My Kinect experience so far.

[smoledman]

Voice Commands - Apparently I can't talk too softly or too loudly. I have to have a Professional tone of voice for it to recognize me.

Gestures - the hands selecting gesture is a total gimmick right now. The hand icons just jump all over the place and it's basically useless. The grab and close gesture is pretty cool though.

Overall for now I'd give it a 7/10. I know there will be software updates that improve this thing over time, so there is potential for it to get a 10/10 in the future.

 

[WanderingTraveler]

Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm not really surprised that it seems like they tested the Kinect on professional sounding scientists and other people, of course.

 

[smoledman]

Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm not really surprised that it seems like they tested the Kinect on professional sounding scientists and other people, of course.

Kinect will definitely not work for people who slur words, poorly enunciate, have lisps, etc... However I expect the same thing applies to Siri and Google Now.

 

[tk-093]

At first I struggled with the voice commands. I'm in a temp cramped apartment because I'm buiding so all my speakers are kinda all right next to the TV. My kinect sat right on top of my big front speaker. both were below the TV.

I made some changes. I put my front speaker on the floor/bottom shelf and moved my receiver to the top shelf and put the kinect on top of that. Then ran though the Kinect troubleshooter again. Voice commands work pretty darn good now. I'm very happy with them.

Here is a hint for the Kinect setup. When it tells you to turn your volume up, crank your volume. If it's too loud, it will actually tell you it's too lound after the first test, so turn it down a touch and repeat until it stops telling you it's too loud. I also think you want your Kinect about 3 feet or more away. Mine still isn't quite there, but it's close.

 

[Polychrome]

I'd like to chime in on the "volume" deal. Previously the voice commands seemed to only work in the middle of the night when my husband was asleep. Then he'd wake up later and yell at it 30 times trying to get it to work. As amusing as it was... well, it needed to work better. That wasn't good for "day to day" use.


At one point when I was alone with my toddler, I turned the volume up loud enough to be uncomfortable, and then adjusted down when told. It works much, MUCH better now. Though I do have to say my husband has no trouble using Kinect Gestures. I can't get it to recognize me half the time (which is weird since games seem to recognize me okay), but he's navigating all over the place pretty quickly.

 

[smoledman]

So far it's pretty good. In fact I had to laugh just now. I said "Computer, tea earl gray, hot". LOL

 

[WG Rowland]

Voice has been pretty good, actually. Had to learn the commands and get used to what it responds to, but it works more often and better than I expected. My only complaint on voice recognition is when I'm watching youtube videos a lot of times whoever's talking in the video will trigger listening mode, and if they say the wrong thing at the wrong point can knock you out of the video you're watching.

Gestures were spotty at first until I moved the kinect above my tv screen. Made a big difference on how much of the room it recognized. I don't use the gesture interface month, the whole push-pull to click thing is a little clunky. It works, though. Would like them to finish and release something that actually uses the kinect in a more impressive way than what's out there (although the jetski thing is pretty responsive)...

 

[smoledman]

What I really love is saying "XBox Pause" and "Xbox Play" as those are the things I do the most.

 

[minus365]

anyone tried kinect to match your heart beat rate? i tested in kinect fitness, but with no success. it never identified my heart beat, saying i need to get closer to the unit even I was like 1 meter in front of it.

 

[DavidinCT]

I wish I could use it but, the cord is too short so my Kinect sits in the box till Microsoft or monoprice creates a cable to extend it...

 

[CaptDjob]

Got my box yesterday

Voice Commands - Works pretty well, have to calibrate it once more with louder volume. Now I have to talk "normal voice" but it should work with lower voice also (what I have heard). xbox on -command didn't work (yet), but I only tried that once.

Gestures - Works really good, I was surprised. Input lag is not an issue, its noticable, but nothing that could ruin the experience

I would give 8+ at this point. If I can get "xbox on" to work and improve the voice recognition a bit, maybe 9?

 

[Coreldan]

Got my box yesterday

Voice Commands - Works pretty well, have to calibrate it once more with louder volume. Now I have to talk "normal voice" but it should work with lower voice also (what I have heard). xbox on -command didn't work (yet), but I only tried that once.

Gestures - Works really good, I was surprised. Input lag is not an issue, its noticable, but nothing that could ruin the experience

I would give 8+ at this point. If I can get "xbox on" to work and improve the voice recognition a bit, maybe 9?

I would perhaps try relocating Kinect and trying to re-setup it. People say that during the setup putting your TV to a VERY high volume helps a lot for many, after which Kinect has worked much better for them.

 

[CaptDjob]

Yep, heard the same that louder volume helps. I used so loud volume that my girlfriend came shouting from another room. Maybe that has something to do with it because the silent period was not so silent.

 

[kingbobyjr]

anyone tried kinect to match your heart beat rate? i tested in kinect fitness, but with no success. it never identified my heart beat, saying i need to get closer to the unit even I was like 1 meter in front of it.

I had issues with this also but now, all of a sudden, it is working.

 

[paulxxwall]

I can't get Kinect rivals to get past a message that tells me that the Kinect needs a clear line if view...i did the tuning and the puck looking thing is green instead of red if your out if sight....any on else having this problem

 

[JPDVM2014]

I can't get Kinect rivals to get past a message that tells me that the Kinect needs a clear line if view...i did the tuning and the puck looking thing is green instead of red if your out if sight....any on else having this problem

Yes, me and a friend were trying to play and couldn't get it to work either.

 

[Rhody#WP]

All of a sudden my Kinect stopped recognizing the word "yes." All other voice commands work great, but when I say, "xbox turn off," it will not hear me saying "yes." So I still have to reactivate my controller to turn it off. Very strange that it recognizes everything I say except this one word, perhaps the most critical word. I guess I will try recalibrating it.

 

[Beast of Haeven]

When calibrating the kinect having he volume as loud as possible helps the Kinect detect your voice within other audio coming from the tv. The louder you have your volume during calibration the better the Kinect can hear you later during regular use. Also having the Kinect mounted on top of the tv worked wonders for gestures. After I made these changes I could give the Kinect a 8.5/10.

 

[smoledman]

It's kind of weird so far. A few days ago, I couldn't get "XBox On" to work saying it one time. Then suddenly the last 3 days or so it works. Go figure.