Kinect 2 review

[charlesr]

Thoughts on the Kinect sensor that comes with the Xbox One.

The signing in process is amazing - it recognises me even side on.
Using codes via QR is also astonishingly rapid and from an unexpected distance away.

Switching apps via voice is very good, as is selecting something on the page in front of you.
Switching pages within apps e.g. netflix via voice is painful and far quicker with a remote or the pad.

(Based on experience in dash and Netflix) Using the hand as a mouse is unexpectedly rubbish. The "pointer" jumps around all over the place and pushing to select means I'm normally selecting the wrong thing as my hand drifts during the movement towards the screen. Wii remotes are still better.

The speed at which the pointer follows me is lagtastic. I can control a PC over the internet with a remote mouse and keyboard almost as if it's on the same network. The lag on the kinect is therefore astonishing to me. I can't see it being any good in games - if you can't make something that's as quick as the Wii remote, then it's not worth bothering with. If this is an improvement over Kinect 1, then goodness knows how anyone put up with that.

[Brad]

Not hotly anticipating The Fighter Within then Charles?

[EvilBoris]

The hand controls are a huge improvement lag wise over the kinect 1, but unfortunately it's still just as funny about picking you up or not, the overall experience for me (sitting 10 feet away) is a little too inconsistent there.

Annoying, if I move 3 feet closer it all starts to behave.

It's kind of the opposite of the original (or perhaps my living room is the opposite now)

Have you tried the head tracking in Battlefield 4?
That's actually pretty cool, but the same inconsistencies occur and it will momentarily freak out pulling you out of the immersion.


Voice commands are genuinely awesome and work almost flawlessly, sure you have to speak in a certain tone and cadence, but it is often significantly faster to reach a particular place using this, partially because it is genuinely better, partially because certain features of the dash are now tucked away and require more clicks to reach than 360. Achievements spring to mind.

[VR46]

I found Kinect 1 to be fine with games like Kinect Adventures, probably as I was moving whole arms or legs at a time, but other games did have some lag, even in menus when trying to detect hand movements.

Is probably why Kinect 1 units can be bought used with a game in Game for under a tenner now.

http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/xbox-360-kinect-with-kinect-adventures-10-00-game-insore-only-1713522

As Boris mentions, finding a prime position for it to pick you up properly was a major factor in the first version, trouble was, move two feet forward or backwards and there would be a big drop off in it's working.

[Brad]

I'd love to have a go on the voice controls and I'm not here to bash Kinect (not used the new one but I had a blast playing the Star Wars game on the old one, even if it was just running around as a rancor and smashing stuff up) but the voice controls do seem a little bit like a solution to a problem of Microsoft's own creation.

[EvilBoris]

I was chuckling last night as for some reason the Kinect thought a cushion on our sofa was a face and was signing it in as a guest.

I get the same thing with facial recognition on google picasa, it will sometimes pick out patterns in tree branches to be faces or other patterns or blurs as faces.

[Brad]

You should post your cushion's gamerscore!

[charlesr]

Have you tried the head tracking in Battlefield 4?

It never turned up
No post yet today either.

[EvilBoris]

Here is my video I made the other day, as you can see it's really fast and only fails to recognize one command (XBOX GO TO RYSE SON OF ROME)

[Brad]

That's quite impressive I have to say.

In my head you were playing a variation of Simon Says:

XBox Snap Friends
XBox Forza 5
Unsnap Friends
Hah!!! I didn't say Xbox!

[PeteJ]

I'm amazed at how little Kinect support there is at launch, especially as you have no choice to buy it if you have the One. Kinect Sports demo seems to work well but even for a demo it's limited. The only thing of note is Kinect Fitness which seems to be well done, though I haven't tested it enough to see how accurate the really tracking is.

Forza head tracking is pretty cool.

Controlling the interface by your hands is quite neat but it is slower than using a pad, so don't know why you would want to.

Voice controls are eh, it's just a microphone.

[QualityChimp]

If I was a games producer, I'd be really cruel and give it a really tough name to pronounce:

"XBox: Play Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled Peppers"

[charlesr]

I've just tried Xbox Fitness during my lunchbreak. Free workouts for gold members!
For this where you are just copying what's on screen, it's "good enough"

[nonny]

So far aside from the UI the best use of the kinect camera has been Skype. My wife is away on business so I've been chatting to here for an hour in the evenings and basically it is utterly brilliant. It tracks movement, zooms in on however is talking and the audio is clear and precise even from a distance.

That was all with her on her phone but she said the video quality her end was incredibly clear. Because of that I just skyped a mate in the US who also got an Xbox One and my jaw seriously hit the floor. Yes both units are wired and on decent ADSL but honestly it was better video conference quality than the crazy setup we have in work.

To add to that it appears you get 6 months of Skype premium when you use it.

[charlesr]

Forza head tracking is pretty cool.

I must be being daft, but I'm sat bolt upright, but as far as kinect is concerned I'm fully to the right. To "center" it, I have to lean 45? to the left. I turned that off! Any hints to get it to work?

Does the kinect need to be in the middle of the TV? I can't because my center is speaker is there, so mine is over to the edge of my 42" TV.