Games By Russell Holly Nov. 22, 2013 2:00 pm
Your first thought may not be to pick up a screwdriver if something ever goes wrong with the new Xbox One Kinect, but if you go that route it looks like most of the individual parts are easy to replace.
The new version of Microsoft’s living room camera is included with every Xbox One purchase, whether you want one or not. While it was originally going to be mandatory to use Kinect with the Xbox One, we now know that the console will just annoy you a little startup by telling you it isn’t connected.
If you do decide to use the new Kinect, and it falls from whatever perch you have it rested on during a particularly rough gaming session, don’t worry. Microsoft may not have made the hard drive in the Xbox One particularly easy to get to, but it looks like the team responsible for the Kinect had some other ideas in mind. For an accessory that has been used for countless hacks and fun experiments, it looks like Microsoft has made this new version particularly easy to fix in case anything goes wrong.
Those crazy iFixit guys have been steadily pulling apart Microsoft’s latest console and accessories, and when they reached the Kinect it revealed a couple of really interesting engineering decisions. The first was the fan and massive heatsink built into the tiny device, which looks quite easy to replace once you get past the plastic casing. This could also mean that your Kinect could get noisy after a couple of months if it gets loaded down with dust, but either way you’d be able to take care of it yourself with relative ease.
The fan isn’t alone in being easy to replace either, as it looks like both of the cameras are on their own little boards that come out very quickly. This could mean that if you damage your sensor by angrily throwing your controller, you’d be able to go the cheaper route and replace the sensor instead of the whole unit.
All together iFixit gave the Kinect a 6 out of 10 for repairability, but noted that the things you would want to replace on this unit are all very easy to get to. Everything else is integrated, so if the board dies for some reason you’d be better suited to just replacing the unit unfortunately.
Now read: Xbox One review: Great so far, but is it $100 better than the PS4?
More...
The new version of Microsoft’s living room camera is included with every Xbox One purchase, whether you want one or not. While it was originally going to be mandatory to use Kinect with the Xbox One, we now know that the console will just annoy you a little startup by telling you it isn’t connected.
If you do decide to use the new Kinect, and it falls from whatever perch you have it rested on during a particularly rough gaming session, don’t worry. Microsoft may not have made the hard drive in the Xbox One particularly easy to get to, but it looks like the team responsible for the Kinect had some other ideas in mind. For an accessory that has been used for countless hacks and fun experiments, it looks like Microsoft has made this new version particularly easy to fix in case anything goes wrong.
Those crazy iFixit guys have been steadily pulling apart Microsoft’s latest console and accessories, and when they reached the Kinect it revealed a couple of really interesting engineering decisions. The first was the fan and massive heatsink built into the tiny device, which looks quite easy to replace once you get past the plastic casing. This could also mean that your Kinect could get noisy after a couple of months if it gets loaded down with dust, but either way you’d be able to take care of it yourself with relative ease.
The fan isn’t alone in being easy to replace either, as it looks like both of the cameras are on their own little boards that come out very quickly. This could mean that if you damage your sensor by angrily throwing your controller, you’d be able to go the cheaper route and replace the sensor instead of the whole unit.
All together iFixit gave the Kinect a 6 out of 10 for repairability, but noted that the things you would want to replace on this unit are all very easy to get to. Everything else is integrated, so if the board dies for some reason you’d be better suited to just replacing the unit unfortunately.
Now read: Xbox One review: Great so far, but is it $100 better than the PS4?
More...
