Kinect occupies a strange place in the tech world. It’s a nearly universally beloved piece of technology that was both ahead of its time and very much of its time, all at once. It felt — for a moment — like it was going to revolutionize gaming, but much like the Wii, proved to be — at least temporarily — an evolutionary dead end.
In 2013, Apple purchased PrimeSense, the Israeli startup behind the Kinect technology, using it as the foundation for iOS’s Face ID.
This wasn’t, however, the end of Kinect. The peripheral build up provided a second life among DIYers. A low-cost, widely available stereoscopic camera was an immensely powerful tool that unlocked genuinely exciting technology. The 3D camera kit has also become a mainstay in research labs for the past decades. I can’t tell you how many robotics projects I’ve seen that rely on the tech.
The Kinect for Xbox One was discontinued in 2017. But Microsoft granted the hardware another chance two years later, thi...
