Automated Chess Computer

If you want to play chess there are plenty of options. For centuries you can play against other people or against yourself. You can even play in your head without a chess board if you are really into it. A few decades ago they made the first chess computers that could beat the average chessplayer without much of an effort. Moving the pieces yourself somehow reminds you that you play against a computer. At least for me, it does. 

Therefore I was happy to see Square Off (founded in 2015) hitting the world of chess a few years ago. A fantastic product that is in someway a challenger for DGT Centaur. Or the other way around. Both products have fantastic capabilities and are revolutionary for this time. The 'problem' with the Square Off is that it makes noise, is a bit slow and relies on external calculations. The problem with DGT Centaur (and the other DGT products) is that you have to move the pieces yourself. They deserve a lot of credit of course for revolutionizing chess!

If you are into chess computers you may have heard of the Regium Chess Computer. It is a scam, but it shows that there is a lot of backing for such a chess concept. This is because the concept has the best of a few worlds. It has connectivity, plays moves by itself, has a built-in computer, has a built-in battery, and looks good. 

My question for this community is why this concept would not be possible to make? We have small computers like the raspberry pi (also used by DTG), we have microchips, we have electromagnets,... What is withholding the chess-industry from making such an automated good-looking, automated chess-computer? I am curious about your thoughts!

Personal chess computers that move their own pieces have been reality for at least 40 years. 

However, basic laws of physics and economics suggest that trying to build a legitimate, Regium-like device would be too expensive to be able to produce and sell, if it could even be done with available technology. 

It is interesting with all the recent advances in technology that another idea has not been retried - the robotic arm with which to move the pieces around a chess board.

Some technologies that could be used to make this happen:

RFID chips programmed to reply at specific time frames so that with one transmitter and four receivers (placed on each edge of the board) would mean that even a raspberry pie type machine using algorithm something like GPS would be able to precisely geolocate any piece on the chess board. This would enable easy calculation for the manoeuvre of the arm to relocate the given piece.

Notwithstanding that, there are mobile phone apps with object recognition and mobile phone apps that can calculate position and distance using the camera. So by combining these technologies it would once again be possible to calculate the precise position of any piece on the chess board even if that required the use of markers on the board only visible to the phone app. It would even be possible to track the position of the robotic arm making the process easier.

Personality, I do not think the future is automated chessboards. I think it will be in the area of virtual chess sets and environments via headsets and gloves that can provide sensations to the fingers as to trick the user they can feel the chess pieces.