Intel is giving up on its AI-powered RealSense cameras

paulkrush 2021-08-18 17:20:01 +0000 UTC [ - ]

The RealSense modules were almost 1/2 the price of the cameras. The D450 module was a great price at $125 each with 3 global shutter cameras. The L515 Lidar was really accurate. This reminds me of how one by one the consumer cameras lost their API's, and how GoPro never bothered to give an API to developers.

Velabit has been vaporware. Same with Microsoft kinect DK, they are now saying Oct 2022 for shipments. Oak AI uses Intel Movidius, and I just can't trust Intel after buying and basically killing Movidius, and now killing off Realsense. I have to look at the others.

dendrite9 2021-08-18 19:07:58 +0000 UTC [ - ]

We looked at these for a customer project but decided based on Intel's past approach that by the time the project was ready for higher volume sales they might not be available. That project ended, but this isn't great to see.

porcc 2021-08-18 18:39:25 +0000 UTC [ - ]

IMO Lidar and FaceID on iPhones are the last bastion for consumer depth cameras. I pray that they won't go away and instead Lidar will end up on the non-pro variants.

brutus1213 2021-08-18 18:39:09 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Are you sure Movidius was killed? I thought a bunch of dji drones use Intel's VPS (which I assumed was movidius).

paulkrush 2021-08-18 19:00:48 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Modvidius was not killed, it was throttled by Intel. They had a whole traditional computer vision side of the chip that they did not allow developers to get into, including stereo vision. Think OpenCV on a ASIC. Intel redefined "computer vision" to mean "Processes that can be run through a tensor engine and be integrated into OpenVino.

jimmySixDOF 2021-08-18 11:45:23 +0000 UTC [ - ]

MS still has Azure Kinect (basically v3) which is integrated to the AR/Hololens ecosystem. There are so many advances every year in Computer Vision that make use of RGB-D so I hope the field will expand not contract - specifically now as AR/VR applications are maturing to take advantage of them either for vanilla full body tracking or for realworld extension of the game space.

I have on my desk a camera from OpenCV's Kickstarter that just finished shipping and they it got down to $150 [1]. Velodyne just released a $100 Lidar sensor which is not a camera but shows what is possible these days if your looking to add depth.

[1] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/opencv/opencv-ai-kit [2]https://velodynelidar.com/products/velabit/

paulkrush 2021-08-18 14:01:04 +0000 UTC [ - ]

This sucks for those of us that have put a lot into RealSense. They were far more mature than what is on the market.

ilaksh 2021-08-18 18:54:09 +0000 UTC [ - ]

What about the Stereolabs Zed cameras?

paulkrush 2021-08-18 20:34:19 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Realsense does all processing on the camera(on a ASIC). See this related discussion that has Zed issues: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28225065

19h 2021-08-18 10:44:24 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I wasn't even aware those cameras existed. How's it that companies keep killing products when they essentially invest zero into marketing them? Seems like they didn't even try ..

The concept of the RealSense cameras seems really interesting, especially for building IoT projects that require a lidar or face detection for authentication etc..

At $249 and $369 they also seem really affordable for those projects... what a pity.

p_l 2021-08-18 14:17:07 +0000 UTC [ - ]

RealSense was reasonably big in industrial solutions, either directly or as part of solutions from robotics vendors.

I know of them from trying to optimize bin packing of items in transport racks :-)

belval 2021-08-18 20:10:21 +0000 UTC [ - ]

I got an SR300 for 150$ CAD, really sad to see them shutdown, the product really felt high-quality at a price point that was not obscene for a 1080p camera + 480p depth sensor.

freemint 2021-08-19 06:47:21 +0000 UTC [ - ]

Wasn't this like a core technology for their mobileeye smart car cam solutions?