Question 1

How much noise is made by the moving pieces?  Can you hear the gears grinding underneath?  Are there any clicks or snaps that sound cheap and clunky?

Accepted Answer

The motion is smooth and quiet... it's not remotely cheap or clunky sounding There *is* one corner of my board where there's a faint rustle as the arm moves by it.  Being familiar with electronics, I expect that's from a folding ribbon cable... I've had a robotic CD duplicating machine in my office for years, and it makes the same sort of faint noise at the very end of the robotic arm's travel. The CD duplicating robot has a transparent cover, so I can see the the noise is made by the folding ribbon cable. FWIW, ribbon cables are hardy bits of tech that have been around a long time, I've never seen one fail in my 30 years working with computers.

Be aware that there *is* a beep when you press a piece down on the starting and ending squares to mark a move. It also sounds 3 rapid beeps when there's an illegal move, when you need to glance at the app to tell the board what you're promoting a pawn to, or when the game is over.

Question 2

Does this set come with an extra queen and pawn?

Accepted Answer

The set does come with an extra queen for each color. As with other nice chess sets, if you promote a 3rd or 4th queen in the same game, you'll have to use other pieces and move them like a queen. The standard trick in chess circles is to stand a rook on its head to make clear it's a queen... that'll work fine for the human player, but if the AI or a remote opponent promotes a 3rd or 4th queen the substitute probably needs to be right side up for the magnets in the board to move it.  If you use an upside down rook for your opponent you'll have to watch & listen for the board to unsuccessfully make a move, then check the app to see what it did and execute the move manually.

BTW, when the board promotes a piece, it will beep on the screen and show you what it's promoting the pawn to... you'll have to manually swap the pawn for the extra queen or other piece.

There are no extra pawns... why would you need one, in case you lose one?

Question 3

Any reliable indications that their quality problems are solved?

Accepted Answer

Hi, we certainly understand your hesitation and concern since the product delivered to you earlier was not up to the expectations hence we have worked on the feedback/complaints received to have better quality checks at each stage of production so that a flawless product is delivered to you. We have a new and improved 2019 version of our board and we assure you that the earlier problems have been worked on to deliver a great experience.

Question 4

Is there a chess clock or time limit set for the game?

Accepted Answer

There are timed games with clocks which count down on your phone or device while playing on chess.com and soon timed games will be introduced on the square off friends section

Item Weight	16.53 Pounds
CPSIA Cautionary Statement	Choking Hazard - Small Parts
Are Batteries Required	Yes

Square Off Chess Set. A Smart automated Chess Board, which Moves The opponent's Pieces on its own. Play Against The AI or Anyone Across The Globe. with Built-in Auto-Reset Feature.

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