor quality control. The AI moves are clumsy, sometimes knock off anything in its way. The innovation and intuition wise is top note. Bottom line it is a good AI chess game set but it doesn't worth for what it charges though. If it improves the quality control, yes 300 no problem. But as now the max I will go is 200. And probably it will be returned in this week.

Rather than a formal review, I'm submitting a copy of the email I sent to company shortly after purchase.I just unpacked and played a game against my new Kingdom set. As I I'm sure you will concede, the documentation on and offline is still in its infancy. All I got was a quick start card and another telling me how wonderful the product is. So far I like the product, but I have these questions:1) What is that odd little tool used for?2) Must app remain on while game is in progress? Frankly, I really dislike app-driven products.3) Are positions evaluated in hardware or app? My guess is the app.4) I anticipate moving this game quite a bit to show it off. How does one reinsert the locking thumbscrew?5) Why are the privacy and T.O.S. so unfavorable to end user? If it were just a piece of software, I'd reject the terms and ask for a refund. (See number 6 below.)6) I run a lot of software on this system. All of it runs without my enabling Location Awareness. I'm in the business, so I know about the value this provides marketers and the gross privacy invasion it inflicts on customers. You offer no good reason for insisting on this information (nor could you). Why won't app run unless I consent?7) Why is there no undo a move capability (unless buried in non-manual)? After all, you advertise one of its capabilities as a learning tool.8) Why make misleading suggestion that this is a breakthrough because it can move pieces? Something that could do the same existed about 40 years ago.9) If [you] insist on making this product app-driven, why not allow user to make moves on phone or tablet? This idea appears to be unimplemented in my product.Suggestions:1) An app-free version. Easy to do... One dedicated button to indicate new game with pieces in starting position. Two presses mean user wants to play Black.2) Replace that annoying, battery-draining sound effect with an LED that blinks once for starting square, twice for legal move and flashes until piece making illegal move has been replaced in its proper position.3) Again, if you drive this with an app, shouldn't useful messages be displayed (i.e. Illegal Move, Board set up incorrectly, Good move, Bad move, Please wait - I'm thinking, etc).4) Learning tools explain mistakes. This app should, but doesn't.5) The pieces look like those that would ship with a board less than half the size. Perhaps this was dictated by magnet strength or packaging, but it's disappointing. I'd prefer bigger pieces in a bag to little ones in flimsy plastic trays. If weight is an issue, make them out of lacquered balsa wood. You could make a fortune selling replacements. While on the subject, a Staunton type set should feature white and black pieces. Dark brown isn't black.6) Fine, a version that resets a chess board should be larger, heavier and more expensive, but for a few dollars per unit, you could add a pulsed magnetic array on the first two ranks to center the pieces at the beginning of a new game. For a few dollars more you could implement an 8x8 array. Long moves would have to be done a square at a time, with blocking pieces temporarily nudged aside, but with today's electronics, it would be faster with vastly improved optics. Centering pieces after user moves would be another useful embellishment of this technology.Like so many other products I've seen and reviewed over the years, this is a nice product, which suffers greatly from advertising hyperbole, horrible documentation and unimplemented (but obviously needed) features. I don't need to disassemble the board to know that it isn't the advertised, fully digital chess partner you want. Rather, it's a small controller board with Bluetooth activating servo motors that in turn move magnets. Even that isn't accomplished elegantly. About half of machine's Knight moves knock over pieces in their path. Perhaps you know of 'The Turk' Wolfgang von Kempelen's fake automaton chess machine, an 18th century hoax, in which a small human Grandmaster hid in the console and moved magnets under the board. I thought of this immediately when I saw a metal rod through the hole for the locking anchor.Nowhere do you indicate the ELO strength of machine at various levels. Even though most machine chess authors inflate these figures or fail to mention the infrequent 30 minute wait for machine reply, some information, taken with a grain of salt is better than none.An eventuality you haven't addressed in the design makes the game a frustrating enigma if you have to suddenly do something else (answer phone or doorbell, get food when oven timer goes off in another room, chase your pet off the brand new sofa, go to the bathroom, etc). Upon returning to the game, you only see, "Your move" in the app with no clue what the machine did, except perhaps a captured piece tipped over somewhere on the board.I have yet to figure out how well (and quickly) the machine can play. Time and patience permitting, I will pit it against some programs I have, including Chess King, Deep Fritz and Chess Genius, a surprisingly strong Android and ios chess app that plays like a club champion, even when only given one or two seconds to evaluate current position and move. My instinct is that this program will take Square Off out to the woodshed for a serious spanking.All of this said, Square off has its good points, eye appeal and very good packaging. I don't hate the product, but I'll likely regift or resell it. In the final analysis, my purchase at half price was likely an unwise decision, given how many 'too early-to-market' defects are evident.I was an investor in a deluxe Z-80 based Backgammon game in the late '70s, comparable to the high-end appeal of your product at about twice the price. Our issue was whether we'd run out of money before the product was truly completed (documentation, software, packaging, publicity and QA). We did run out of money and folded, despite wide press coverage of our machine beating then World Champion, Paul Magriel at a head-on challenge in Monaco. Except for never having a prayer of beating Magnus Carlsen these issues may turn out to be your problems as well. I sincerely hope not. I don't believe the ad that got me to buy was honest (admittedly a pop-up from a reseller). At some future time, when you promote this as the mechanical product it is, and fix the barely alpha quality software and provide full documentation, then these might no longer be fair criticisms. Even better, issue a truly digital product that would be lighter, less damage prone, easier to assemble, cheaper to make, much cheaper to ship, all while sustaining a longer period of relatively high demand. Good Luck!