Wireless means one wire less

 Suddenly, the idea of having wifi modules that can automagically connect to a home network seems like a great idea for a multi-part board gaming surface. Instead of having a single, master controller that all the hardware eventually connects to, then using that as a bridge to the app running on a phone/tablet, we can just have the app and the board game pieces talk to each other seamlessly over wifi.

And the best thing?

One less wire. There'd be no need for a data wire or even for all the board pieces to be physically connected to each other. You could have one over here, one over there, one somewhere else....

So long as there was a consistent means of getting power to the devices, each one could effectively be a stand-alone unit.

We could even put a rechargeable battery in each board section - just switch them on, throw them down onto the table, and you're ready to play!

Of course, having multiple board sections for a nice large playing area (such as a HeroQuest dungeon or a Blood Bowl pitch) all requiring charging before being able to play  - well that would take up a lot of USB ports! So we'll still need to consider having pin connectors and a single source of power, so they can be "daisy-chained" without the need for constantly charging and draining batteries.
But just the possibility of being able to go truly wireless was exciting for a little while!


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