Darts Connect Online Electronic Dartboard Review

This is an electronic dartboard from Darts Connect, a brand that is well known for creating such products and that has had a lot of success with them in the past. 

As an electronic dartboard, this is essentially a plastic dartboard that will take soft-tip darts. It utilizes an array of tiny holes across the surface for the darts to sink into, and this then allows the system to automatically detect when a dart has landed and to use this to tally up the score.

In short, that means that you can play with no need to continuously update the score manually. Not only that, but it means that you can play a host of different games without needing to know the rules yourself – it’s the perfect way to learn more rules and to have fun playing on your own too.

Darts Connect has gone a little further in a number of ways though, in order to be a true ‘smart device’. This lets you play other players anywhere in the world online for instance, and has a lot of smart design features to improve quality of life for users.

Let’s see if it’s the right dartboard for you.

The design of this dartboard is fairly simple. It uses a plastic surface and has a 15.5” target area, meaning that it is regulation and therefore well-suited to practice.

Unlike the competition (Arachnid) the company has apparently not acquired the rights to the trademark tournament colors however, meaning you instead get a grey, red, and blue color-scheme. It’s not unattractive, but it does make the board look a little more like a toy rather than something you’d find in a pub or a darts club.

There’s an interesting feature added too – noise reduction. This might be a good option if you’re playing in a shared apartment and they find your darts noisy. But that’s a fairly limited market.

The board does suffer a little from a common problem – rebound. Darts are significantly more likely to rebound when using an electronic, plastic board, unless the OEM has implemented specific features to prevent this. As a slightly cheaper model, there are no such touches here, meaning you can expect the occasional backfire.

What’s very impressive in theory when it comes to this board, is that it doesn’t just use the usual LED readout for keeping track of games, but instead connects to your mobile over WiFi to offer the same functionality.

That keeps the design of the dartboard svelte with no obvious signs that it is an electronic model. It also means that in theory, you have a bigger, high-res screen to see what you’re doing. Plus it allows for a huge roster of different game modes – potentially unlimited with future updates.

But the real killer feature is the ability to play other players across the world.

Not only will your scores be sent over WiFi and compared with theirs, but you’ll also be able to see each other throw thanks to the inclusion of a wide-angle camera attached to the front of the board. This way you can be sure that no one is cheating by placing the darts.

There’s a global league table too, meaning you can climb the ranks as you improve.

Unfortunately, this isn’t a perfect solution though. For one, connecting to the app is occasionally difficult and it can sometimes be hard to get a game lined up. Occasionally the app will lose its connection mid-game. And set-up is not smooth. The rebound also becomes even more of a problem here.

So, what’s the verdict?

The concept here is excellent and when everything works smoothly, it’s a fantastic experience for darts lovers. Being able to play anyone around the world? Sign us up!

The downsides are related to the app’s design and reliability, as well as issues inherent with plastic dart boards. We hope that these issues can be ironed out in the app with updates over time.

As it is, this is still a recommendation, just be prepared for the occasional drop in performance and don’t buy purely for the online functionality. You’re still getting a great electronic dart board here!

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