7 ms·

Not surprised. I had one of their devices, and it was just a mess. The resolution and reliability was not as good as comparable devices in the price range like

by dagmx 5y ago

Not surprised. I had one of their devices, and it was just a mess. The resolution and reliability was not as good as comparable devices in the price range like Microsoft's Azure Kinect DK. Their software didn't work as well as what Microsoft cooked up, and it always felt like they put out this product and then just forgot about it.

michaelt 5y ago
Eh, it doesn’t matter how low the price is for the Azure Kinect if you can’t buy them at the price. And you’re still stuck with USB C on Kinect, so it’s not like it lets you escape the consumer-grade reliability. If there are other devices with the same performance as the realsense lidar at a lower price, we’d all love to hear about them!
- dheera 5y ago
  "Consumer-grade" reliability really should be the highest-grade reliability. Cables get cantilevered by standing desks, rolled over by office chairs, bitten by dogs, chewed by babies, shoved in pockets and skiied with, and sat on. The people who designed USB-C were probably lazy people sitting in office chairs all day and never got out enough to see what real consumers do. I break about a USB-C cable a week. Never happened with headphone jacks, barrel connectors, IEC power connectors, and the like -- those are real consumer grade stuff, especially IEC.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    Get a good quality cable. I break USB-C cables maybe once every year and a half, less often than I broke headphones or microUSB.
    - dheera 5y ago
      I break Anker PowerLine+ cables all the time, not sure what's better. The connector design itself is shit, and the rubberized housing of the connector isn't mechanically supported as any self-respecting consumer-grade cable should be, all torque transfers to the PCB and that's horrible design.
      - sudosysgen 5y ago
        I use IKEA nylon cables and they work perfectly fine. There's no reason the torque has to transfer to the PCB. That's just poor design. My phone's USB-C port is sleeved by the chassis for example, and so is the one in my GaN charger. There is zero torque transfer to the PCB, the chassis or frame takes all of the load. You can't rely on the cable to cancel the torque anyways, rubber yields and the normal force at the housing will pull the connector out slightly allowing for torque to still be applied to the connector, you have no choice than to brave either the female, male, or both ports to the chassis in some way.
    - trashcan 5y ago
      I don't think I've ever broken a USB-C cable. How is everyone destroying them?
      - sudosysgen 5y ago
        Personally it's definitely my fault, they get stuck under stuff or I used my phone a lot while charging.
  - klodolph 5y ago
    Definitely shouldn’t be anywhere near highest reliability. Professional equipment has to stand up to a lot more use—like a camera you use every day, made with more metal and with thick rubberized grips. If I have a personal camera, I’ll take care not to drop it. If I’m a professional photographer, the question is how often it gets dropped. If we’re talking cables, “professional” grade (to me) means the connectors are going to get hundreds of cycles per year, and the cables might have to snake across the floor and get tread on five days a week. In general, “pro” grade stuff can be bigger, bulkier, more expensive. Then there’s stuff built for public spaces. ATMs, books in the public library, turnstyles at the metro, etc. All designed to be in close contact with people who either just don’t care or are actively trying to damage it. TBH I don’t know what the grade below consumer-grade would be.
    - InfiniteRand 5y ago
      Jerk grade reliability, this stuff will explode if stepped on
    - derefr 5y ago
      I would say that the grade below consumer grade is “functional prop” grade. There’s a type of consumer electronics available on Wish/AliExpress/etc., which is designed for people who want to appear at a glance to be using a certain expensive device, for status-signalling reasons. The devices only have to be real enough to allow you to pretend to be using them without drawing suspicion, and only have to be rugged enough to last until the device being mimicked isn’t fashionable to have any more (at which point you get a new knock-off aping the new cool thing.) Surprisingly, these devices do work! They wouldn't be convincing otherwise. (How can you seem to be using the best new phone if you have to pull out a different phone to check your text messages? How can you seem to be playing a Switch or a PS4 if it doesn't turn on and show pictures and sound on the screen/a TV?) It's just that they work as terribly as you can imagine, given that costs are optimized to meet the minimum needs of someone playing pretend and no more.
    - robotresearcher 5y ago
      Mil-spec?
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    What in the world are you doing to those cables? I’ve been using USB-C full time since 2017 and I’ve never broken one.
    - dheera 5y ago
      I go outside a lot. I think most likely the people who designed USB-C just sat in offices all day and didn't care at all to go ask skiiers, hikers, farmers, horseback riders, and bikers what their day was like.
      - dumpsterdiver 5y ago
        There comes a point where you have to take responsibility for your lifestyle, and recognize that nothing lasts forever. I too have never lost a USB-C cable, but I don’t move that cable much. When you move things a lot, they break. C'est la vie.
        dheera 5y ago
        No, I disagree, I think consumer products should be designed to withstand consumer lifestyles. The designers should take responsibility for it, and I pay them for that. Headphone jacks worked great until they made goddamn headphones plug into USB-C as well and then they started breaking. Technology to withstand consumer lifestyles did exist until USB showed up.
        dumpsterdiver 5y ago
        I can totally commiserate with you on the headphones. Not even kidding, at one point I suspected that the powers that be got rid of 1/8 inch jacks just to electrocute political dissidents and enemies of the state by the push of a button. Is it really so far fetched? Thunderbolt can push 3 amps (please correct me if I’m wrong - I’m going by the USB-C spec), and .1 amps is lethal. Bzzzt! Anyway, I’m not trying to get down on you - I was just pointing out that nothing is intended to last forever. I once considered buying a military grade reinforced laptop that was way under specced just because I wanted to take it wherever I wanted and be able to bang it around. The truth is that electronics are easily damaged. Take fiber optic cables for instance. If you bend them ever so slightly too far they will stop working, because the throughput medium is glass. It’s just the nature of the medium. Arguably, we are the most advanced machines on this planet, and yet if we slip and hit our our head, our machinery could easily be put out of commission. I think it’s fair to expect machinery to fail outside of its intended use case. Have you ever bent a piece of copper wire back and forth and feel it get warm before it breaks? That’s just the nature of the material. It is what it is, you know? I’m not saying that you’re wrong to want or expect sturdier constructs - because they are often available for a price (using less abundant materials). I’m just saying that if you want that it’s probably not going to be consumer grade, and it’s not going to be cheap.
  - ungamedplayer 5y ago
    Consumer-grade" reliability really should be the highest-grade reliability. Consumer-grade has hints in the name that it is intended to be consumed and purchased again. Business doesnt like making products that last for long life ad it means there is little chance of them buying another.
- Aromasin 5y ago
  I'd recommend the Stereolabs camera. It's a very versatile piece of hardware, quite mature in development from what I've been able to tell so far, and has a great SDK. Doesn't have lidar as far as I know but fills the same niche.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

by dagmx 5y ago

michaelt 5y ago

Eh, it doesn’t matter how low the price is for the Azure Kinect if you can’t buy them at the price. And you’re still stuck with USB C on Kinect, so it’s not like it lets you escape the consumer-grade reliability. If there are other devices with the same performance as the realsense lidar at a lower price, we’d all love to hear about them!

dheera 5y ago
"Consumer-grade" reliability really should be the highest-grade reliability. Cables get cantilevered by standing desks, rolled over by office chairs, bitten by dogs, chewed by babies, shoved in pockets and skiied with, and sat on. The people who designed USB-C were probably lazy people sitting in office chairs all day and never got out enough to see what real consumers do. I break about a USB-C cable a week. Never happened with headphone jacks, barrel connectors, IEC power connectors, and the like -- those are real consumer grade stuff, especially IEC.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  Get a good quality cable. I break USB-C cables maybe once every year and a half, less often than I broke headphones or microUSB.
  - dheera 5y ago
    I break Anker PowerLine+ cables all the time, not sure what's better. The connector design itself is shit, and the rubberized housing of the connector isn't mechanically supported as any self-respecting consumer-grade cable should be, all torque transfers to the PCB and that's horrible design.
    - sudosysgen 5y ago
      I use IKEA nylon cables and they work perfectly fine. There's no reason the torque has to transfer to the PCB. That's just poor design. My phone's USB-C port is sleeved by the chassis for example, and so is the one in my GaN charger. There is zero torque transfer to the PCB, the chassis or frame takes all of the load. You can't rely on the cable to cancel the torque anyways, rubber yields and the normal force at the housing will pull the connector out slightly allowing for torque to still be applied to the connector, you have no choice than to brave either the female, male, or both ports to the chassis in some way.
  - trashcan 5y ago
    I don't think I've ever broken a USB-C cable. How is everyone destroying them?
    - sudosysgen 5y ago
      Personally it's definitely my fault, they get stuck under stuff or I used my phone a lot while charging.
- klodolph 5y ago
  Definitely shouldn’t be anywhere near highest reliability. Professional equipment has to stand up to a lot more use—like a camera you use every day, made with more metal and with thick rubberized grips. If I have a personal camera, I’ll take care not to drop it. If I’m a professional photographer, the question is how often it gets dropped. If we’re talking cables, “professional” grade (to me) means the connectors are going to get hundreds of cycles per year, and the cables might have to snake across the floor and get tread on five days a week. In general, “pro” grade stuff can be bigger, bulkier, more expensive. Then there’s stuff built for public spaces. ATMs, books in the public library, turnstyles at the metro, etc. All designed to be in close contact with people who either just don’t care or are actively trying to damage it. TBH I don’t know what the grade below consumer-grade would be.
  - InfiniteRand 5y ago
    Jerk grade reliability, this stuff will explode if stepped on
  - derefr 5y ago
    I would say that the grade below consumer grade is “functional prop” grade. There’s a type of consumer electronics available on Wish/AliExpress/etc., which is designed for people who want to appear at a glance to be using a certain expensive device, for status-signalling reasons. The devices only have to be real enough to allow you to pretend to be using them without drawing suspicion, and only have to be rugged enough to last until the device being mimicked isn’t fashionable to have any more (at which point you get a new knock-off aping the new cool thing.) Surprisingly, these devices do work! They wouldn't be convincing otherwise. (How can you seem to be using the best new phone if you have to pull out a different phone to check your text messages? How can you seem to be playing a Switch or a PS4 if it doesn't turn on and show pictures and sound on the screen/a TV?) It's just that they work as terribly as you can imagine, given that costs are optimized to meet the minimum needs of someone playing pretend and no more.
  - robotresearcher 5y ago
    Mil-spec?
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  What in the world are you doing to those cables? I’ve been using USB-C full time since 2017 and I’ve never broken one.
  - dheera 5y ago
    I go outside a lot. I think most likely the people who designed USB-C just sat in offices all day and didn't care at all to go ask skiiers, hikers, farmers, horseback riders, and bikers what their day was like.
    - dumpsterdiver 5y ago
      There comes a point where you have to take responsibility for your lifestyle, and recognize that nothing lasts forever. I too have never lost a USB-C cable, but I don’t move that cable much. When you move things a lot, they break. C'est la vie.
      - dheera 5y ago
        No, I disagree, I think consumer products should be designed to withstand consumer lifestyles. The designers should take responsibility for it, and I pay them for that. Headphone jacks worked great until they made goddamn headphones plug into USB-C as well and then they started breaking. Technology to withstand consumer lifestyles did exist until USB showed up.
        dumpsterdiver 5y ago
        I can totally commiserate with you on the headphones. Not even kidding, at one point I suspected that the powers that be got rid of 1/8 inch jacks just to electrocute political dissidents and enemies of the state by the push of a button. Is it really so far fetched? Thunderbolt can push 3 amps (please correct me if I’m wrong - I’m going by the USB-C spec), and .1 amps is lethal. Bzzzt! Anyway, I’m not trying to get down on you - I was just pointing out that nothing is intended to last forever. I once considered buying a military grade reinforced laptop that was way under specced just because I wanted to take it wherever I wanted and be able to bang it around. The truth is that electronics are easily damaged. Take fiber optic cables for instance. If you bend them ever so slightly too far they will stop working, because the throughput medium is glass. It’s just the nature of the medium. Arguably, we are the most advanced machines on this planet, and yet if we slip and hit our our head, our machinery could easily be put out of commission. I think it’s fair to expect machinery to fail outside of its intended use case. Have you ever bent a piece of copper wire back and forth and feel it get warm before it breaks? That’s just the nature of the material. It is what it is, you know? I’m not saying that you’re wrong to want or expect sturdier constructs - because they are often available for a price (using less abundant materials). I’m just saying that if you want that it’s probably not going to be consumer grade, and it’s not going to be cheap.
- ungamedplayer 5y ago
  Consumer-grade" reliability really should be the highest-grade reliability. Consumer-grade has hints in the name that it is intended to be consumed and purchased again. Business doesnt like making products that last for long life ad it means there is little chance of them buying another.
Aromasin 5y ago
I'd recommend the Stereolabs camera. It's a very versatile piece of hardware, quite mature in development from what I've been able to tell so far, and has a great SDK. Doesn't have lidar as far as I know but fills the same niche.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]