I think they only make sense if you are a tournament organizer and want to broadcast a few of the top boards to the Internet.
Interfacing with live chess doesn't seem very feasible, you still have to move the opponent's pieces yourself. Sounds easier to just use a normal board and input your own moves.
Thanks Scarblac for your reply. I think that even though one still has to move both sides pieces the advantage is that no keyboard/mouse input is necessary at all. I wondered if anyone actually had one of these and could give feedback on whether thay are as good as they are advertised to be.
I also think you are correct in stating it would be difficult for chess.com to interact with these boards unless they write a downloadable application (similar I guess to ICC's Dasher) which would work, and wondered if they had any plans to do this. From what I have seen chess.com suits my needs best, and I'd pay the premium membership to get this facility for games on this site.
Below I posted the same info on other threads....
I have a DGT Board. I have own one for about 5 years now. At First I was hesitate because of the price, but once I received I will never go back to playing internet or computer with a mouse. I started playing on Fritz and Playchess.com. On playing chess.com I play 16min time controls, I also play on FICS 15 min time control and dasher the computer opponents only. There are people who spend a lot of money billiards table and swimming pools and cannot or do not use them everyday or even weekly. Since I purchase my DGT e board I use it constantly. First thing I do not play any games faster than 15 minutes.. trust me a 15 minutes per side is faster that what most people think, the slower time controls that better the moves, second with the board no more mouse slips.. I love the feeling of Over the board play with wood pieces with nice size board. I the DGT E-board along with several GUI list below is chess heaven. This is the best of both worlds.
DGT E-board Dim: roughly 22 x 22 (inches) I think the king is 3.5 Height
In short DGT E-board is great size, and the pieces good height and weight
DGT e board with Babaschess GUI (FICS) works outstanding--- rating 5 stars
DGT e board with Fritz/Playchess.com works-- great rating 4.5 stars
DGT e board with Dasher GUI (only computer opponents)--outstanding 5 starts
DGT e board with Arena GUI ( engines & FICS) great-- 4.5 could be a five I just need more time to explore.
In my opinion the DGT e board is great investment for playing internet games or chess engines on above mention GUIs.
I own one DGT board with pieces but for private usage it's waste in general
Playing over the board with GUI become boring pretty fast.
My experience say for private usage it is most of the times waste of money if the board is not going be used in events with live interface.
i purchased my dgt board over 10 years ago for $312.00. i used it on icc for 15 minute games .
worked great on blitzen . i mostly used it to play my chess friends at my house on player player mode and saved the games on fritz to go over them . no writing down moves .
DGT BOARDS - BE WARNED - THEY DON'T WORK WELL VIA THE INTERNET AND ARE NOT SUPPORTED AT ALL BY chess.com
Hi, My friend and I both have recently purchased DGT boards, relatively new, purchased in the past few months, the USB versions. We have had nothing but head aches so far trying to play games with each other or other people across ICC.com and playchess.com (chessbase site). Chess.com does not support the DGT board at this time also, which is quite sad. We have done all that DGT support told us to do, downloaded and installed all their recommended drivers and software on now 5 Windows based computers, both 64 bit and 32 bit versions, loaded all their latest Rabbit plugins, and sent their support logs for analysis. We barely can get through a single game before the overall system stops working, either the ICC or playchess sites stop talking to the driver software (their Rabbit plugin) or the rabbit plugin stops communicating with the USB drivers (and sometimes unplugging the USB and plugging it back in will kick start the rabbit software again but other times it crashes and locks the computers up mid game. We have had to adjourn or abort more games then we can get through using the DGT boards via the Internet. While the boards seem much more stable using Fritz software directly, our primary goal was to use the boards via the Internet to play other people and gain practice for tournament play. Unfortunately, the software and websites interfacing with it don't seem to make DGT connectivity a priority, as for example chess.com does not even support them, and we are greatly disspointed in the overall experience so far. We are actively communicating with DGT support, sending them logs, doing what they tell us, but no luck in getting a reliable or enjoyable DGT based experience for either of us so far. So far, the DGT board is almost a big paperweight and waste of money for what we can do with it. We are hoping they and the sites get together and fix their software and drivers, but it appears DGT board owners are a minority and not important overall.
It really wasn't necessary to post the same comment on eight DGT threads. Perhaps you should have taken the time to read those threads that said chess.com doesn't support DGT boards before you bought one.
I think Webiron is on to something here. My USB DGT board is flawless on an old XP laptop running the old DGT driver (pre-bluetooth). I play on ICC with the latest ICC client (the one that does not need the WoodIn plug-in), and I have no problems playing their standard tourney (60 minute games) for years. Still works flawless with ICC to this day.
Last week, I tried running my USB DGT board on a Vista laptop (yes, I only have old computers), running the latest Rabbit plugin with the latest ICC client, and the board kept hanging up. I gave up and decided not to update my XP laptop and dedicate it to the USB DGT board until I figure out whats going on.
I suspect that the latest rabbit plugin is optimized for bluetooth, and hangs up the serial port when used with USB Boards. I bet the bluetooth USB boards work -- but I am not about to buy another board just to be able to use the latest DGT drivers.
Webiron, if I were you, I would ask DGT for the old driver (pre-bluetooth) with the fixed serial port chip driver and try that.
Kycoo, Thanks for the feedback.
can someone please tell me the outside boarder width of the dgt board. thankyou and Godbless. they say board is 55mm. Is outside boarder width extra?
The total board width, including border is 21 1/4 inches. The playing area is 17 1/4 inches wide. The border is about 2 inches wide.
In case you may not know there is a DGT Chess Club in chess.com I have a DGT Board and have always wanted to use it for online chess games. Tonight I played my first online game using the DGT Board and it was great! I lost the game but I was very happy to play via a real chessboard rather than a mouse and 2D screen.
Greetings and good evening, please who of those who is here plays at ICC with DGT E-Board ??? and green boxes appear and the pieces disappear or the board is disconnected ????. Thanks for looking for a solution to this.
DGT BOARDS - BE WARNED - THEY DON'T WORK WELL VIA THE INTERNET AND ARE NOT SUPPORTED AT ALL BY chess.com
Hi, My friend and I both have recently purchased DGT boards, relatively new, purchased in the past few months, the USB versions................"
I bought my first DGT board in 2000 (serial). I used it for many years playing on ICC with Blitzen and the WoodIn plugin with no issues at all. I then moved to a USB board, again no problems at all - using the DGT 3000 clock, WoodIn, Blitzen. In May this year I got a bluetooth board - I use it on Chess.com and ICC. Absolutely no issues at all. Setup is Windows 10, then for ICC - Blitzen, Rabbit Plugin and WoodIn, otherwise Rabbit Plugin and chess.com. I do not understand when I see these posts about people having these issues. I can only assume it is a setup issue. The addition of the DGT clock for receiving the opponents moves makes the experience even better, as you don't need to play "near" the PC.
Hello, there is one DGT USB e-board for sale if anyone is interested
Hello,
I love being able to keep my eyes on the board and not have to use the mouse. I recently got the DGT 3000 chess clock which can be played human to human or against the computer. It is fun too.
I played in ICC tournaments for a long time on my tiege board and my imperial pieces (just like the imperial set used in the Sinquefield Cup.) Playchess with Fritz is how I got introduced to DGT online play and my Fritz 17 is my favorite interface.
I do like Chess.com with their easy-on-the-eyes Staunton 3D set but DGT is my choice.
Val H. (RubinSteinitz)
Maybe thread followers would like to take a look at this suggestion (thread is in the beta)
https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/suggestion-clock-mode-for-eboard-users
Hi,
Does anyone use one of these? If so, would you say they are worth the money?
Perhaps most importantly, does anyone know if there are any plans to allow the DGT boards to interface with LIve Chess here?
Thanks for any feedback.