Our team is looking into buying the Limelight 2 or 2+ this year because we do not have much experience with vision and believe it is a good place to get started. Because it is an expensive purchase, we do not want to do this unless we know what we are getting into. If you or your team has used a Limelight in the past or plan on using it, can you explain your experience with it (setup, ease of use), or why you chose it over one of the alternatives?
Thanks!
-Owen
Some existing threads to get you started:
If you’re just starting out with vision, I think the Limelight is a good place to start (if you’re ok with the price). It is certainly easy to use and will cover most of a beginner’s needs.
That said, our team got sick of the price (and bricked a couple of them 
), and found that the software is too restrictive to accommodate more advanced vision needs, so we’re just planning to do a custom thing with a Raspberry Pi this year. This is considerably easier now that FIRST has an official Pi image for vision stuff.
Thank you so much!
Thanks! The price is something to consider but if it should help cover our needs and can last multiple years then the pros outweigh the cons.
We used limelight during our 2019 season and it was the first time our team really had vision tracking working. It was pretty simple to use and gave us most of the functionality we wanted, yet there was still a lot we could play with. It’s also nice to see the software constantly updated, customization has definitely expanded since we first bought it.
I definitely agree though that the price is its biggest drawback, trying to justify $400 on a camera is hard for a lot of teams (including us). Luckily you can reuse it over the years, and we ended up just taking the limelights off and on our practice bot between events.
It is the only thing I’ve ever programmed that has “just worked.” I got my hsv and contour filtering running in about 10 minutes on that baby. I have loved the limelight every second that we have owned it. If money is not the most important thing to you, 10/10 recommend for video processing.
Disclaimer: my team didn’t have to pay for our limelight, we got it through a partnership at no cost to us
The LL shifts the problem, at a cost that reduces over time. No vision solution is “free”, and while the LL isn’t cheap it is certainly one where even V1 is still relevant 3 seasons later.
OscarEye may be a good solution (coming out around this week), as it is 50 dollars, is a better camera than Limelight, and can integrate with Chameleon (basically the limelight software but open source) on a Raspberry Pi.
FRC 4607 used Limelight for the first time this past season to great success. I am certain that we could have used other vision tools, but I am not certain if we would have had the same results.
However, for any team new to vision, there are considerable hurdles. Do you have a team in the local area that can aid you in this? If not, 4607 is available for help. PM me if you need assistance.
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