ChessUp 2 Review: A Smart Board That Lights Up Your Mistakes

The pitch fits in one line: touch any one of the 32 pieces and the board lights up every square that piece can legally reach. That single feature is why ChessUp 2 is the smart board I'd hand to most improving players, and I'd say so while telling you the WiFi can get fussy. It's a recommendation, with one honest reservation about the hint lights.

The second thing worth knowing: the WiFi lives inside the board. You can play a ranked Chess.com game, all 40 moves of it, without a phone in the room.

What it is and who it's for

ChessUp 2 is the Bryght Labs electronic board that ships with TouchSense pieces in the box. Touch a piece and the board lights the legal squares, flags a mistake after you commit, and shows what you should have played. It runs its own chess engine, connects to Chess.com and Lichess over built-in WiFi, and pairs with a companion app for game review, progress tracking and lessons. App explanations appear on the board and on the screen at the same time.

Most boards in this category are compact: the ChessNut Air, for comparison, is 13 x 13 x 0.7 inches. My smart chess boards rundown sets that shape of board next to wooden sets and the clock-and-scoresheet setups clubs still use.

Who it suits: a household with one beginner and one club player sharing the same 32 pieces. Parents teaching a child. Adults who want online opponents without a laptop open. If the player is brand new and on a tight budget, the best chess sets for beginners list is the cheaper place to start.

Five things are missing from the listing: board dimensions, king height, piece material, battery or power details, and any price band. That's thin information for a board you'll leave on a table for years.

What the specs actually tell you

Per-player coaching is the smartest item in the spec sheet. You can set the light-up help high for a beginner and switch it off for the stronger player across the table, so one board and one game serves both. Most adaptive difficulty systems flatten the whole table to one setting. This one doesn't.

The gap is geometry. US Chess guidance puts a tournament king around 3.375 to 4.5 inches tall, squares between 2 and 2.5 inches, and the king's base at roughly 75 to 80 percent of a square. ChessUp 2 publishes none of those numbers. You're buying a board whose size you meet at the door. The ChessUp 2 vs ChessNut Evo choice is worth reading for exactly this reason, since the wooden alternative prints its measurements.

Studying any position is the spec I'd use most. Rebuild move 27 of a game you botched on Tuesday, test a different knight route, see where the lights disagree with you. That's a coaching loop you can't run on a screen without clicking through three menus first.

What owners report

The theme that comes up again and again is the lights doing the teaching. People describe kids working out why a move was bad instead of being told, and adults using the mistake warnings as a second opinion. The listing carries no rating count as I write this, so I'm going on forum threads and comment sections rather than a star average.

The most common complaint is connection fussiness. WiFi drops mid-game, the app loses the board, and you're re-pairing instead of playing move 20. It's the weak spot on connected boards generally, and it's what I'd stress hardest inside the return window.

And the coaching cuts both ways. Leave the hints on for six months and you get a player who can't spot a hanging queen without a light telling them. If the goal is to learn chess properly, the lights have to come off eventually.

Pros and cons

Pros

• Built-in WiFi means Chess.com and Lichess games on real pieces with no phone or laptop needed.
• Coaching help is adjustable per player, so a beginner and a strong player can share one board fairly.
• TouchSense pieces ship in the box, so there's no seperate piece purchase.
• Position setup lets you rebuild and study any game, not just the ones you played.

Cons

• No published board dimensions or king height, which is a strange omission on a chess product.
• WiFi and app pairing dropouts are the recurring owner complaint.
• Power and battery details are absent from the listing, so travel use is a guess.
• Hints left on permanently can stall a developing player.

Specs at a glance

Chessnut Air Electronic Chess Board with AI — Handcrafted Wooden Board

by Chessnut

Check price on Amazon

ChessNut Air is the wood-look option, with a 13 x 13 x 0.7 inch board, a 2.7 inch king and 34 sensor-chip plastic pieces plus two extra queens. It stores 20 over-the-board games for later review, which ChessUp 2 doesn't advertise. Read the copy closely: the title says handcrafted wood, the feature list says plastic-and-wood, and those chess pieces are sensor-chip, not timber.

Advanced Electronic Chess Board

by JWSCHESSUN

Check price on Amazon

JWSCHESSUN's board leans on older hardware: an ELO 2200+ engine, 128 tactical puzzles, 256 stored classic games, a four-digit LCD and AA batteries with auto-shutoff. The king is 2.36 inches on 1.22 inch squares, well under tournament size, so treat it as a trainer rather than a board for a slow Sunday game.

GoChess Mini Smart Chess Board AI Electronic Chess Game Set for All L…

by GoCube

Check price on Amazon

GoChess Mini gives you 32 difficulty levels, colorful coaching lights and both Chess.com and Lichess, on 35mm squares (about 1.38 inches). That's small even by travel standards, and 35mm sits under the 2 to 2.5 inch square guidance. It makes sense if you want the smallest coaching board going, and my best travel chess sets page has the tiny-set comparison.

Should you buy it

Yes, if you want online opponents on a real board and a teaching tool that adapts between two players at the same table. The WiFi is inside the board, the coaching is per player, and the TouchSense pieces come with it. Few boards in this category put all three together.

No, if you're a wood-and-brass person who wants a set to last thirty years, or if you'll leave the hints on until nobody at your table can read a position unaided. Buy a wooden set and a decent clock instead.

I'd buy ChessUp 2 for a family with one hooked kid and one adult who wants Chess.com games off the phone. I'd skip it for a 1900 tournament player with no interest in lights. My one condition: use it inside the return window and stress the WiFi hard, because that's where these boards tend to fail.