SquareOff Pro does not work. Dont buy it!,

I bought two sets of SquareOff Pro from the chess.com shop (spending over US$400), as it was promoted on the chess.com website, as a way to play on their site using a physical chess set instead of staring at the computer screen or the cellphone screen, which is said to be bad for one's eyes.

Unfortunately, I am sorry to say that this product has turned out to be a dud. I've been having no end of problems with it - losing several games because SquareOff Pro behaves erratically, sometimes recording my moves wrongly, sometimes failing to communicate my moves to chess.com or Lichess, or sometimes failing to communicate my opponent's moves to me, while my clock is ticking and even sometimes showing my opponent's clock ticking though actually my time was running without my knowledge, because I think that my move has been registered only to find that chess.com/Lichess did not get my move at all and I simply get timed out! This went to the point of me being given a "timeout ban" 3 times on Lichess, as they assumed that I abandoned or timed out instead of resigning, though I was not even in a losing position in those games, some of them got timed out on move 2 or 3, simply because I did not know that my clock was ticking as Square Off did not communicate my opponent's move and did not show my clock running (I never abandon my game intentionally; if I am losing either I resign or play it out till checkmate, though sometimes I do genuinely lose on time as all of us do at times).

It has also become impossible to get any game on chess.com using this product as no opponent is assigned to me (Miko says that chess.com has recently changed their policy such that they prioritize players who seek a game directly on chess.com); I can still get an opponent on Lichess.org but I am scared to play there with SquareOff Pro as I might get banned again due to no fault of mine, thanks to SquareOff Pro.

In effect, I am simply unable to use the product. I have been in touch with the manufacturers, ., Miko, to address my problems but all such efforts have been unsuccessful; their response time is unacceptably long (it took them over a month of "our team is working on it", to finally arrange a conversation with a technical person, who explained the problem as issues with chess.com and , not taking any responsibility for his own product, SquareOff Pro).

I have been demanding a refund of my money, and now Miko have directed me to chess.com, as I purchased it from the chess.com shop. I am waiting to hear from the chess.com shop.

The purpose of this post is to alert other members NEVER to buy the SquareOff product, as it is simply throwing money down the drain.

I think at this point in the lifecycle of the product line, all the Square Off devices will work for those who play through the Miko app only.

Mine is still giving me problems. First of all, I can't find any opponents on chess.com; Miko, the company that makes SquareOff claims that chess.com prioritizes those players who use their platform directly, and that's why I don't get anybody paired against me; be that as it may, the main purpose of buying SquareOff Pro has been defeated, as I can't really use it to play on chess.com. Secondly it does not deal with transient internet disconnections; it basically drops the connection altogether, leading to timeout problems; on chess.com, if the connectivity is restored within a reasonable time, we are able to continue the game (albeit after losing some time on the clock). Anyway, it has become a useless junk as far as I am concerned. I have demanded a refund, and Miko is referring me to chess.com shop, who have yet to respond to my email despite two reminders and two weeks having gone by.

That's a bad thing to learn!! If you can, please keep posted of the updates so other players (or wannabe squareoff owners) would learn more of it.

Will do. As of now, my request to chess.com shop is to remove this product from their offerings, as it's simply useless for the intended purpose of playing online. And one cannot use the board to solve the puzzles on chess.com or even play with their friends on chess.com, let alone get paired with other players. At $299, it's simply an overpriced chess set.

hey OP, if you have returned the product, I have an amazing chess board recommendation.

The ChessUP 2!

It supports chess.com like you said, has analysis with built in lights, shows legal moves, and is sponsored by SharkTank and Chess.com!! It's $270 with the first time discount and is fire. Sadly, I don't have one myself

Thanks for the suggestions (Phantom and Chess Up 2). But once bitten, twice shy; having just blown over $400 on two sets of Squareoff Pro, I'm reluctant to try anything for the moment. I'm yet to recover from this disappointment of Squareoff Pro.

ok

Thanks for sharing your experience. However, my experience is as I have described. I bought it in early Jan 2025, but got it in my hands only by the end of January, when my nephew brought it from the USA to India for me. For the first few weeks thereafter, it worked fine (though with the limitations that one cannot do the chess.com puzzles or analysis, or select friends on chess.com or lichess to play with, and it always took longer to get paired on Squareoff compared with directly playing on the browser). Now from mid February onwards, it has become next to impossible to find an opponent. And the other problems like the connection between Squareoff and chess.com being dropped and never getting restored, moves being registered wrongly, moves not being registered at all or opponents moves not being communicated became so frequent that for the past couple of weeks, I have stopped using the product completely.

I don't know whether the problem is with the app or the board. All I know is that the board with the app used to work in early February (most of the times, with occasional hiccups, as mentioned above), but now I am simply unable to get paired on chess.com or lichess.org. In both cases I just keep waiting to be paired; and occasionally I might get an opponent on lichess, but then I would run into the issues of connection being dropped between the app and the board or the app and lichess. I am using the SquareOff app. Are you using a different app? By the way, I had a long conversation with the technical person in Miko (the company which has bought SquareOff and is supposedly servicing the product); he told me that indeed some others are experiencing similar problems and that Miko is in talks with chess.com and lichess.org to resolve the issue. He said that around the end of January, chess.com changed their policy, such that they would prioritize players who play directly on their platform, rather than through SquareOff. So, I am surprised that you are not facing these problems.

I'm glad that you are not facing any problems. But I have had no end of problems and the tech support from the company agreed that I'm not alone. They admitted that others (though not all) have been facing similar problems. They attribute it basically to transient drops in connection during which time, chess.com or lichess would be able to reconnect usually if the connectivity issue is short, but the SquarrOff app has some difficulties in this process, and therefore doesn't restore the connection, and that results in errors in communication between the app and the chess-playing website. This is how I understood his explanation (and he said that they are working on it, meaning the problem is real), which explains some of the issues, but not all the issues. Moreover since I'm not facing any connectivity issues with other apps or the internet browser, I'm not fully buying his explanation.

Still, the fact that it's impossible to find an opponent on chess.com and very difficult (next to impossible in my case) on Lichess, essentially makes this product useless for me. And as I described, it was not only useless but even harmful as it got me a timeout ban 3 times on Lichess (now the van has been lifted, but you know ...)

Moreover, it doesn't allow us to solve chess.com puzzles, or use the chess.com analysis engine, or choose our friends to play with. Thus its functionality was limited to begin with, and for people like me, even that functionality is not working.

@SpanishStallion. I am beginning to think that you are an insider whose purpose is to counter any negative messages about SquareOff Pro or the House of Staunton, because my experience has been the exact opposite of yours.

Hi , his name is , Kevin aka @SpanishStallion Seems that he's taking his meds theses days ! known spammer on chess.com , Hates indian chess makers etc + since his mate DKY has been banned , Has so many invisible chess sets , Just a Sad guy don't feed the spammer ?

@lighthouse. Thanks for the advice. Much appreciated. I am new to this sort of thing; I have never posted on this forum before. I will just ignore him from now on.