Leap Motion - Controller

This is a great product, the idea means we're one step closer to laughing at Tony Stark himself! Although this stage of the tech has several big problems. 1. Its too small; the size makes it very portable yes, but it makes it easy to bump or even keep still on a desk sometimes because of the cord angle. Not a big deal, except another flaw in its size is its overall range. It does have a wide sensor range, yes. Except if I flip my hand, it loses track of my fingers because a flipped right hand suddenly becomes a left hand. Suggestion: make it wider, and bigger. Maybe curve it upward on each end so it can sense in more directions other than up. 2. This little sucker gets hot pretty quick if you're spending an hour or two configuring things and playing around with it. As does most tech except if this were to become used for practical computer use, it needs to be able to go for much longer. Unless we just stick ice packs under it, hah! 3. The configuration limit so far: it all seems to be a repeated set of motions that ppl seem to be quite comfortable with. Which is great! Exceptthe other issues with the size, shape snd sensor range, these commands are frequently made by mistake, even when you were pretty sure you didn't make the necessary hand gesture for the mistaken command. **4. PLEASE: CO-OPERATE THIS TECH WITH AUDIO CONTROL!!!** Think if this thing could react to not only the motion of a snap of your fingers, but read the noise as well. Or simply hold up your thumb to prepare it to open a program, and you just say "Skype", "Chrome", or even "World of Warcraft". 5. In addition to the reason why Audio Command would be a great implication, is because while your hands are up making commands, where is your keyboard? In Leap Motions current stage, lowering or raising your hands to your keyboard may trigger an unwanted command. Whst if you could just put your hands in a configured position, and speak to type? See, there are many things that can be done to make this a must have for any home, but I wouldn't reccomend it to a friend because its simply incomplete, but a great idea.

I missed out on the kickstarter buzz, but thought it was an outstanding idea, so when I saw it on bestbuy and figured I could get reward points too it was a no-brainer. Very well designed and built product, feels sturdy and the cables look like they'll stand the test of time (which in my case is somewhat important having two boys under 3 years old in the house who have a habit of showing up just where manufacturers cut corners in their product assembly). Out of the box, I had no issues at all. The software downloaded, installed and detected the leap straight away. It complained about a bright light source (I use it at work, so I would imagine anyone else would have this 'problem'), said it was going into fallback mode and performed flawlessly. The visualizer is fascinating for about 10mins (and anytime anyone wanders by) and impressively accurate. Sadly, it goes downhill from here. The mouse pointer replacement on windows (and Mac) is at the moment a gimmick at best; aiming is trivial, keeping your hands in the right place to 'click' on things is frustratingly difficult. I'm not a UI designer, I'm sure there are reasons for it (maybe I just have early onset alzheimers and a shaky hand...who knows), but it just didn't work for me. The other software titles were interesting for 10-20mins at a time (and again when someone who'd not seen it before wandered by), but I soon tired of them and haven't run them since. I'm hoping the developers (who must be smart, as the product and drivers are so good) are able to refine this part of the interaction/introduce gestures (/maybe hire an Apple engineer...much as people like to beat on them, they certainly know how to make interfaces intuitive and just work...my 2.5 year old figured out the iPad with minimal input from us) so that we can get to the minority report style interaction with the PC. For $80, it'll provide you with a few hours entertainment (, and hopefully a few years worth of new interactivity with your PC/Mac if they can get the software up to scratch)

What can I say about the LEAP Motion Controller? Well… it works, but… not as I had expected. Let’s by start describing the setup experience. It’s a manual and cumbersome experience. You just do not take out of packaging, follow simple directions and watch the system configure itself, much like you see from today’s new printers. Your first task is visit the LEAP website and download, its control panel and drivers. During this time you are also downloading and installing LEAP’s friendly user interface which is called “Airspace”, which I will discuss later. After installation your next task is to calibrate LEAP to your computer. This requires you “paint” the inside of a window dialog box by holding the device about three or four inches from the screen it so that it is facing your monitor and then you start twisting it with your wrist or hand with circular motions. There is a “large” dot representing your brush and it paints a light green hue over the dialog’s surface. In order for the calibration to be complete, you are scored in your efforts to try to paint as much of the window as possible. When you achieve a score of 80 or greater, then calibration is achieved; however this may not be as easy as it sounds. Typically supposed to take up to two minutes you may find your twisting your LEAP while holding it for over two minutes at which time you may consider starting the calibration process over. As you twist it about trying to paint the window, you see your score shifting in values then you may wonder why your score is so low and does not pass beyond 20. For me I had disconnect my Logitech wireless trackball, because it was interfering with LEAP. Having USB2 or greater also helps. This process takes some patience, although user experience may vary from individual to individual, it took me about 20 minutes of fiddling with it to finally get it calibrated. Once calibrated don’t expect to start navigating through windows or your mac operating system with gestures of magic expecting your computer to obey your every tactile movement. Your next step is to establish a log in account with LEAP via “Airspace”. Don’t worry about if your computer is telling you if your LEAP is not connected. Remember this a cumbersome task. Just use your mouse or laptop finger-pad to access “Airspace”. Create an account, navigate to the Airspace store, and browse under free applications in order to find, “Touchless for Windows”. There is Mac version too! Once you load that then you ready to command your computer with tactile gestures. Think of Airpsace is like your smart phone’s app store. There are limited number of free and pay for applications which you can own to enhance your LEAP Motion Controller experience. Personally I find that the LEAP operates at best when using the apps it is made for as opposed using it to replace your mouse, although you can do that. I found that when pointing and clicking with my hand to be a bit quirky. The greatest challenge is trying to achieve coordination and this takes dexterity and patience. The demos show you people who are very well coordinated as they move about the windows environment making it look like magic. Well it’s not, you need to use it, practice and master it. I bought the LEAP thinking I could use some high end applications like zBrush where I can sculpt digital clay and create 3D art. Well you can’t do that with “Touchless for Windows” which interfaces your LEAP with your computer. It can be achieved but I believe it would require programming a zBrush plugin using the LEAP Software Development Kit. zBrush requires a lot of button holds, the use of the alt, control and shift keys, something that “Touchless for Windows” is not geared for. The most you will get is equal to a button click and scrolling. There is QWERTY keyboard that comes up when you need to enter text, much like your smartphone, but that is the extent of it. So for me LEAP is more of toy and somewhat disappointing as opposed to being something practical. However I do believe that the product has great potential, especially via its Software Develop Kit. The best use of LEAP in its current state in my opinion is using it in tandem with the applications which are designed for it via Airspace. So there you have it. Take the LEAP if you want experiment with fun from a different approach but don’t expect anything too practical, at this point in time.

I purchased this device because I am an art teacher and was interested to incorporate it into my classroom teaching. I have one....that is it for now. Hopefully in time this device will progress further. From my experience, the Leapmotion is specific to it's applications . There is a free Windows application but I was unable to get it to open. (I have Windows 7) Perhaps it only works with Windows 8. There are tutorials online for all the apps which really helped. The educational apps are great. Surprisingly, there are cooler apps for science than art. This shocked me! It would be really great if it was compatible with any program. The Corel Paint app was no so great. I cannot get it t stop painting. I will visit the tutorial for this one. The other apps had tips while you were working in them but Corel did not. Last, Cut the Rope the most awesome app but it is a game that I would only use to familiarize my students with the device. Please any feedback on how to improve the usage of this device will be welcomed. I would love to incorporate such a cool technology into my curriculum.

With update still to come, rating it low now would be unfair. As of now, the device's accuracy depends on its location relative to the screen being used. The problem lies in a lack of a calibration tool/application. For example, the device maps out a space above it and tries to associate points and vectors within that space to a display, creating a pseudo display that the hands can "interact" with. Unfortunately, the device cannot know exactly where the user has placed the it in relation to the screen. This may be solved by a simple "point to the highlighted region" test, after which the device can mathematically derive it's location relative to the user's display, and shift the pseudo display to match. This should increase the accuracy with which it connects your hands' locations to the display. A future update may add this capability. Until then, it is a cute, relatively affordable, gadget that I will recommend as a conversation piece, but not something to use frequently in games or general computer usage. My $10 mouse will suffice.

I'm happy to have the controller, but I would not say that it is something I would/could use on a regular basis yet. The software is limited thus far and the honeymoon period wears off pretty quickly when trying to get used to use it for regular activities. As the software develops, I can see this eventually getting to that Minority Report-like user experience, but it is far from that right now

The device sets up easily, and the software goes in with no trouble. It is similar to having a Kinect for your fingers. However, unlike the Kinect which looks at you from across the room, the Leap looks up at your hands from underneath. If your hands drop too far it can't see them effectively. Also, if you extend beyond the sensor, then your palms can start hiding your fingers, and they stop being identified. I find that by keeping it a little ahead of my hands I can get a reasonably good response, but this wasn't intuitive, and it took me a bit of practice to find the most responsive location. Ideally, it would probably work better in the location of a web cam, but the given location (under your hands) is much more practical. Of course, you get a case of gorilla-arm, but you knew that going in. I've also had my hand start to cramp while "flying" Google Earth for long periods, but it's so cool that I didn't mind too much. The most obvious issue is with individual software. How software chooses to interpret the data provided by the Leap dictates the user experience a lot. Some don't deal very well with fingers appearing and disappearing (going in and out of view) and can react to this jitter unexpectedly. For instance, an item that you've "picked up" may suddenly rotate, or drop out of your virtual hand. However, software that has been written more carefully takes these irregularities into account and deals with them. So it's entirely up to the software that you're using. For instance, one piece of bundled software was supposed to detect me moving individual fingers, and could never once get it right. Others were nearly perfect. There is some free mouse emulation software, but I found that wasn't as useful as software designed to take advantage of the device directly. As a developer I've been learning how to write code for this device, with varying success. Issues like fingers going in and out of view can be difficult to identify and deal with, so I have some sympathy for some of the software that hasn't managed to get it right. As the Leap matures then the system may start doing more of this work for you. That said, it's doing some very impressive work for you already. To wrap up: - If you put some thought into where you place your hands in relation to what it can see, then you can get good response, but this isn't always natural. - There isn't a lot of Leap enabled software yet, and the quality of individual systems varies, which has a major effect on the user experience. - As a developer, it's an easy system to program for, and a lot of fun. - I'm having a lot of fun using it, both as an end user and as a developer.

I've only been playing with this. I really would like to use it to control my PC, but the Windows app for that isn't ready for prime time. It's more along the lines of somewhere between alpha and beta ware. From what I've heard, the issues are not as pronounced on Macs. I see this as a great peek at one future of interfacing with technology. I'm looking forward to getting completely away from the mouse...but I figure it will be a couple years before the developer community gets that down well. I hope I'm proved wrong!