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Magical Chess
Free smart chess board — runs on the phone in your pocket.
Turn your phone into a smart chess board. Point the camera at any classical set. Magical Chess detects pieces in real time, tracks moves, runs the clock, and writes the notation for you automatically.
I'm a club-level player (Årslev Skakklub, Denmark) and got tired of manually recording my OTB games on a scoresheet then re-entering the position into Lichess by hand for analysis. The whole loop felt clunky when most chess players already carry a powerful camera in their pocket.
Existing smart boards (ChessUp, DGT) cost $400–$1000+. That's wild for an experience your phone can already deliver.
Spent six months training a YOLO detector on real chess photos so it works on any classical Staunton or Fischer-style set, plus themed boards I designed (H.C. Andersen). Detection runs entirely on-device — no server roundtrip, no subscription, works on a park bench with no signal.
Curious what features OTB players here would want next — and what would break the detector. Honest feedback very welcome.
About Magical Chess on Product Hunt
“Free smart chess board — runs on the phone in your pocket.”
Magical Chess was submitted on Product Hunt and earned 14 upvotes and 5 comments, placing #46 on the daily leaderboard. Turn your phone into a smart chess board. Point the camera at any classical set. Magical Chess detects pieces in real time, tracks moves, runs the clock, and writes the notation for you automatically.
On the analytics side, Magical Chess competes within Education, Artificial Intelligence and Apple — topics that collectively have 568.5k followers on Product Hunt. The dashboard above tracks how Magical Chess performed against the three products that launched closest to it on the same day.
Who hunted Magical Chess?
Magical Chess was hunted by Kadir Erdem Demir. A “hunter” on Product Hunt is the community member who submits a product to the platform — uploading the images, the link, and tagging the makers behind it. Hunters typically write the first comment explaining why a product is worth attention, and their followers are notified the moment they post. Around 79% of featured launches on Product Hunt are self-hunted by their makers, but a well-known hunter still acts as a signal of quality to the rest of the community. See the full all-time top hunters leaderboard to discover who is shaping the Product Hunt ecosystem.
For a complete overview of Magical Chess including community comment highlights and product details, visit the product overview.
Kadir Erdem Demir