Leap Motion Controller (Interacts with your Mac or PC)

As the first device on to market that does this it's a fantastic proof of concept, unfortunately it's not quite ready for the masses yet.First off, since I got it 2 weeks ago there have been 2 updates both of which have improved the responsiveness considerably. It's good to see the company continually updating the product.Physically the leap motion looks great, small and discrete. Personally I've positioned mine between the keyboard and the screen. This way I can use it my resting my elbows on my desk and it doesn't pick up unwanted movement when I type.Setup is easy and downloads the latest software from the Airspace store which itself is slick and easy to use.I've almost exclusively used the leap motion with GameWave which is an app you can download for the airspace store for ~$5 and one I'd highly recommend. It enables you to customise your movements to any keyboard/mouse movements you want. For example, if I circle my left finger it changes the current track playing. This is great when I'm in a full screen programme and means I don't have to change to my music player. Similarly mouse movements and web page scrolling are controlled with my right and left hands respectively.With the Leap motion and GameWave controlling Windows is relatively easy, if a little slow due to occasional errors. Particularly I can navigate numerous internet sites solely using the leap motion which shows the accuracy of the pointing and ease of use. Similarly there are great examples online of controlling games such as Skyrim using the Leap Motion, unfortunately I haven't had time to try this myself.However, beyond a few choice apps there seems to be limited use of the Leap Motion in day to day life. I hope that as the controller gets more popular and integrated by default in to hardware (a laptop is now out with the leap motion integrated) ingenious programmers will come up with many useful apps for the mass market.To summarise, a fun toy and a great proof of concept but it may be a while before it finds its place in daily use.

This is one of those products that is really not ready for Prime Time.When you buy it, you are expecting something that would give you the "Minority Report" feeling, but no...For this controller to be really useful, it requires that it be heavily integrated into the software application (the software really needs to be ready for this type of hardware, and you can see that with Google Earth. If you have it installed, the LEAP Controller allows you to "fly" over the earth, but this is as close as you get to the Minority Report feeling).Another problem I found was that, the LEAP, I think correctly, implemented an App Store (Like Google/Apple), BUT, most of the applications are pay only, and the ones that you really want to try, the Computer Control are either very limited, or Pay. I actually bought 2 of the remote control applications GameWave and Pointable, in order to try to fully explore the controller, but was disappointed by the functionality they provided.Even though both Apps show potential, they, like a lot of the of the apps in the store, lack polish. They are either have very limited documentation, or very limited configuration options, and when you are just starting with the controller, these things are killers.I found GameWave interesting, and it seems to be highly configurable, but it is not accompanied by documentation required (or tutorial / video tutorial) that shows you how all those options work together. I tried to set up a configuration for a game, and found that, outside of the basic movement, I really wasn't able to get very far. I couldn't adjust, or knew how to adjust, the controls to make it usable. For computer control, I tried the settings packages available and found that, it really wasn't as functional as Pointable, and do to the sensitivity of the controller, I really couldn't manage to control anything. Just to much jitters of the hands I think.Pointable on the other hand, was more directed to Computer Control, and it had pretty decent tutorial on how to use the hand gestures, but, on the other hand, no real configuration settings. I found the Pointable menus too big, but worse, the lock time of the pointer, so that you can do the click actions and such, to fast to really be usable. By the time I tried to do the click gesture, the pointer had already released, and I was clicking somewhere else on the screen.... This is one of those cases, where if adjusted properly, at least in the beginning, when you are trying to get use to the system, you might actually get it to work correctly (by making it less sensitive to hand jitter and increasing things like the lock time for the pointer).In all cases, I found that:1. Your hands trembling was a problem.2. Continued use, with your hands over the controller, really puts a stray on your muscles.3. Not really as accurate, or as fast, as a mouse (this won't be replacing the mouse any time soon).4. The apps either had, poor documentation, or poor configuration options.5. The basics, for what you want to use this controller, are payed. So you really can't use it without wasting more money. Most of the interesting apps like Pointable/Air Input, are all payable, with no demo mode. So unless you want to buy them, one by one, just to try them, you really are only left with the less used/developed and featureless remote control apps.This controller shows promise, if the applications decide to create hooks that allow it's use, but otherwise it would probably go the same way as speech recognition, just another interesting gimmick.

I got LeapMotion about two weeks after the launch, and like most people became sceptical following the mixed reviews. I'd like to say first and foremost that most of these bad reviews are naive, unjustified and unfair. As soon as I started playing with Leap Motion my faith was restored - thankfully!I'm sure that 90% of the bad reviews came from non developers, people who just expected to pick this up and never have to use a mouse again, that it would be as flawless as Minority Report and generally work perfectly from the offset. This kind of device is relatively new and therefore this was never going to be the case. As a would-be developer myself I fully appreciate the technical challenge that the team at Leap Motion have overcome and understand that it will take time to improve. I just wish other people would understand this as well.So should you buy one? Well, if you're expecting a mouse replacement then no. But if you appreciate great innovative technology, want a new creative way to interact with your computer, fancy yourself a developer and want to get ahead of the game, or simply have a bit of fun with some really cool apps then most certainly yes. And at £70 you can't really complain.