Just Announced - Millennium Exclusive Luxe Edition

With the luxury-class e-board, you play on the real chess board with chess apps or online. Accessories and cables simply disappear in the noble wooden pedestal.

With the Exclusive Luxe Edition, you get the most luxurious e-board of all time and a real visual highlight at home: The Exclusive Board with fully automatic piece recognition and LED move display stands on a noble wooden pedestal, the new Luxe Cabinet. This contains a drawer lined with velvet, in which you can perfectly store the included accessories ChessLink and ChessVolt including all cables as well as the pieces.

Thanks to its modular design, the system can be changed at any time without having to replace the core – board and pieces. For example, the system can be expanded at any time with a chess computer module, e.g. The King Element. Board and pedestal are not fixed to each other. This means that the board can be removed from the pedestal at any time and taken along on vacation, for example.

https://computerchess.com/en/exclusive-luxe-edition-2/

https://webshoparea.de/detail/index/sArticle/242

 

 

You already have an Exclusive Board and only want to “upgrade” the wooden pedestal? No problem, the Luxe Cabinet is also available as an accessory. We recommend that you also use the ChessVolt for the power supply – if you don’t already have one.

https://webshoparea.de/detail/index/sArticle/241

 

 

A permanently installed or removable rechargeable battery would be an improvement. A box to store the cabled battery they already make is not.

Their modular design offers some options, but I’d prefer a WiFi capable machine.

What would be nice is an electronic chessboard I could set up anywhere in the house, with no cables running to anything, that I could use to play against opponents on any available chess web server. If it also doubled as a chess computer that would be a nice to have.

Thus far Square Off is closest to that, but I’m not looking for a robot to move the pieces.

A no doubt expensive to buy, but cheaply made box. No thanks.

CringeBlunderman,

I don’t have the ChessLink but I thought the idea of the ChessLink is that you connect it to your mobile phone via bluetooth and the phone connects to wifi. The phone is the go-between otherwise you’d need a complex screen on said computer you describe to set up your wifi connection and also to navigate the chess site/server. The ChessLink does not have a screen.

So what your asking for is what Millennium already provides. The box is basically a “tidy all” to make all the gismos self contained.

I am guessing this box does not work with the King Performance?

Personally I prefer the modular options that this provides. I cannot help but compare this to the Mephisto modular chess computers and all its variants. As stronger chess engines come out, the owner can simply swap out the modules.

Having the ChessLink is the modern equivalent of having the PC Modul for the Mephisto MM. Who is to say that Millennium won't come out with a ChessLink II which does WiFi? And when they do, it will be as simple as taking out the Bluetooth module and replacing it with the WiFi one.

As far as the battery is concerned, I have always preferred removable batteries. Should the battery start to fail, I do not have to buy a whole new chess computer to replace it or to mess with opening the machine to replace it myself.

I'm actually excited that these options are back in the market. As much as I would like to play against the TM Vancouver, Risc 2, 32-bit Senator or Magellan modules, I simply could not afford those special releases from the 90s.

With the way that Millennium is going, I look forward to their release of new modules in the upcoming years. If I were to guess, they have a whole catalog of modules to choose from.

http://www.spacious-mind.com/html/mephisto.html

Finally, I think the Millennium King can be used with this cabinet if that cable is not a permanent attachment. We have yet to see the user's manual to know where all the connections lead to.

I too like the modular system simply because I am not interested in using my King Performance for online play and happy to plug it in. Not having to pay for stuff I do not intend to use is a good thing.

It looks to me that it is basically a drawer with, perhaps, some shorter cables to attach the Volt battery and/or the ChessLink resulting in just one cable coming out the box. I am guessing of course that there is no electronics in the box. Those on these threads who have woodworked their own boards etc could probably knock the same thing up for cheaper, keep it or sell it/them on.

It seems to be missing a holder for the module if one were wanting to use the board and module as a standalone chess computer.

Also, what is the silver disc for on the box?

That silver disc looks like a power button akin to the SquareOff chess computers. 
I think there’s space for the King module in the drawer. I doubt if the original Exclusive module will fit in there unless you flip it upside down as it lays flatter that way. 

The cheapest possible pieces.

Agreed. Someone in another thread has posted his success in moving the chips in these Millennium pieces into his own pieces. The process is exhausting, and the chips are fragile. Who knows? Maybe a company might offer deluxe pieces for the Millennium just as ChessBaron did for the Novag Citrine a decade ago.

https://www.chessbaron.co.uk/product/X4001/

I wonder if the RFID chips in the MCGE chessmen are likely to be cloned via an RFID reader/writer. My guess is that it could be theoretically possible, unless the data in the chips are encrypted. I'm thinking about giving it a try, since RFID chips are not that expensive. Any feedback ?

I like the idea, and I see the appeal, but based on the feel of my CGE board (nicely built but using cheap materials) I expect it's overpriced for the quality of materials used. That being said, I'm happy to see Millennium continue to develop their product line, and applaud their efforts at modularity. I may pick this up one day if I catch a worthwhile discount, but I'd much rather see them develop some high quality pieces.

I have another WiFi device that has a read only screen, and is completely configurable from the web. I respectfully disagree that a complex screen and interface is required to add WiFi.

ChessLink connects to the chessboard via a mini-din cable. I’d like to eliminate that. It connects to a PC using a USB cable. Note that this cable is not included, and the connector on the ChessLink end is an ancient USB 1.0 connector which you may not have laying around. I’d like to eliminate that as well. It also requires a power cable (9v DC in).

So, to use this to review a game in HIARCs on my Mac, I have a power cable to the board, a power cable to the ChessLink, a cable between ChessLink and the board, and a usb cable to my Mac. Ugh.

Others have commented that they like the modular idea as they don’t have to pay for capabilities they don’t want. I get that, but it is not what I am looking for.

I want a stand alone electronic chess board that has its own removable battery (like a laptop battery) and is cable free that I can use to play games on web servers like this one or lichess or ICC or review stored games I have on my desktop computer. It would access the internet via WiFi, and would be configurable by a web page stored on the device, much like your router is. It should be OS agnostic. Chess engines could be added or adjusted via the same configuration web page as the WiFi is. All of this is doable; perhaps not at a cost point that is marketable, that I don’t know. Nevertheless, this is not that.

I’m not trashing anyone else’s preferences here, just stating my desires vs. what this offers. This may well suit lots of other folks’ needs, if so bully for them! For me, none of the purveyors of electronic chess boards (including this one) has gotten to where I need them to be yet.

Ah, I see.  So the power lead that has the transformer at the wall socket end, goes in the box and plugs into the input of the Volt and then the output of the Volt goes to the switch.  Then the other end of the switch goes to either the ChessLink or module and then at the other end of either goes into the chess board?

The problem with having the Module in the drawer is you cannot see the display if you are using the computer's clock, for instance.  Just would have thought they would have integrated some kind of holder one could fold out.

Can the module and the Chesslink be daisy chained together and then one or the other plugged into the board or would you have to open up the box (by lifting the board off) to swap the leads around to change between the two?

They used to make chess computers that accepted expansion cards in such a way they were hidden side the board.  A Chess computer/electronic board that accepted the type of cards that would add functionality you are asking for in a way that it is hidden would, in my opinion, certainly be marketable even at a premium price.

I thought you were meaning that one could connect to the web server and choose a game using only the chess computer or ChessLink device without the use of a PC or a mobile phone.  I would think in that scenario, one might still need a complex screen on the device.  Maybe I an wrong though as I am working off of guess work.

As I see it, you would have two leads to deal with.  Power lead going into the box (if you were not using the Volt) and the USB lead coming out to your Mac.  All the other cables would be hidden inside the box.

It looks like Certabo is following a similar path, but is closer to what I am interested in. They, too have an external box. In their case it serves as both the computer for the board, offers WiFi connectivity, and has a stylus operated touchscreen as an interface. Looks like it has 4 USB ports and an RJ-45 Ethernet jack. Powered by micro USB, and also has an HDMI port. Comes ore-loaded with Stockfish, but it sounds like you can use other engines.

Dedicated chess computers have a special place in my heart. I mean, that’s where it all started for me. However, my heart (and my collection) has room for the modular dedicated chess computers that I only dreamt of back in the 80s and 90s. 
The Da Vinci sold on the Certabo website is basically a Raspberry Pi 4 2gb or 4gb with touch screen and running a custom build. If you decide to purchase all the components yourself, you can download the latest custom build off the Certabo downloads page, dump into your own microSD card and you have your own Da Vinci computer. You’ll still need one of those beautiful Certabo chessboards and their custom RFID chips for the pieces to use it. 

Here is a glimpse of the proprietary chips in the pieces for Millennium Exclusive. Skip to 2:58

PSA: Pre-order available at chesshouse.com

https://www.chesshouse.com/products/luxe-cabinet-accessory-for-millennium-exclusive

To the owners of the Millennium Exclusive, Millennium has recently released their new standalone chess engine line called Mephisto Phoenix. The base module can be used with any of the Millennium Exclusive chess sets that you already own, but you should know that the new Mephisto-branded board is in Rosewood. A beta tester pointed out that the build quality of the new chessboard is better and and wood contrast is easier on the eyes especially for long plays  

Read more about the Mephisto Phoenix here:

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-equipment/psa-millennium-mephisto-phoenix