I was excited about this device since the first time I heard about it. It’s an input device for our computers (Windows and Mac). So, after having mouse, trackball and trackpad, we now can use our fingers by moving them in the air, and this little device will detect our movements as computer input. Without a doubt, this is one of those future gadgets we saw in movies, coming true to reality.
This device costs $80 (USD) and we can order it directly from Leap Motion website. I got my unit on July 23, a day after their online app store called Airspace went live for the first time.
In the box, there’s the Leap Motion controller, guide book, and two USB cables. Even though the micro USB interface looks like USB 3.0 interface, the cable is actually USB 2.0. The controller is small. You can see in the picture, its size compared to an AA-sized battery.
Setting up for the first time is easy. Just open the browser and download the setup application from the URL attached in the unit. The setup file is around 83 MB (might change in future versions), so it might take little time depending on your Internet speed. After installation, we can learn directly how to use this device by following some visual step-by-step guide already prepared by the team who made this.
After few tests, I place my unit between my keyboard and my monitor. When connected to computer, we can see two small lights from the device, presumably the sensors. These lights will turn slightly brighter when it detects our hands (and fingers) within its detection range.
The first few minutes are hard to express with words, I really feel like a character from a sci-fi movie. I tried some of the free apps from Airspace and learn how to use this interesting device to interact with my computer using a new way.
My first app is something called Lotus. It’s basically a colorful app that will detect our fingers and put it into some visual effects. There is no actual use, but it looks cool. Then I tried few games like Cut the Rope, Block54 and Dropchord. Reading news (using New York Times app) is surprisingly fun. There are few interesting apps in Airspace, but for now I’m still limiting myself to free apps. Will probably try some paid apps later.
There is no single standard of how to use our fingers. One app requires one finger to point at the same spot for few seconds to select, another app requires us to make a gesture similar to pressing something in the air. These little details on how to point and select, how to scroll and how to go back make a huge difference in our experience in using an app. Some apps make the usage of Leap Motion controller very easy and enjoyable, while some others make it tiring and troublesome. Based on this issue, the following review is going to be app-based.
Lotus app
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Lotus app is a visualizer app, we use our hands and fingers to control some visual effects on the screen. Controlling Lotus app using our fingers is easy and fun, but that’s mainly because we don’t need any accuracy to control random visualization.
Cut the Rope
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Cut the Rope is a popular game from iOS and Android. We cut some ropes to move a candy. I like how they implement Leap Motion controls. Especially that selecting a menu is not a pain. All we need to point at the menu and hold it for a brief moment. Very intuitive.
Block54
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Block54 is a game similar to Uno Stacko and Jenga. We remove blocks from a tower without “damaging” the structure. I personally don’t like how they implement Leap Motion controller. It’s still doable, but playing this game for few minutes already tires my hand.
Dropchord
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Dropchord is another game app I tried. We use two hands to play this game, one finger each. The straight line between two points pointed by our fingers become our main “controller”. From selecting menu to actually playing the game, everything uses this “line”. Even though I admit playing the game is fun and the concept is somewhat creative, I don’t like selecting menu using the same “lining system”. It’s simply unpractical.
New York Times
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As the name suggests, this app allow us to read the news from New York Times. I love how they implement the Leap Motion controller. Pointing a particular news will bring it forward. Shaking our hand will bring it back. Browsing through news use intuitive hand movement, similar to when we actually browse a book.
Actual usage: browsing Internet
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Now that we know playing games using Leap Motion controller is fun, can we actually use this for actual “work”. Well it depends. I tried browsing using Google Chrome and an app called BetterTouchTool. This is an app that allow us to define custom finger movement for specific command. We can define a global behavior (works across all apps in the OS) or different behavior for each app. You can see my experience from the video above. Doable, but still need a lot more improvements. At this moment, I still consider it as a technology in the process of maturing, but not quite there yet.
All the apps we downloaded from Airspace Store is accessible from Airspace app in Windows or Mac. It does not appear in start menu (Win) or Application folder (Mac) as independent app. But some downloads in Airspace actually allow us to download plugins for popular applications.
There is another app that can allow us to use Leap Motion for “normal” applications. It’s called “Touchless for Mac”. This is the “official” app created by Leap Motion team. While this app provides a good functionality, I absolutely hate their controlling concept. They create an imaginary touch surface on the air. Moving our finger in front of that imaginary surface would move the pointer, moving our finger behind that imaginary surface have the effect of touching. The real problem is, we can’t see the imaginary surface well and keep accidentally click things. I think they’re just lazy to invent a better way of interaction and just “borrow” from the concept of touch screen. Well, here’s the main problem: touching screen in front of us is already tiresome. That’s why touchscreens in tablets are much more “usable” than touchscreens in desktop (or laptop) monitors. Now having a touchscreen that we can’t even see make things harder. Very unpractical !
My conclusion, Leap Motion is a very good product as hardware. The sensor is good. The detection are is comfortable enough for actual use. The main problem of this product is the non-standard gesture implementation. Forcing us to re-learn how to use the controller for every new app we install. The hardware is good, stable and reliable, some of the software are not (including Leap Motion’s own Touchless for Mac app). Definitely has potential, but still have long way to go.
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