The best electronic dartboards

Arachnid have been building electronic dartboards for a long time and the Cricket Pro line is their mainstream home board. What matters most on an electronic board is scoring reliability — a board that misses hits or double-counts is worse than no scoring at all — and this is a segment of the market where the established names earn their price.

The volume of game modes sounds like marketing and turns out to be the point. Cricket, 301, 501 and dozens of variants mean a group of mixed abilities can play something that works for all of them, which is exactly what a casual darts night needs.

It handles several players without anyone tracking scores, which is the specific problem electronic boards exist to solve.

The practical difference at this level is the display and the player handling. A larger, clearer scoreboard readable from the throw line matters much more than it sounds when four or six people are playing and nobody wants to walk up to check.

If the board is going into a room where darts happens as a social event rather than as solo practice, this is the tier where that becomes comfortable.

Everything else — the soft-tip trade-off, the segment wear — is the same as any electronic board.

Practicing darts alone is dull, and that is the reason a lot of home boards stop being used. A connected board fixes it properly: you play real opponents online, with scoring and statistics handled by an app.

The statistics are a genuine benefit for anyone trying to improve — averages, checkout percentages and scoring distributions are the kind of feedback that would otherwise need a notebook and discipline.

It is quieter than most electronic boards, which matters in a home. The downside is a dependency on an app and a device, which a wall-mounted bristle board does not have.

For a household that wants scoring handled and does not need dozens of variants, an entry electronic board does the essential job at a much lower price.

The compromises are a smaller display, fewer game modes and segments that are more prone to wear. None of that stops a casual game from working.

This is the sensible purchase when the board is for guests rather than for a player, or when you are not yet sure how much it will be used.

The step up from entry electronic boards buys a larger playing surface and better-built segments, which together mean fewer bounce-outs and a longer life.

For a family that will use the board weekly rather than at occasional parties, it is a sensible middle ground — more durable than the entry tier without the price of the top one.