Leap Motion - Controller

I'll preface this review by saying I had very high hopes that the leap would be the product I wanted it to be. I had been following it since it's kickstarter days and really wanted this to be something big and a change in the way we used and interfaced with our computers/tablets/etc. In the end, the initial reviews were lackluster and I gave it more than a full year before picking up mine on sale to give it a good try. By the end of the first day using it, I knew that it hadn't come very far, and in fact, didn't even seem to have the functionality that it had a year ago. (some apps no longer on the app store that were there at launch due to those companies dropping support) I gave it another week to see if I could find some real use for it other than the demo's (which were the most functional applications out there at this time) but it's just not ready for mainstream, mainly due to lack of application support.

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 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.

Fun tool, using it for vr demos. Huge potential for future uses.

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!

I own a music software / hardware company and bought this to test using this for making a control surface out of anything. For that, it works amazingly well. This isn't something that is going to replace your mouse. This is something you'll pull out to play a game or two occasionally. Try holding your arm out in the air above your keyboard for 10 minutes..go ahead and do it..now you know how practical this thing is for everyday use.

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)