These days, image recognition is good enough that it's probably feasible to just video the chess game on a non-sensory board, and let software figure out what moves were played. In cases of doubt or dispute (blitz scrambles), humans can examine the video.

If anyone cares, the tournament sensory sets that most organizers use are made by DGT and cost around $600 iirc. The magnetic sensor system is very clever and was patented in the 1990s or so, but the patents would be expired by now.

A few wires later and a model scale up and your chess board can be a different size.

I suppose one piece is easier and cleaner, just less flexible.

"I appreciate your work, but that AI generated image is very disturbing and shouldn't be promoting your own work, which is so much more than an AI slab."