Open Forum

IT guy here:

We've been struggling recently with the Kinect v2 hardware, and I'm curious to hear how any of you have dealt with the Kinect's discontinuation. 

Our experiential learning area features a Kinect-based interaction with an image projected onto the wall. During a recent troubleshoot with what turned out to be a dead Kinect, we connected the PC (running Windows 11) to the network and allowed drivers to update, which appears to have broken the software translation for the device coming to the PC. We replaced the Kinect & hub and it is mostly functional, but we are running into severe framerate issues now as a result of the driver updates. We have an older Windows 8 PC with the app on it that we will attempt to resort to, but we're currently investigating how best to move forward.

Have you had luck sticking with Windows 8/10 and never connecting to the internet? Or have you had to reimagine/rebuild your Kinect-based exhibits around current tech? If so, I'd be curious to hear about the build or update or whatever it is that you've done with it. 

Thank you!
Tom Eisenbraun

Hi @Tom Eisenbraun. While I'm not an IT guy at a museum, I've worked with IT folks over the years and have a surface understanding of tech. I also did a little research and here's what I've found and what I know. 

The Kinect v2 situation is so frustrating because the hardware was genuinely great for museum installations. But now it's not all sunshine and rainbows. Just so you know, you're running into a common frustration. 

I found that many exhibit and interactive-media folks have chosen to freeze their Kinect v2 machines on a known-good Windows 8/10 build and keep them off the public internet so Windows Update cannot change drivers or USB stack behavior. Now, on Windows 10/11, you can explicitly block driver updates (via Device Installation Settings and Group Policy "Do not include drivers with Windows Updates") to prevent a repeat of your recent situation once you roll back to a stable configuration.

So what you describe sounds exactly like what happens when Windows Update decides to "help" with USB/driver updates. The good news is your Windows 8 machine is probably your best friend right now. If that one still runs smoothly, I'd seriously consider making a complete backup image of that drive right away so you have a "golden master file" to restore from if anything goes sideways. Then I'd keep that machine completely offline going forward. If you absolutely need to use the Win11 machine, you can roll back drivers and then lock down Windows Update to never touch drivers again (there are Group Policy settings for this), but honestly the Win8 box sounds like your safer bet.

A lot of museums with Kinect exhibits have basically decided to freeze their systems on whatever Windows version was working and just... never update them. As I'm sure you're already thinking, that's not ideal from a security perspective. But if the PC is physically isolated and not on your public network, it's pretty manageable.

Since we know that realistically these Kinects won't last forever, it's probably time to start looking at what's next. The path most people seem to be taking is moving to Orbbec depth cameras. They seem to basically picked up where Kinect left off. Some of their newer models like the Femto series even have compatibility layers that work with Azure Kinect code, which makes migration less painful. For body tracking, I saw in some other resources that folks are using middleware called Nuitrack, which gives you skeleton data similar to what Kinect provided.

So I think it I were in your shoes, I'd keep my current exhibit alive with the Win8 machine while prototyping a replacement. I may be preaching to the choir here, but remember to document exactly what your current setup does (the interactions, the tracking requirements, the projection mapping) so when you eventually rebuild, you know what you're aiming for.

I hope that helps, both with letting you know you're not alone, but also with some practical advice. I'll be curious to see what others say as well. All the best on the situation! 

IT guy here:

We've been struggling recently with the Kinect v2 hardware, and I'm curious to hear how any of you have dealt with the Kinect's discontinuation. 

Our experiential learning area features a Kinect-based interaction with an image projected onto the wall. During a recent troubleshoot with what turned out to be a dead Kinect, we connected the PC (running Windows 11) to the network and allowed drivers to update, which appears to have broken the software translation for the device coming to the PC. We replaced the Kinect & hub and it is mostly functional, but we are running into severe framerate issues now as a result of the driver updates. We have an older Windows 8 PC with the app on it that we will attempt to resort to, but we're currently investigating how best to move forward.

Have you had luck sticking with Windows 8/10 and never connecting to the internet? Or have you had to reimagine/rebuild your Kinect-based exhibits around current tech? If so, I'd be curious to hear about the build or update or whatever it is that you've done with it. 

Thank you!
Tom Eisenbraun

IT guy here:

We've been struggling recently with the Kinect v2 hardware, and I'm curious to hear how any of you have dealt with the Kinect's discontinuation. 

Our experiential learning area features a Kinect-based interaction with an image projected onto the wall. During a recent troubleshoot with what turned out to be a dead Kinect, we connected the PC (running Windows 11) to the network and allowed drivers to update, which appears to have broken the software translation for the device coming to the PC. We replaced the Kinect & hub and it is mostly functional, but we are running into severe framerate issues now as a result of the driver updates. We have an older Windows 8 PC with the app on it that we will attempt to resort to, but we're currently investigating how best to move forward.

Have you had luck sticking with Windows 8/10 and never connecting to the internet? Or have you had to reimagine/rebuild your Kinect-based exhibits around current tech? If so, I'd be curious to hear about the build or update or whatever it is that you've done with it. 

Thank you!
Tom Eisenbraun

IT guy here:

We've been struggling recently with the Kinect v2 hardware, and I'm curious to hear how any of you have dealt with the Kinect's discontinuation. 

Our experiential learning area features a Kinect-based interaction with an image projected onto the wall. During a recent troubleshoot with what turned out to be a dead Kinect, we connected the PC (running Windows 11) to the network and allowed drivers to update, which appears to have broken the software translation for the device coming to the PC. We replaced the Kinect & hub and it is mostly functional, but we are running into severe framerate issues now as a result of the driver updates. We have an older Windows 8 PC with the app on it that we will attempt to resort to, but we're currently investigating how best to move forward.

Have you had luck sticking with Windows 8/10 and never connecting to the internet? Or have you had to reimagine/rebuild your Kinect-based exhibits around current tech? If so, I'd be curious to hear about the build or update or whatever it is that you've done with it. 

Thank you!
Tom Eisenbraun