Comparison
Online board or wooden board
Most coaches who use both keep the wooden board for the room and a digital one for everything else. Here is what each actually does better, without pretending the digital one wins on feel.
What the wooden board does better
- Weight. Picking a figure up and feeling it is part of the thinking, and a mouse cannot reproduce that.
- Hesitation. You can see a hand hover over a figure before it commits. On a screen that moment is invisible to you.
- No screen between you. In a room, the board is a shared object. Online it is a shared window, which is not the same thing.
- Nothing to go wrong. No browser, no connection, no software update on the morning of a session.
What only a digital board can do
- Work when you are not in the same room. This is the obvious one and it is why most coaches got a digital board at all.
- Show a field of view. Draw what a figure can actually see from where it stands. Two figures can be close and still not see each other, and on wood that stays a matter of opinion.
- Measure. Distance rings turn "they are about the same distance" into something you can check. Clients are often wrong about this, and being shown is more useful than being told.
What it costs
| Option | Rough cost |
|---|---|
| A wooden board with figures | A one-off purchase, then nothing |
| Paid online boards | From about 8 euros an hour, or around 48 euros a month |
| This board | Free, with no time limit and no account |
The board on this site is free because it is made by metaFox.online, a coaching platform. It is how coaches find us. There is no trial clock and no upgrade prompt in the middle of a session.
The data question
A wooden board has one clear advantage that rarely gets named: nothing about your client's family ever leaves the room. Most online boards answer this with encryption and European servers, which is a real answer.
This one answers it differently. The board runs in your browser and nothing is uploaded while you work. There is no session record, because there is no session. That is a stronger guarantee than encryption, because there is nothing to encrypt in the first place.
Which to use when
| Situation | Use |
|---|---|
| Client in the room with you | Wooden board, if you own one |
| Online session | Digital board |
| Client wants to keep the picture | Digital board |
| Team workshop, several people looking | Digital board on a large screen |
| Question turns on who can see whom | Digital board, for the field of view |
| No preparation time, no software | Wooden board |
- Is an online constellation board as good as a wooden one? ▾
- For weight and the feel of placing a figure by hand, no. For working with someone who is not in the room, for showing what a figure can see, and for reading exact distances, the digital board does things wood cannot.
- How much does an online constellation board cost? ▾
- Paid options run from about 8 euros an hour to around 48 euros a month. The board on this site is free, with no time limit and no account.
- Where is my client's constellation stored? ▾
- On this board, nowhere. It runs in your browser and nothing is uploaded while you work. Other online boards store the constellation on their servers and protect it with encryption, which is a different kind of answer.
- Do I still need a wooden board if I have a digital one? ▾
- If you work with clients in a room, yes, most coaches keep both. The wooden board wins on touch and presence; the digital one wins everywhere else.
Try it on your own situation
Free, no account, and nothing is uploaded. Place a few figures and see what the distances tell you.
