What makes the perfect home Granboard setup?

It’s a question that often gets posed on various social media groups and forums amongst regular Granboard users. So what does constitute the “perfect” home darts setup? Bandit takes us through the basics, the essentials, and the ultimate dream setups.

The Basics – What you need to get started

You’ve made it through the holiday break, and were lucky enough to be gifted a Granboard 3s (or you worked hard and saved your dollars and splurged out on some big-boy toys for yourself and your friends!). Either way, now you’ve got yourself the best online, soft tip, at-home darts experience that money can buy so you want it to look good.

For starters, it’s all about location. You want your board to go somewhere that you won’t have to keep continuously moving it due to noise-issues or lighting problems, etc. Selecting a good spot for your board to go up is crucial to ensuring your board gets maximum exposure and keeping you enthusiastic enough to want to keep playing on it.

DO’s

- choose a spot that has good lighting. If it’s the perfect spot that doesn’t get good light, then you’ll need to add some artifical light options later on.
- be wary of the weather if you’re planning to put it up outside. Wind can greatly affect your darts throw and you don’t want to one of those guys blaming your poor shots on the weather conditions.
- if you plan to play online, then make sure you are within good range of your internet modem. Sheds are great places for dart setups but bricks or steel structures often inhibit a good wi-fi signal.
- Place your board somewhere with adequate power available nearby. For aesthetics you don’t want to be running extension cords all over the place if you can help it.
- ensure that you use a tape measure to get accurate height from the ground and distance to the throw line (soft-tip distance is different to steel-tip).

DON’Ts

don’t cheap out and use an old phone charger for your Granboard’s USB adapter. More often than not they are the incorrect amperage and will tend to cause issues with the LEDs/bluetooth connectivitiy on the board. We recommend these ones from Officeworks
don’t purchase the cheapest soft-tip darts you can find on Amazon/Temu/AliExpress. These will most likely break after a few rounds, and lead to disappointment and resentment. A good set of starter darts can be had for around AUD$35 – check out our shop for darts, tips, and more.
don’t rush to get your board up and do it half-assed. At the end of the day your board is an electronic piece of equipment. Proper care needs to be taken to ensure it is mounted 100% correctly, either securely fixed to a wall or a dart board stand. If wall-mounting, choose the correct fixing for the type of wall you’re fixing it to (brick, drywall, etc)

Now depending on how pedantic you are, you will notice that as soon as you’ve mounted your board to a wall or stand, there is the annoying problem of the wires coming out from the bottom of the board. The Granboard 3s does have the option of using batteries but this only allows the bluetooth connection to work, and nullifies the cool flashing LED lights so most people will want the LED function to work.

If you’re a handy sort of person, you could use conduit to hide wiring, or if you’ve mounted to a wooden board you could hide the wiring through the back of that. If you’ve got chippy skills (you’re a carpenter) then you could even try building a custom Granboard cabinet via the plans located here. Everyone is different, and there’s no perfect solution. You will just need to do what works for you. When we do our Granboard demonstrations at local businesses we ensure all the wiring is zip-tied to the portable stand.

Finally, you will need an Android/iOS device to run the Granboard software on. For the budget-conscious this will most likely be your phone. Although this works, it’s not the best solution as getting calls/messages will often interrupt your games which can be annoying. We highly recommend using an old ipad/iphone/android tablet. The only issue with this is making it sure the operating software is regularly updated and supported by the Granboard.

The Essentials (or what we believe gives a greater playing experience to you and your friends)

If you are using a phone or a tablet to connect to your board, it doesn’t take long to realise that the screens are generally too small. You’ll want something much larger to view your games through (remembering that you’ll still need to connect and operate the games through your regular device. There are 3 main options you can do here:

Use a Chromebook laptop. Chromebooks don’t use MS Windows, they use the Chrome Operating system which is Android native. This ensures you can still connect to the Granboard through the laptop’s bluetooth so long as you can download the app to the Chromebook. I don’t believe this is possible with a Macbook but I do not own one to try, but I can guarantee it works with a Chromebook.
Mirror your phone/tablet screen to an external monitor/television. This can be done through several mirroring apps available on iOS. Some apps do charge for this service and it can also be dependent on the TV/Monitor software. For Android users, this can be done easily through Google Home to any smart TV in the house so long as they are on the same Wi-Fi network. Mirroring tends to work ok, but there is often slight lagginess on the screen and the sounds are often glitchy.
The best option that we have seen is use a device that has HDMI output and connect directly to your TV/Monitor. This creates a lag-free mirror of your device and the sound (including microphones) still works perfectly. The only draw-back for this method is that not all devices are capable of outputting video via DisplayPort-Alt mode – it is generally the higher end and flagship models that do. You can view a fairly current full list of capable smartphones here.

Ideally, you would want your TV/Monitor wall mounted above or below the Granboard, depending on the board’s location it can also work on the side. Check out Trip’s set-up where he has the Granboard monitor up top, and a television on the left (not visible) so we can have a throw, but also watch whatever we like via FoxSports/Kayo at the same time!

If you do go down the path of using a usb-c to HDMI connection cable, then you will most likely want to have some kind of mount to keep your device still and steady, remembering that your device also doubles as the camera that your opponents see when you play online. We’re not going to get into the debate about which way the camera should be facing (to the board, or to the thrower). Hopefully this will be sorted out when the Gran Eye gets released very soon.

Again, the type of mount you use is dependent on your setting. If using a stand, then you might want a pole mount. I’m in the garage, so I’m considering using a magnetic gooseneck mount so I can attach it to my garage’s internal roller door. For stability to the device, we also recommend the quad-lock mount system. You can purchase sticky quad-lock mounting plates that can be attached to your device’s cover that instantly lock into place.

For portability, you can’t go past using the No Bull Darts portable Granboard stand (I feel like this article is turning into an ad, but I promise this wasn’t my intention!). Setup takes approx 5-10 minutes and you’re ready to go. We’ve taken ours to numerous demonstrations at local businesses, and even regional caravan parks for camping trips. It’s perfect for people who are renting and can’t mount their boards permanently to their walls, or for those who just like the idea of having their board portable and can move it wherever you like.

Good lighting is an essential part of any professional home darts setup. Until recently, there weren’t too many options for soft-tip enthusiasts but Mission Darts have released their affordable Torus ST lighting system designed specifically for soft-tip boards. No Bull Darts also sell the Target Corona Vision conversion kit which allows the Target Corona Vision lighting system to be used on your Granboard 3s. Again, it comes down to what works for you in the space that you have available. What do we use here at NBD? The Rattler has gone for the Torus ST Lighting system, Trip McNeely is using the One80 Illumina system, Whippet was utilising his Target Corona Vision with the conversion kit, and Bandit went the ultimate tight-ass version and 3D printed his own light ring, and added an LED strip light to that!

Ultimate Dream Setup

If money was no object, there is no limit to what you can do with your Granboard setups at home. We’ve seen some insane offerings from users all over the world. When we visited Japan earlier in 2024, even Grandarts themselves had converted several older-style cabinets and sold them on for use in bars in Japan. Although they were coin-operated we think they’d look pretty awesome in the man-cave.