youtube.com/watch?v=xpXSqVWIEC0 Thoughts?
I can’t say much about the clock, because that video doesn’t really tell you much about the clock. Does it address most/some/any of the concerns you and others have with currently available clocks? I don’t know.
As a marketing tool, I would rate it an F, it didn’t tell me why that clock is better than any other clock (after showing dozens of them).
When I took my marketing courses, years ago, the professors always said things like “People don’t buy the steak, they buy the sizzle.” There was no sizzle.
If you watch the first video that comes with the link, you’ll quickly notice that this device is a chess clock without a clock.
You put your smartphone in the slot, and the phone becomes the display – which can be either digital or analog, your choice. After each move, you press a location in the wooden frame, which causes the entire clock to tilt first one way, then the other, in the frame.
Each side has only a 3-digit display. One wonders whether the clock can be set for no more than 9 minutes and 59 seconds, or whether it displays h:mm until the 10-minute mark.
There is no mention of any increment or delay, except for the historical fact that Bobby Fischer invented increment.
If getting burned is your thing, you might want to buy this clock.
Bill Smythe
And here’s a thought: Since the phone has a camera facing the board, could it be programmed to see the board and record moves? (And if it can do all that, can it feed a chess engine?)
USCF doesn’t allow other chess timers that are programs residing on smart phones. Why would we allow this one?
“We” probably don’t. Most likely “they” never asked “us”.
Bill Smythe
Review I found of the Tempest chess clock, youtube.com/watch?v=Ecwj51qqmAo.
Update they made to the clock app, youtube.com/watch?v=cUSAq4PFNi0.
Thoughts?
Micah, I hope you NEVER add this clock to any of your famous manuals that cover just about every brand of clock ever seen on land or sea.
The legality of a “clock” like this in serious tournaments is highly dubious. Larger tournaments go out of their way to make sure that players’ cell phones are nowhere in sight.
The reviewer in these posts never talks about anything but speed chess, as though that were the only kind of chess that exists.
Stay away!
Bill Smythe