webnect

(try live demo)

this is a webusb driver for microsoft's xbox360 kinect.

webnect_480p.mp4

webusb is only available in chrome.

this driver at least works with "Xbox NUI Motor" PID 0x02b0 and "Xbox NUI Camera" PID 0x02ae devices, labelled "Model 1414", because that's what i found at goodwill.

if your device doesn't work with this, please verify that it works at all, and then send me the details.

what

the kinect is an early consumer depth sensor based on structured light projection, plus some other goodies. it was released in 2010 as a gamer thing and nobody cares about it anymore except me

they're fun, and they go for like $5 now. plus they're usb2, so i can drive them with throwaway SBCs like an rpi3. i've been using them for video synth input, and interactive art installations

a webusb driver lets more folks see it in person :)

why

building libfreenect with emscripten turned out to be impossible for various reasons. whatever. it's the future and webusb is real

ware

original xbox 360 kinect only.

• Xbox NUI Motor

  • accelerometer
  • tilt servo
  • LED light

• Xbox NUI Camera

  • depth 11bpp, 10bpp
  • visible bayer, yuv
  • infrared 10bpp
  • register manipulation

visible and infrared stream from the same hardware endpoint, so you can only have one of those at a time.

how

go dig your kinect out of the closet. plug it in. open https://turbocrime.github.io/webnect

or for a local demo, clone this repo and run:

pnpm install
pnpm dev

demo web server opens on vite default https://localhost:5173

diy

available on npm as @webnect/driver

its broken??

is webusb available?

if your browser doesn't have webusb, you can't use this.

webusb is only available in secure contexts.

no device to select?

if you see an empty device selection modal, you probably have the wrong model kinect.

if the motor is available but the camera is not, make sure your kinect is powered correctly.

check your usb devices:

• on linux use lsusb
• on macos use system_profiler SPUSBDataType

its glitchy

haha nice. cool

bad parts

a single kinect is technically three USB devices in a trenchcoat. full control requires multiple permission requests.

the motor device does not report a serial number, so there's no way to reliably associate the motors if you have multiple kinects.