Leap Motion designed a $100 augmented reality headset with hand tracking | Hacker News Reader

Leap Motion designed a $100 augmented reality headset with hand tracking

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130 pointstbassetto20 comments

Don't let the price fool you. The price is why I bought the original Leap Motion hand tracker and I was so disappointed. The technology was very good, but its design as a human interface device was abysmal. I am still really confused why they thought it would be good to require that an interface be created for every piece of software it interacted with, rather than allowing that as an option but also having a consistent, operating system level driver that worked across apps with a set of basic gestures.

I basically got no use out of it and strongly regret the purchase. That's the catch though, the price was just low enough to make me not that enraged, kind of like this thing here. Am I going to do it again? Oh gosh, I might.

I'm kind of in the same boat, although in time I've gradually become less negative about it.

I, too, was wanting something that felt like a native peripheral but always found that it is a module you more or less have to hack a solution onto. I was also a bit disappointed as I bought it during the leap year promo (nice job, Leap Motion, nice job) mostly for the thought that the little block throwing demo was usable for me. Apparently, VR only. And that's what I found: it is meant only for the AR/VR space even though they positioned it for other spaces (at least, after Windows 8 died. They did try to demo start menu navigation via gesture).

That being said, I think the possibilities are there and I'd give strong consideration to it. I'd rather see them partner up with the Valves/HTCs/Googles/Microsofts of the world as getting into a common framework is going to be pretty important for their tech to really catch on.

Official announcement post from Leap Motion: http://blog.leapmotion.com/northstar/

$100 hand-tracking by itself that worked really well would be valuable.

The entire gesture interface has stalled. Google Soli, for example, hasn’t progressed:

https://atap.google.com/soli/

The hand-tracking is probably the same module as in their existing products, and those have been available <100$ for years now (although they've gotten improvements over time)

They’ve improved the hardware but never released a standalone update. They’re focusing on AR and VR headsets.

They were talking about DragonFly a few years ago:

https://www.roadtovr.com/ces-2015-leap-motion-co-founders-ta...

Leap Motion: What do developers want?

Developers: Hand tracking on mobile and an updated Android SDK.

Leap Motion: Ok, here's the blueprints to a PC tethered AR headset.

The two aren't mutually incompatible. Stay tuned.

"Leap Motion sensor" is an USB 3.0 camera with clever driver, you can have it on mobile when we start seeing USB 3.0 enabled smartphones.

That's not a blocker. It's a USB 2 and 3 hybrid device, but we never actually rolled out USB 3 in the firmware (would have raised the minimum spec too high for too many people with almost no benefits), so it runs on USB 2.0.

I'm assuming the general idea is that multiple layers of depth perception are not necessary if everything rendered is at very consistent range such as at your hands in a natural position? Reminds me of the early oculus ducktape prototypes vs VR headsets that cost tens of thousands of dollars. Limited capability but straight forward and cheap in comparison.

I had assumed these videos of wearable UI (pictured in the article) were recorded on a Meta-2. Now I guess we know better.

https://mobile.twitter.com/keiichiban/status/968534116420513...

That's incredibly affordable. These guys are impressive. I especially like that they're software centric and they're interested in plugging into as many devices as possible.

They made some really interesting design choices that prioritize optical quality over every other factor (ergonomics, look, etc.). Really interesting approach to create a device that’s esentially only for UX prototyping. Cudos to the Leap Morion team!

I think it does make sense. VR content is still lacking and will be until the basics are figured out. Right now the most important part is getting content out there. With current gen stuff, we have pretty good hardware already, but not much content, and part of that is because the hardware is expected to advance quickly. It makes sense as a game dev to wait for the basic hardware of a 'VR headset' to be figured out.

Right now, there are so many potential questions: Should players be assumed to have foveated rendering? for good vr content, probably, however few headsets have any kind of FR yet.. Should players be assumed to have a certain resolution headset? maybe, maybe they have high res screen but GPU can only push it at lower resolution? How to handle text in a situation like this? Degrade the experience of high resolution users by making all text yuge? Ignore those with lower resolutions entirely?

Basically, I think content is best developed right now with a very high standard of technology. So its better to have clunky, uncomfortable, but very powerful headsets right now, so developers can create great content. Some articles will still be written about how 'VR is dead!' until after awhile someone releases a comfortable AR/VR headset with high resolution and foveated rendering and it turns out theres a trove of content waiting. When that happens, VR will truly be born. VR IS dead right now, because it has yet to begin its life truly.

So is part of the idea of releasing the schematics that it might push VR headset makers to adopt a design similar to this?

No. The idea is that UX designers can use this to prototype for future AR headsets

I'll believe it when I can buy it. For the last eight years, Magic Leap has produced a lot of hype and no product.

This is about Leap Motion and not Magic Leap though.

haha, I made the same mistake in reverse though when I was underwhelmed by Magic Leap due to the Leap Motion controller I bought.

I guess that it is both companies have "Leap" being the non-modifying sounding word in the name and being in the same space? I feel bad for both that the confusion is there.

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