“I am thoroughly enjoying this board. I'm relatively new to chess, so has been a great tool to help me improve on my journey. The YouTube reviews out there don't really show everything this board can do. Yes, it has the lights that can be set to only show you valid moves or indicate moves that are blunders, mistakes, good, best, etc. If you are playing face to face with someone else who is better than you, you can set the level of lights and hints individually for each person. It's like giving someone a handicap, if you want.
The built in lessons are amazing. The library of lessons is vast and the way the app interacts with the board is almost magical. I was showing the board off to my son. He's 27 now, but used to play when he was much younger. I've bought a second board for him so we can play online together. There is something much nicer about playing with an actual board and actual pieces, rather than on a screen. Although, I have also played plenty of chess.com games with other people using my board. I'm not sure if they have an eboard of some sort or are using the chess.com app to play. But that's the beauty of this board. You can play however you want.
My only gripe, which is minor and not worth taking off a star, is that to get the full features of different color lights to indicate different levels of "goodness" of moves, the board needs to be connected through wifi. This is a good thing, in that you can use the board without the companion app when you want. But I'm a teacher and bring the board to school every day. My students love it. But I can't get the board on wifi due to district restrictions. So, it is hard for my students to really get the most out of learning on this board. The board uses bluetooth to connect to a device and use the companion app. I wish there was a way the board could get whatever info it needs from the cloud from the companion app. Like I said, minor gripe, but I think they are missing out some great educational experiences for students.
My last thing - I also have another big name eboard that has the equivalent of a small Android tablet attached to it. It also gets great reviews. Personally, I was not nearly as impressed as I was the Chessup's board. It runs an older version of Android and uses Firefox to access the internet. I found it to be really slow when trying to integrate with chess.com. There is a dedicated app that runs directly on the built in tablet which is nice, and it has some cool tech. But the lights aren't nearly as nice or useful or easy to see outdoors as Chessup's, and due to the older version of Android and thngs that sometimes break in updates, it was frustrating to use at times. When it worked, it was cool (but slow when you want to access websites like chess.com), but I found it to be unreliable.
Personally, I would love to see Chessup make a premium board that uses a wooden board and wooden pieces. That, with a slightly bigger screen that runs the entire length of side of the board and a little wider, would be amazing!!!!”
“Worth the upgrade over the original model. Physically it’s a slimmer and to me the ends being more squared off looks nicer. Functionally the addition of the integrated chess.com is very cool.”
“I bought this for my 6-year-old son, who previously had a similar board from another company. Wow, what a difference this one is! It is well-designed and easy to use and has provided hours of challenging games for my son to play. But the company really went above and beyond with their customer service. The first board we received didn't work. They were responsive over email even over the weekend to try to troubleshoot with us. Ultimately they sent a new board, but I was blown away by the excellent customer service. Highly recommend!”
“I play at least a game a day on my ChessUp2, primarily online. It has been a very useful tool to keep myself accountable and motivated in a way that playing online via an app would not. I had a few glitches early on, and the Bryght Labs team was very responsive and helpful in providing diagnostics and troubleshooting steps.”
“ChessUp2 is really easy to use. The lights are simple, but effective. Easy to play games online or against bots. Students really enjoy the 2-player mode because it helps them visualize how the pieces move.”
“The Bryght Labs / ChessUp team of professionals offer an excellent product as well as outstanding customer service. When my board suddenly stopped working, Bryght Labs immediately and courteously addressed the issue, determined the problem and effected an easy and troublefree solution. They replaced it! They did so even though the warranty had expired. In a time when very few companies stand behind their products, and customer service is the exception rather than the rule, the people and leadership at Bryght Labs are an example of how all companies in America should be.
Thank you again everyone.”
“The board is amazing. It works reliably. My son loves it. It has brought us both closer to each other and Chess. I have also started real USCF tournaments. It is providing me the ability to get some kind of OTB experience through both Lichess and CC. I have 100s of thousands of online games over 30 years. But never on a board. It is definitely worth it. I evaluated several boards, this board, purchased through Brytelabs' Ebay store came a little cheaper than the main site. They say "refurbished" but it appeared brand new to me.
Perfect for regular use, perfect for the kiddo. Great fit for my son and I.
Nice work.
Its a great and affordable board.”
“I have had this board for over a year now and have seen its capabilities improve consistently over that time. It has completely rejuvenated my love of the game and I use it daily. A great product well worth the investment”
“A minha experiência com a Bryght Labs foi a melhor possível, pois gosto muito do tabuleiro.
Trata-se de uma empresa muito séria. Tive uma avaria no meu tabuleiro ao fim de quase um ano e o problema foi prontamente resolvido, tendo-me sido enviado um novo tabuleiro.
Agradeço muito à Bryght Labs pela excelente assistência e profissionalismo demonstrados.”
“Excellent customer service. I had a minor issue with one of my pieces and it was replaced immediately with a working piece. Really cool board and company, exceeded my expectations on all fronts.”
“Exceptional in every way. My sons and I are loving it and will continue to enjoy it for years to come I believe. My only gripe: Need an easier way to shift between chess.com accounts, which I understand may be in the dev backlog--that change would make this absolutely perfect and it's dang near already!”
“Se tardo 18 días en llegar a mi domicilio en Mexico pero llegó muy bien mi producto aunque la caja tenía uno que otro pequeño golpe pero eso no fue problema y pude jugar ajedrez online perfectamente y todas las piezas me han funcionado muy bien y puedo decir que pude jugar ajedrez online sin retraso en el sensor y a demás tiene una membresía premium de un mes gratis, estoy satisfecho aunque no me deja poner fotos nose porque.”
“I rarely leave reviews, but I’m really loving my new ChessUp 2 board. Easily one of the best purchases I’ve made under $400 in a long time. I looked seriously at a few other “smart” boards, but I’m very glad I went with the ChessUp 2. The experience has been great so far, and they seem to be actively rolling out updates and new features.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve played several 15+10 games on Chess.com and a few 30+20s on Lichess, plus a few over-the-board games with a friend. I haven’t tried the built-in lessons yet, but I’ve used it to set up endgame positions (the “board editor” feature is quick and automatically recognizes the pieces), with “move feedback” turned on. I’ve also used it against bots to drill openings.
If they ever release wooden pieces, I’d buy them in a heartbeat. A couple of small things could be improved. For example, when an opponent promotes a pawn, the board doesn’t alert you to which piece they chose, and when resuming a paused local game OTB, the clock doesn’t restart automatically. A couple of the OTB games png files didn’t sync to the app, but it may have been user error. Minor issues overall, but worth noting.
Overall, I’m really happy with it and can highly recommend it to anyone considering a smart board.”
“UPS lost my shipment. I contact Bryght Labs and they promptly checked into this with UPS. Since UPS was having trouble finding my package, Bryght Labs shipped me out a new ine, which I received promptly. The customer service was EXCEPTIONAL.”
