Nyko announced a fantastic looking product at the beginning of the summer, the Nyko Kinect Zoom which saves the gripe that so many people have had with the Kinect; that you need a huge space to play it! Fortunately the Kinect Zoom, which is effectively a lens which sits on the front of the device, claims to reduce the space by up to 40%, which is a real win for all those people will normal sized rooms to play in!
The Zoom comes in a great package, which is really neatly put together, it looks the business, as a nice surprise as so many xbox 360 accessories are poorly packaged these days. Once unboxed the Zoom neatly clips on to the front of Kinect without any problems. The good news is that if you are using a Kinect TV Mount or another other Kinect accessories to hold your Kinect in place, then the Zoom won’t interfere with them, as it doesn’t infringe of the space the stand needs.
So how does the Zoom do then? Well the claim from Nyko is a fairly big one, and the answer is yes it works, sort of. Inevitably when you interfere with the optical sensing, and try to manipulate its great, cutting the space needed by about 40% is a big claim, reducing the space needed to just 4-6 feet. Overall the device is very good, and 90% of the time it works exactly as it should do, so it’s a winner in my book.
I’ve never had any issues with the Kinect detecting me, and I was able to stand around 2 foot closer to the screen than I ever had, having to move some of my Xbox 360 cables out of the way to get there! I had no issues calibrating the device, and all appeared to be going smoothly.
However, occasionally I had a few issues, such as me needing to hide my non-using hand as it detects it incorrectly, and the device is certainly not quite as smooth as it used to be. This is perhaps why Microsoft issued their warning saying it wasn’t compatible, I guess they wouldn’t want people blaming the Kinect, when it’s the Zoom at fault. Despite this though, the Kinect worked very well, and it was only occasionally that it became frustrating.
Conclusion
I was sceptical after all the hype, however overall the Zoom is a great device, and well worth it if you haven’t been able to use the Kinect as there’s not enough space in your room. There are a couple of minor frustrations, however the benefits far outweigh them.
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I would just like to let you know that your review was one that convinced me to buy the Nyko Zoom. Unfortunately I haven’t had a chance to use it yet. I bought it today, but spent the majority of the day cleaning and setting up a play space for our Kinect. We haven’t used it much at all since we bought it because there is too much furniture in every room lol. Once my wife and I are able to get our own house, we should be able to arrange things so space isn’t an issue for the kinect, but while living with the in-laws, I can’t just go moving furniture everytime I want to play. Hopefully when I hook up the Zoom tomorrow night it will work out