Displaying My Chess.com Rating on a Pixoo Display

I like small projects that combine different interests. In this case it was chess, programming, and hardware.

After playing a lot of games on Chess.com, I had the idea to display my current rating on a small shelf display so I could see it update over time.

That’s where the Pixoo pixel display came in.

The goal was simple: fetch my rating from the Chess.com API and show it on the Pixoo screen.

The Idea

Instead of checking my rating manually on Chess.com, I wanted a small device on my shelf that always shows my current rating.

The system works like this:

Fetch rating data from the Chess.com API
Format the rating as a small image
Send the image to the Pixoo display

The result is a tiny dashboard that updates automatically.

Fetching Data from Chess.com

Chess.com provides a public API that exposes player statistics.
The endpoint used for this project is:

https://api.chess.com/pub/player/{username}/stats

This returns rating information for different game modes such as:

blitz
rapid
bullet
daily

Using Python and the requests library, fetching the data is straightforward.

Example:

import requests

def fetch_chess_stats(username):
    url = f"https://api.chess.com/pub/player/{username}/stats"
    headers = {"User-Agent": "ChessRatingDisplay"}
    response = requests.get(url, headers=headers)

    if response.status_code == 200:
        return response.json()

    return None

From the returned JSON, I extract the rating value for the game mode I want to display.

Rendering the Display

The Pixoo display works by receiving small images over the network.

Instead of sending raw text, the script generates a small image containing the rating and sends it to the device.

This gives full control over:

font
layout
colors
icons

Because the display is low resolution, the design has to stay simple so the information remains readable.

Updating the Rating

The script runs periodically and fetches the latest rating from Chess.com.

When the rating changes, the display updates automatically.

This creates a small live indicator of how my rating evolves over time.

Why I Like This Project

Projects like this sit somewhere between software development and hardware tinkering, which makes them especially fun.

It’s also a nice reminder that programming doesn’t always have to result in websites or apps. Sometimes a few lines of code and a small device can turn into something surprisingly satisfying.

Final Thoughts

This project combines:

a public API
a small Python script
a pixel display on my shelf

The result is a simple but fun way to keep track of my chess rating.

And it’s a great example of how small hobby projects can turn everyday interests into little pieces of custom hardware.

Pixoo Chess Rating Display

The Pixoo display showing my current Chess.com rating.