Quote from David Loewe on January 19, 2021, 2:35 am

I am a little surprised no one has jumped in here. I will answer the ones I can.

1. Micro USB
2. The board is powered via USB but has to be connected to a computer. The board has not logic, it comes via the computer. That is actually what makes this product (in my opinion) so powerful. It will not get dated technology wise. For instance, you can play against Shredder, or Lucas, which has many engines to play against. Can play against real people on Chess.com or on Lichness.org. Lots of upside.
3. No idea about this one.
4. Once again, must be connected to a computer.
5. Yes, you can buy your own PI and use the downloadable software. I did this and found it quite fun, but I am a techie. I have actually had as much fun jacking with the software and playing chess with it, but that is me.  Yes you can power it with a power bank as long as it supplies at least 3 amps. I found using one with a usb C PD port is what you need.
6. I believe (unconfirmed)  they are all PI4,s, the difference is the amount of ram and the case.
7. Don't know
8. Don't know
9. Don't know

Quote from Karsten on January 19, 2021, 11:23 am

Thanks a lot, for your Answers, David!

A few comments:

Quote from David Loewe on January 19, 2021, 2:35 am

1. The board is powered via USB but has to be connected to a computer. The board has not logic, it comes via the computer. That is actually what makes this product (in my opinion) so powerful. It will not get dated technology wise. For instance, you can play against Shredder, or Lucas, which has many engines to play against. Can play against real people on Chess.com or on Lichness.org. Lots of upside.

I was aware that the board as such is not intelligent and needs to be connected to a "brain", i.e.  a device with some software. However, reading the FAQ on this website, I had and still have the impression that the brain could be any of these:

• A Windows PC
• A Mac
• A Linux computer
• The DaVinci or any other Raspberry
• An Android device (connecting via a USB OTG cable or via BT using a compatible BT dongle)
• An iOS device (connecting to a compatible BT dongle via BT)
• (Via VNC from any of the above remote-controlling the Raspberry)

So, since I certainly don't want to use a full-fledged computer, and since I already have two iOS devices and one Android device, I was looking for a configuration without a Raspberry and without a cable power supply. Hence my focus on power banks and BT connections from either iOS or Android.

1. Yes, you can buy your own PI and use the downloadable software. I did this and found it quite fun, but I am a techie. I have actually had as much fun jacking with the software and playing chess with it, but that is me.  Yes you can power it with a power bank as long as it supplies at least 3 amps. I found using one with a usb C PD port is what you need.

Thanks for this explanation - it really helps. If there is no iOS or Android solution without the Raspberry, I might go for a configuration with a Raspberry, a battery pack and a USB-Y cable in the same housing (my wife has a 3D printer). Have to think about it, but will wait for more details on iOS and/or Android.

 

Quote from Pietro on January 19, 2021, 11:56 am

Hello Karsten! Sorry for bit delay in answer 🙁

David and Jaume thank you for your help! I will add some more specific information too.

1. As David was saying is micro with a magnetic adapter which can be eventually pulled out to use with any micro usb cable. We found the mangnetic very useful, especially for big board where if you catch the cable it will just pop out without pulling the board
2. Answered by David
3. Blue leds (unlike red for example) are quite bright to be seen under sun but with just one per square they look ok for dimmed enviroment and not distract at least from our perspective 😉
4. You can connect to small BT module and little power bank this will give bluetooth bridge to PC, PI and Mac coming
5. Answered by David by the way in addition to that we are releasing the DaVinci 3.0 just uploaded here  https://www.certabo.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/DaVinci_3.0_Jan_2021_BT_MS.zip which now suppoorts the connection over USB and BT (you select at boot) and also support emulation for vintage roms with their dedicated vintage graphical interface in paralell.
6. In addition to what David said the 1gb version are all based on Pi3 while the 2 and 4 are based on Pi4 there was a Pi4 1gb but Raspberry discontinued it. Apart from ram the processor on Pi4 is faster too.
7. Yes the BT module is not standard it does take the data from board pack them and send over BT conversely software on PC or DaVinci will read as it is a standard USB connection. This anyhow allow to split the power required from the two units. So with little battery bank you can supply much more time the board.
8. The iOS does not support directly peripherals connected OTG like android as far as we know,  so the only way is couple them via BT but on the other hand you need a software for iOS device which we have not yet firm date for it. So as for now the iOS app can be used for remote coontrol the board as remote display but not actually to run chess software on it like on Android
9. Yes there are two Apps one is the cool Chess for Android from Aart bik the other is Certabodroid we developed starting form open nice source code Droidfish  of Peter Osterlund where we added support for our board ans lichess connection too. In this case yes direct connection is possible via OTG cable chess software runs on Android devices in majority of cases the phone is also able to supply the board but in some case where the phone has somehow limited power output you may need an Y splitter to add a power bannk in parallel to the phone which you can either do else if the phone is able to supply directly the board

Part 2 following up soon 🙂

All the best

Pietro

Quote from Pietro on January 19, 2021, 12:34 pm

Part 2

OK, those were the buy-or-not-buy decision making questions. Now I have a few more thoughts:

Any plans to natively play with chess.com? I love their bots and would love to play them (but I don't want to use a Mac or Windows PC)

well to natively support chess.com they shall open their APi as Lichess did for example we would be delighted to add native support! We have been in contact in beginning but that is good reming it's good timing to re double-check we will keep posted.

About engine and book selection on the Raspberry: is there an option to let the software pick a random engine and book(s) each time?

Nope there is no such option but will check if can add we have user wishlist 🙂 step by step we fulfill 

On a Mac or PC there is, if I understood it correctly, a really smart piece of software which reads the board of online chess engines like chess.com, chess24.com, lichess etc. pp., and route the information to Certabo's software and ultimately the board, and vice versa our moves on the board to the online service. I find this super super clever. Would it be possible to do the same on the Raspberry PI in the background? I.e. have Chrome for Raspbian running, and grabbing the screen and reading the board?

yes correct actually it reads the remote board and transform it into bidirectional format for the board. Basically it transform the phycisal move into mouse click and read the remote board transofrming the virtual move of piece into the leds inditaction but it check right positioning and alignement between the two physical and virtual. On Pi DaVinci image is already there so you can use on that too.

Are there any plans to integrate a power bank into the board and/or into the DaVinci and/or into the Bluetooth dongle? (You see I really hate cables…)? Any plans to integrate the DaVinci and a power bank into the board (which would be a few cm higher to provide the necessary volume). The touchscreen could then be mounted in a drawer that slides out of the board when needed.

Well this open up a more general discussion. We generally think that with the computational hardware developing it is better to have a board which can use today as  tomorrow with most recent hardware solution which right now are Pi but tomorrow can be much smaller devices for example and you can always connect to them.  As for the battery the same sticking a battery or a bt module  will anyhow kind of  freeze the device at this day so you may need to change the battery at sometime (now the battery must be emebedded in device the lithium one i mean) some courier ds not accept devices with lithim battery for example,  the BT standard keeps evolving so the one today may be obsolete tomorrow, so that's our view for now so get a device which can cross time keeping the best possibility of the state of art software adn external hardware technology. Btw before releasing the DaVinci module we were thinking to such kind of chess computer but we step back as while we were thinking Pi4 came out and in case you can do exactly what you look as Bryan did, have a look at video 🙂 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTJb-r_LkyI&t=142s and you may change tomorrow!

All the best again

Pietro

Quote from Hulbert Guy Ferger on January 20, 2021, 4:04 pm

Hi all. I bought and use a 20Ah power back for the Da Vinci RPi4. The analysis engine can eat a lot of power. Thusly, this makes for quite a warm RPi. USB-C can deliver around 3 A for higher consuming devices. I also bought a right angle USB C adapter and a short cable so the battery and power connection sit along the left side of the board.