Chess handheld gaming device (idea)
Idea is to make a handheld device with a sole purpose of playing chess on it. The idea seems weird considering how it's possible to play chess on almost any smartphone. But nevertheless I think it can be a cool product. With a little searching I found Handheld Electronic chess board 8 in 1. That product is the closest thing I found to the handheld chess device.
There is also a device called Mephisto Maestro, it's perhaps an original device, of which this previously mentioned is a copy. Mephisto maestro is also an old device, a source on the internet tells me it's from year 2013. So there is no modern handheld chess device, probably for a reason, but still the project stays in motion. However, there are a lot of modern smart chess boards. There is even a chessboard where peaces can move by itself by a company SQUAREOFF.
Design:
The console will be held in the same way as Nintendo Switch. Hands will be to the left and right of the screen. Buttons will be the same type as they are on the GameBoy. On the AliExpress there are a lot of listings for replacement D-pad buttons, and regular A and B buttons.
Each of those have a plastic part which we press, and the rubber membrane that goes underneath it. For that to happen the PCB needs to have copper exposed underneath it in a certain way. Footprint for that is provided by nataliethenerd on Github: D-PAD footprint, it even has start and select footprints, which are smaller and square shaped.
Functionality:
A few months ago I started thinking about this idea, and got myself in a feature rabbit hole. How many features should I incorporate into this device. At one point i was thinking maybe it can have multiple games other than chess on it. But for that it will probably need more buttons. Maybe I can incorporate a speaker into it, so some sounds can be played. And I think the solution for those ideas is just creating a bare minimum device, and maybe on second iteration of the device I can incorporate some of those.
But for now the goal is to make a simple chess handheld without too many features. I believe this kind of thinking is called "feature creep".
One functionality that seems interesting to me and does not require anything physical to be done to schematic is multiplayer gameplay between two devices. ESP32 S3 has integrated Wi-Fi antenna and everything for that can be done in code.
Code:
For the code I'm doing something probably stupid but all the code that will be written will be after the PCB is assembled. Reason to that is that I have tried previously create a chess game on the ESP32, and it is possible, and all the quirks are known to me. So I'm taking that liberty. And coding a chess game is not child's play, it's difficult and without other people's open source code I could not do it myself. So it will be covered in post of its own.
Components:
For the components other than ESP32 S3 which is about 5 EUR.
-One USB type c,
-voltage regulator that can take voltage from two AA batteries (or maybe four AAA) and get them to 3,3V,
-connector for 4,2 e-paper display,
-4.2 epaper display from GoodDisplay, they are about 10 EUR.
My estimate for price of everything is under 20 EUR.
For the conclusion.
For designing a PCB, it's not that hard of a project. It has a few buttons, a screen and a microcontroller. Replaceable AA or AAA batteries will make it even easier. The challenging part will be coding a whole program. Other than chess there will probably be chess puzzles, and other stuff I can incorporate. It will be interesting thing to try to finish.
