I had the 'privilege' of working with Leap Motion hardware and software for a project many years ago, in early 2013. While it was quite interesting technology, the dev kit was extremely limited and they were *really* against opening it up. We could have done so much more if we'd had access to the 'raw' data that the Leap motion detected but I suspect Leap were so worried that someone might be able to reverse engineer their stuff that they refused to do so. It felt like Leap had something really interesting there but were so paranoid and so up their own arses that they'd rather lose out on *any* use case more interesting than very simple hand gestures than risk anyone else finding out what their secret sauce was. The daft thing was, it was quite clear that there wasn't anything more advanced in their solution than had been used in the Xbox Kinect or other 3d tracking devices.
It's as if the creators/owners of Leap were absolutely convinced that at some point everyone would wake up and realise they couldn't live without vague hand gestures at a desktop. They could have achieved so much if they'd just embraced more interesting setups i.e. as soon as they saw VR, they should have rushed a wide angled Leap Motion to market, that could have been attached to VR headsets. It took them *years* to even release their own VR mount for their existing low field of view device when third parties had experimented with it long before. They're so slow to innovate and so behind the curve, it's astounding that they're still even around. For something that's meant be such an innovative product, the company is incredibly narrow minded. I suspect their long term goal is to become a patent troll company as other companies start releasing products that use apparently similar technology.
Well, I got one of the first leap motions back then and never really used it. I tried the software, put the device on the shelf an waited for the company to announce it end. But they didn‘t.
(After all, it‘s really simple stuff. A IR stereo cam with processing done on the desktop machine ,not even on the device itself).
That’s until last year, when I gave it a try with my Vive VR headset. I ordered an adapter for the Vive and they actually shipped it. Alive and shipping, after all.
VR is lacking good input methods and their models and algorithms have improved very much over time. Positioning the device in front of your face also helps with the useful perspective for recognition.
This year they had two great things on their agenda. First, they have an updated device with a larger field of view and will sell it as a module for Pimax‘ upcoming VR goggles. And while VR did not take of as expected (or exactly as) they might sell quite a bunch of their tech. I was able to test it with a Pimax wide FOV headset and hand tracking works really well and over a wide angle. Quite nice.
The second thing was their open sourced AR head gear. They had some cool software demos and ideas and I would think that‘s another reason why they would not want to give up their business/IP. Unfortunately this project also shows how bad their finances and moral are right now, as they didn’t seem to jump start production of the device. Or they were just cought in theri high hopes and thought that a Kickstarter would be too cheap for such a great thing. I don‘t know.
Which brings me to their business character. And that‘s really just based on greed and fear of loosing profit.
From the start they maintained a software store for their simple device via which you would sell your apps based on their SDK.
For the SDK, even today, its license makes you confirm that you will not engange in developing anything similar to their product or use case. Most devs don‘t seem to know about this part, and most users will register as a dev to get the newest SDK which seems to have much better models and algorithms. Maybe Apple has too
This sneaky behaviour is what makes me angry about the whole company. Basically that’s the only thing.
Except maybe for overhyping the application of a stereocam for hand tracking back then. But the latter is now a really important thing and the models are so much better, so basically they were on the right track, even if they couldn‘t see it back then and there was better HW than theirs. But the application of hand tracking itself is the big thing.
So, too much greed and paranoia blocking their energy to go full throttle. I would think they could have made a nice deal with Apple if they were more relaxed. Maybe even without selling the whole company. But let‘s see what they will come up with now. And if.
So basically I understand why they did not make the deal this year. If they just were a bit more productive and open/available.
