Smart chess boards are great, allowing you to play solo on a physical board, either by going up against AI or remotely playing a human opponent online. Some of those boards even move pieces automatically, making games feel just as natural as when playing against real opponents. The Manya Cynus is one of those boards and it offers arguably the most interesting design we’ve seen yet.
Instead of using some magnetic mechanism under the board to move the pieces, the smart chess board comes with an articulated robotic arm that picks up and places each piece during its moves. That makes it feel even more like a traditional chess game, albeit with a clanker sitting in front of you and moving pieces around the board.
The Manya Cynus is a smart chessboard with a robotic arm that can take the role of your opponent. All of the chess pieces come with magnets at the top, which the robot arm uses to quickly snap onto them. From there, the robot arm lifts the chess piece up and moves it to a different spot on the board, much like a human opponent will move their pieces during play. The sight of the articulated arm, despite being a clanker and all, physically lifting and moving the pieces genuinely feel more natural than other self-moving solutions we’ve seen before.
Even better, they put a screen on top of the arm, making it look like a robot’s face (actually, they just show eyes), which enables it to execute some animated expressions to give the game an even more personalized feel. Our favorite part, though, is the fact that it doesn’t require an app, since the arm comes its own processing system, as well as the Stockfish chess engine onboard, allowing you to play AI matches (eight different ELO levels) with nothing but the chess set and the robot arm. There’s also an integrated 3MP camera on the arm, which it uses to scan the board and precisely identify the layout every time.
The Manya Cynus comes with two game modes: free and match. Free mode is just a regular AI chess game with no timers, while match uses competitive rules, complete with countdown timers for both sides. The timers, by the way, show up on the screen on the arm, so there’s no need to pull out a phone or launch an app. Since it’s designed for standalone play, they also threw in a built-in battery that’s rated for up to 10 hours of gameplay between charges, with a charging time of around two hours.
Want to play against remote opponents? As of now, they only offer the AI mode, although it comes with Bluetooth LE and an API that should let you link it up with your favorite online chess platforms (we do wish they just integrated this as a ready-made feature). All the chess pieces and the robot arm are designed to fit inside the board, by the way, allowing you to keep the whole thing in one place.
A Kickstarter campaign is currently running for the Manya Cynus. You can reserve a unit for pledges starting at $201.
