How to get the best accuracy from Autodarts: the full setup guide

Detection works by comparing camera frames before and after a throw. If the board, the cameras or the lighting move between those frames, accuracy suffers before calibration even enters the picture. A board on a solid wall fixing beats everything else you can tweak.

Watch the number ring too. Some boards hold the wire number ring loosely enough that it vibrates when a dart lands, and a wobbling ring in three camera views is exactly the kind of movement that confuses detection. If your ring rattles when you tap the board, seat it firmly before you blame the software.

Three cameras spaced evenly around the board — 120 degrees apart — give the software three clean angles to triangulate from. Small errors in spacing are fine; big clusters of two cameras close together are not.

Avoid putting a camera directly above the 20 segment. Darts in the 20 are the most common throw on the board, and a camera looking straight down that line has the worst view of them. Offset the top camera to one side.

In the Autodarts board manager preview, each camera should see the full board with the board face toward the bottom of the image. Take a minute per camera to get this right — it is the single highest-value five minutes of the whole setup.

The goal is even, shadow-free light across the whole face. A light ring around the board does this naturally, which is why almost every serious Autodarts setup uses one. Room lighting alone tends to throw dart shadows across segments, and a shadow that moves when a dart lands looks like a dart to the detector.

Watch for lens flare: a camera that can see a bright light source directly will wash out part of its view. If a camera faces a window or a spotlight, shade it or angle it slightly away.

Most Autodarts-compatible cameras focus by twisting the lens barrel. Do it against something with hard edges — a page of printed text held at the board is the classic trick — and turn the lens until the text is sharpest. A slightly soft camera still "works", but soft edges cost you the marginal calls: trebles near the wire, darts leaning across segments.

Anything that moves inside a camera frame is noise the detector has to ignore: a TV in shot, a curtain, people walking past, even cables that swing when a dart lands. Route camera cables so they are pinned still, and angle cameras so the view is board and not much else.

Detection keys on contrast. Bright or silver barrels read better than black-on-black; flights that contrast strongly with the board face are easier to call than dark ones disappearing into the black segments. If your setup is accurate with one set of darts and flaky with another, the darts are the variable — not the install.

Run the calibration in the board manager once everything above is physically right — calibrating first and adjusting after is doing the job twice. After calibrating, throw a few darts and watch the motion view: it shows you what each camera detected and is the fastest way to spot the one camera that is misaligned, out of focus, or seeing something move that should not.

Recalibrate whenever the board or a camera has been knocked, and after you rotate the board to even out wear. It takes a minute and it is the first thing to try if accuracy suddenly drops.