I feel like this would just be another unnecessary piece of heavy gear to haul around, that needs to be charged and maintained. That’s nearly impossible to do… example: see Iraq/Afghanistan.

My neck hurts just looking at that pic

Just lugging the little PVS-14s around for a few hours were a PITA on the neck...that thing looks horrendous.

Notice the end said it'd be going to non-light infantry in the future lol.

Ya the PVS-14s/31s were and still are annoying as hell. You can counterbalance them all you want. But moving around with a huge weight on the front of your helmet is annoying as shit, team Wendy or not.

Yea I remember this.

As a conscript soldier, we weren't issued with counterweights, so after 10 mins of running, jumping and simply moving, the NVGs were at nose level. I couldn't see shit.

That was the other part...had to strap the helmet down tighter...so jaw ended up hurting.

We owned the night and all...but man it hurt like hell... lol

They need to go full Warhammer and just patch the sensors directly into the soldiers’ brains. No heavy goggles to worry about, just a skull implant

Imagine losing this in the field and causing a brigade to do hands across America for 6 days.

Yeah, we wasted a shit load of money on this already. We're a stupid, stupid, stupid country.

Yeah, that's all well and good until your solider try to microwave his coffee.

Or the enemy breaks out microwave generarors and starts frying their brain circuits.

Perhaps a Faraday cage instead of helmet lmao

DARPA has entered the chat

Can we give it to cops instead?

I actually work on these headsets and theyre pretty fucking epic actually. I'm surprised this was the outcome

I'm guessing 99% of people commenting in here have not tried the hololens 2 or the magic leap 2. The magic leap is the exact opposite of their first trash headset.

Just too late I guess

AR is undeniably the future. Real time information overlaid on every soldiers vision that allows them to coordinate is too useful a capability to ignore.

Of course it is predicated on the technology being sufficiently mature for field use, which it clearly isn't yet. VR is great for training though.

The AR would have to be adding more than it costs...

Step 1 would be minimum interference, that would excuse the least functionality (good for a new tech): minimize weight, easy to setup, don't occupy space that I need for other things (don't be in the way of a scope or helmet).

Step 2 would be to not compete with convention. Humans have great vision and great image recognition. Instead add things they don't have at all: birds eye view, thermal vision, or other live strategic detail (any strategic information best conveyed by image, that would take time to explain verbally). Otherwise your fighting an uphill battle of trying to be better at seeing than actual eyeballs, or more defensive than a dedicated helmet.

What's in that cover photo would need to be explosively powerful to justify itself.

They've been too quick to throw this out. It'll be back. It's ultimately useful (in a smaller future form factor).

While I’m sure they’re amazing, they’re just too frick’n expensive. How are people supposed to appreciate something like that?

And what are they supposed to do; play Beat Saber?

They’re amazing for the devs and the clients like aerospace and medical because they’re using bespoke software.

Until there’s a killer app, doesn’t matter how good the hardware is.

The title makes it sound like the soldiers hate it because it makes them “less lethal.” They hate it because it sucks.

Hell, as a volunteer Marine in the 2010's, we weren't given counterweights for them.

The goal would be to condense it into the visor of a helmet, having an IRL HUD would be extremely useful for navigation, aim, comms, etc.

Pretty dumb-ass idea. Pretty telling about the amount of money in the military industrial complex to try and make tactical AR with this level of tech. Also the dust in Afghanistan would have wrecked this. It killed so many toughbooks while there.

Form factor was a HUGE blunder imo. They tried to jump straight to the end goal, like this tech isn't challenging af and in its infancy.

Lmao to lower cop lethality!

This. Using NVG correctly is a skillset. So many issues with alignment or fogging up if just given to people without training.

I think the IVAS is super interesting. And it packs a helluva lot of sensor tech in a very small package.

However, it does not do well in low light. As is obvious from the pictures, it limits natural light, forcing the soldier to rely on the sensor systems earlier in the day than normal.
Even going into a halfdark building during the day can be an issue with shades.

Yes, you can use the light enhancing sensors, but it's still sucks to wear shades at night.

On top of that, the sensor system does not feature a normal gen3 etc. tube, so it relies purely on the CCD sensor. Old school NVG tubes (as used in PVS14/31) are still vastly superior to CCD's in the same package size.

In terms of being able to see in the dark, on scale from 0-1000, it's like this:
0-100: gen1 NVG,
100-300: Lowlight optimized CCD (small package, eg. Syonix)
200: Bad Gen2 NVG
500: Good Gen2 NVG
1000: Good Gen3 NVG
(This is a simplification. Generation does not correlate to SNR/Res so precisely in reality).

And this is why soldiers would complain. Even the pure night performance capability is serious step back. Especially when you consider the new 31 NVG's that have thermal overlay integrated (honestly this is a really good and usable product design).

Yeah i started mounting my pvs14 behind my dot on my rifle.

Nah, just shield the implant with lead foil, that should stop any outside interference

The particular tech works perfectly at pitch black night: personal experience… you speaking as if you know this and I can tell you are as clueless as one can be about this tech. It’s weight aside, the things it can do blows your mind.

I'm sure those cables never snagged on anything.

Pretty confident this was just a psyop

If you ask me the only purpose this could serve and actually work is with recon, specifically for artillery and sniper support. This doesn’t seem like something every infantryman should use. I bet you could get the quickest azimuth ever with that thing.

I'm talking about the military. Using one in other fields is probably a great idea, but before investing in military tech they need to first ensure they are useful in a wartime situation and not just a neat tool with far better applications. The problem in a live fire battle is high tech that's used in the field cannot require charging and must be extremely lightweight, soldiers already have to carry very heave weapons and supplies, even a tiny bit of weight can make the difference between life and death.

So given the extra weight and the inaccessibility of a charging method without also increasing weight, they will not find much use of worn tech like this in situations that they would be used. A better investment would be more remote drones and smart weapons that can be used from the safety of a bunker.

Better to invest in creating T-800s rather than try to put computer screens on human soldiers.

Don’t forget the rule that tech will always fail when you need it most. The last thing you want is this shit going out mid firefight

Who didn't see Iron Man and think, "Damn, wish I just had a HUD for life sometimes."

Like you are a block away from your destination, but you are second-guessing the location and don't want to pull out your phone and open up the map. Then you walk another block to discover you went the wrong way about 5 blocks back and have 10 to walk still because you were actually thinking of that other place.

Not based on real life obviously.

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So we should never ever evolve ever?

That design is cheap ass garbage. It needs to be smaller than Glass to be efficient.

I don’t think you know what that word means

sigh…..

See the problem for me is not the hud system. I agree with you, a hud with locations and directions and all that would be great. It’s the hardware behind it. Shit it probably uses those block singars batteries (2590’s), you feel me. Charging this shit and getting it to glasses that are as thin as m frames, with an easy to use interface…. Not going to happen. People have been watching and playing too many video games.. last deployments I had it was always the simplest shit that worked the best… not this fancy bullshit.

Yup….. exactly, or fail from soldiers using it once and throwing it in the equipment locker and not using it enough to be proficient.

In shocking news, brand new technology will take time to work out.

I can feel my face pulling forward just looking at this image.

Ah yes, lead, a metal well-known for its safety when inside people's brains.

Wouldn't the results of this be a bit skewed though? I mean, putting them in the 1.0 Version of a specific technology and asking them to do something and then comparing it to the years of training done another way doesn't seem like a very good test. It sounds like the soldiers would need to be brought up and trained using this kind of equipment for months and months to actually determine the viability of it. As a gamer, just think of a new UI when a familiar game releases a new title. It's a bit jarring and tough to get used to until you've immersed yourself in it over the course of months. Take that several levels forward and I can understand why doing it "the old way" would look superior.

In the article, they do go into this a bit but it seems the preference for the old equipment is likely rooted in the unfamiliarity of the new equipment, but also that the 1.0 equipment just isnt...where it needs to be. Which I suppose makes sense.

Though, I think that we should keep investing in the technology because eventually it will be where it needs to be and be a benefit.

I've played Ghost Recon, it's annoying how long all that shit takes to pop up, it's like trying to text in the middle of a firefight

The lead makes soldiers angrier so it is a win.

The AR googles include this technology https://youtu.be/2v0YrtkwUDQ

Wearing that is like saying that piece of headgear has more power than your brain.. fukin useless... only thing u need are ur eyes and night goggles

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Google Glass is completely unrelated technology to AR. That was a 2D HUD - the equivalent of a smartwatch for your face.

There are very few attempts so far that get close to a pair of sunglasses with AR, and those that do have severe limitations. Snap's AR spectacles only has a 30 minute battery life, Vuzix Shield is only monochrome, and Nreal Light is tethered. All of these have a tiny field of view, and the only known way to achieve a large field of view with AR thus far is a much larger/bulkier device.

Seriously, if you think this is bulky, look at what a very wide FoV AR device looks like: https://www.roadtovr.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/leap-motion-projet-northstar-3.jpg

This, getting instant and accurate information for your shot at a glance would be outstanding.

I can get why soldiers currently in the field who are being transitioned to it hate it, but I’d be curious if new soldiers who would be trained on this equipment from the start would see any improvement in effectivity compared to soldiers who were trained without it.

Ya it’s like our RND department is technologically stunted.

We’ll see my theory is…… that whoever develops this shit plays to much call of duty. Media puts out this image of a futuristic soldier with jet packs and 3d hologlasses… and Fuckin millennium falcons (joking of course) and the engineers that design this have never been in a conflict. The closest they get is watching fury with the lights off and surround sound. They don’t realize that for most cases.. the less shit you can carry the better, especially when you’re on foot. Your maneuverability increases, your SA (situational awareness) increases and you are able to operate at an op tempo that’s higher for a longer period of time. Then on top of that, they try and get it to integrate with gear that’s already fielded.. old battery technology.. etc to save money… I could go on and on…

I've tried them and I disagree with you.

They're fine if you're just playing around, but they're not good for any sort of labor. Just about the only real use I found for them was making a ridiculously large virtual monitor for watching YouTube.

The FOV for the HoloLens 2 was a huge let down -- maybe on paper it looks better than the HoloLens 1, but it's still far too narrow.

The weight is very well balanced, but it's still just a lot of additional weight that gives people headaches.

They're also too bulky to wear in any industrial setting where you have to be careful about head clearance.

Sure, the HoloLens is still an impressive feat of engineering, but it still has a long way to go before it can be used in the industrial applications Microsoft has been marketing it towards.

Then comes the required Ad quotas to watch before you can use features. Or you can subscribe to premium lens!

US really is the most advanced military in the world. There’s a lot of black projects of technology not from this world. Just be glad we’re are American

This is spot on. The trouble is the killer app turns out to be many industrial tasks (warehouse inventory, assembly and disassembly procedures, procedures in general, etc. -- take a look at the recent Vuforia products for more examples), but the form factor, durability, and field of view just aren't good enough for those applications yet.

Depends on what it does and how well it does it. The point is to share situational awareness between the unit and maybe UAV oversight too. Imagine every enemy pointed out by big red arrow and every friendly pointed out in blue. If it works well, that's an incredible force multiplier.

I can definitely see it being well worth any inconvenience and more once the technology is mature.

There’s other ways to do this though, hell the BFT was suppose to be a battlefield datalink and they couldn’t even get that right most the time.

Oh shit. I feel like COD is just soft disclosure at this point.

What does that have to do with the price of rice in China?

AR needs to stop being interpreted as a heads up display. A direct brain integration via ABI is loads better than visual data that must be noticed and processed.

Well, it sort of is BFT++ but for individual fighter in whatever ditch he is. Can they get it right or not or how many iterations it might take, that I don't know, but the potential is obvious.

I’m not passed saying it has potential. But it can’t be near as bulky and it has to have an easy UI. I can’t be sitting here practically writing code to place a marker on my virtual map.

You're right, AR can be much more than just a heads up display. However, a direct brain interface is even farther away than mainstream AR, which is already at least 5-10 years away, and unless it can be done without directly implanting a device into your brain, 99.9% of people aren't going to use it.

I'm currently skeptical on how feasible a direct brain interface is. It's most likely going to be very invasive, and who knows if it will be better than just really good eye tracking and hand gesture recognition for navigating interfaces.

What it comes down to is the army is not willing to pay for what this technology really costs.

F-35 Helmet. 400,000 dollars. Each. Custom built for the individual.

Oh don’t I know it, they’re still putting one engine on these airplanes… how many have crashed for various reasons so far? Ask me how many new robots I have gotten in the last 6 years?

The problem is a big chunk of the population can not tolerate AR/VR due to motion sickness. Doesn’t matter how good the tech is, their brain doesn’t play well with it.

True enough on usability, it has to reduce the cognitive demands on a trooper, not increase them. The bulk though... if it works well, it's important enough to sacrifice something else from the kit to make up the weight. Can't beat knowing where you are being shot at from.

Ya, but in order to know where you’re being shot from you have to have another piece of equipment for that, it’s not like this system can do that by itself. How much more shit can we possibly put on a helmet, without providing a neck brace. And what piece of gear can we sacrifice? Side plates lol?

This goes away after a few sessions for the vast majority of people.

Thing has a cable going down to the vest doesn't it? That's where everything else is. Only the optical package is on the helmet

That was my first thought. More fucking SI to keep track of.

It's not Vault-Tec.

Yeah Elon Musk is currently working on it.

Lets just create the cylons already and be done with it lol

Don't worry, it won't get dirty or fog up. I'm sure getting a proper cheek weld will be no problem. Those tubes running down your head to your back will never get snagged on anything, whipping your head back suddenly. Slinging your rifle over your shoulder or back absolutely won't yank all that shit off. Signing for a bunch of SI and spending hours PMCS'ing it and standing in line to return it isn't an issue. All the batteries being dead because the last guy didn't turn it off will never be a thing and the pelican case you have to store it in will easily fit in your ruck - you won't even notice it.

And for all of that convenience you'll receive: slightly less combat efficiency. Please sign here to buy a million.

The only way to get rich in the Army is to be a civilian.

This is the tech we look back on in 30 years and are like "wow I'm glad the military funded this" like the Internet. These are the early building blocks building the foundation of tech we're all going to be using in 2040.

I can’t see a thing in this helmet!

Less effective would be better.

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The army should have invested in Hololive instead of Hololens.

It's more likely the military were interested in the tech so invested in checking it out.

Who woulda thunk that strapping 5lbs of shit onto someone’s face would suck

Less lethal? Maybe we should give this military tech to police in the US instead of 50 cal snipers and immunity from the law

Man, I'm baffled about how little perspective people on Reddit have. They're always complaining about AR/VR, AI, game streaming and stuff as if tech don't always get faster, lighter and cheaper over time

There's stuff that are dumb conceptually, like blockchain, but that's a different talk

Yeah but imagine if they were able to overlay sensor data on the display showing where radio signals were emanating from then the soldiers would know there's possibly a cell phone, person or remote bomb there.

You’d be lucky if you could even get batteries during Iraq/Afghanastan. I used to work with the AR/MR/VR teams that were laid off. Even though I was in the military, they wouldn’t listen to me when I told them tech like Hololens would never work in the field. And here we are 6 years later. But I was just a dirty contractor so what do I know?

AR doesn’t cause motion sickness. There’s no way it could.

Idk if that’s the only purpose; would be great for NCOs and combat officers. But yeah for Forward Observers this would be nuts, way easier to coordinate artillery and air support

The tech isn’t close to there yet. It’s an awesome concept but execution is waaaay way off.

As someone that hated all the shit I had to hump in Iraq. This stuff would be at the top of the list to accidentally fall into a shit filled canal.

I'd be shocked if these things didn't fog up the moment an infantryman had to bound 50 meters.

> PITA in the neck

Was it a pain in the neck though

Why do you need every soldier carrying and powering the detection-classification-perception system for that, when you can have one such system in the platoon, as needed, from which the track can be transmitted (aka. told) to you when and only when the guy who actually knows how to use it well determines it useful to give you this information.

Like soldiers don't have a hundred other things to carry and think about to fulfill their own specialized roles?

This exactly!

Yeah I saw an interview with one of the seals from the bin Laden raid and he got asked about the new crazy looking 4-tube NV goggles and he said normal is like looking through 2 toilet paper tubes in a gunfight and now it’s like having 4, so still not great haha

It would probably depend if they've already been exposed to existing tech already in use that is better, like more recent night vision goggles. The night vision for this headset is old tech and sub par compared to contemporary tech. Anybody would not like something that is worse than what you're already using.

That's what they said in the 80s when this tech first appeared, and it was supposed to be the early 2000s where everyone was living in a virtual world.

Nah it's only the people who are making the decisions

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Kinda related, I was involved in a research study for the HoloLens at my university a couple months ago. It involved visualizing a 3D map on the floor and you could walk through the map and touch stuff on the map. It was cool, but really fucking slow and clunky. Definitely not really for practical use.

Better PITA in the neck than PITN in somewhere else

Yes the mature piece is still another generation away. I’ve been a HoloLens developer for a while- they are not outdoor friendly as they aren’t bright enough, not average consumer friendly, and ideally you pop in use it for what you need a few minutes and hop out-this setup looks more attached to the helmet and less pull down and up. Ergonomically the HoloLens 2 is actually pretty good and on the hard hat version its not bad either. They are a fantastic use case for assembly/manufacturing and industrial use cases with controlled environments. Next generation optics are needed and they’ve got to get brighter before I see them out in the field.

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Have you all ever played a game like Halo or some other arena shooter? Some games have a “hardcore” mode where things like radar/motion sensing are removed. Going from normal modes to hardcore is really difficult, especially when you’re playing a game against seasoned hardcore players.

Having AR is fine and dandy until that thing breaks, fails, falls/is lost, loses battery power, doesn’t pick up sensors, loses GPS, etc. then you very quickly become the new guy in an arena of experienced fighters.

I know real life isn’t the same as a video game, but this scenario is pretty damn realistically relevant. Relying on the extra unnecessary tools reduces your abilities in other perishable skills. Hell, as a crew chief who called out distance estimations to the ground during a landing, not flying for a week or two can destroy your ability to call out distances, especially when flying on NVG’s in low light conditions.

my company sent us to test the hololens for troubleshooting remotely. this was five yrs ago--we rejected it as a tool for troubleshooting because it was to dark to see through .I hope the military didn`t spend to much money to figure out what everybody else aready knows

I’m really surprised that literally none of the top comments are highlighting anything related to reaction time.

Any “real-time” system still has some latency, and anything that adds any latency to a soldiers visual system is a measurable disadvantage.

The advantage the AR provides would have to compensate for that lag and then some (by a wide margin) to make this make any sort of sense.

This feels like it was doomed from the start.

Soldiers are probably getting shown commercials for pain killers and life insurance.

Well, it makes one side's soldiers less lethal. The opposite for the other

Just need a com. Someone else can look at shit.

I believe it’s called Google maps.

"...don't want to pull out your phone and check the map."

Read my comment all the way through. Or even halfway. Then don't comment stupid things.

staved off the black mirror episode a little longer it seems

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It’s ok, it’s not your fault. But imagine, pulling out your phone to check. Lol

Lethality is effectiveness.

You’re missing the point of the Military-industrial complex. To spend copious tax dollars on civilian infrastructure would be socialism! We must support our tech corporations! And if not financially, then physically by wearing heavy NODs that are inefficient.
See also, Catch-22 and Milo Minderbinder’s M&M Enterprises. You must eat the cotton for the good of the syndicate!

You mean to tell me that Microsoft made a shit piece of hardware?

Nooooo....

Too many decision makers, forget the people they make decisions for. It's really annoying. At some point, the decision makers are just a waste of money and time and it would be better of getting rid of them completely

If Microsoft paid me $100,000 per year to tell them when ideas are fucking stupid, they'd have saved millions in the first year alone 🤷🏼‍♀️ they ain't humble enough for that tho.

1984 vibes

Also, you know this shit is gonna blue screen when you need it most. Then you tear it off and it's flopping around behind you, still attached to the battery pack that's strapped on somewhere.

Angron approves this message.

But everybody gets a share!

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Exactly, next thing you know they’re sitting in the back of the ________ (insert MRAP of choice) collecting Fucking dust and taking up space.

Edit: but they have a serial number so of course they have to get inventoried.

Google glass has nothing to do with nvg tech

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Black Mirror would like a word

Hell. Google Glass would probably work better.

A Google Glass-like device with a small lumbar battery pack might work.

I’m a nobody and I can come up with better ideas. Why aren’t people paying me for my ideas? It’s a constant brainstorming session here upstairs.

And apparently you can see some “interesting” things overhead with the good NVG’s not available to civilians.

Yeah, this is it. It's also the basis for future weapon control. I'm surprised the US didn't keep pursuing it.

Look at a mobil phone from 20 years ago and compare to what we have now. The size, weight, capability changes. What's important is to have the core concept fine tuned and to keep the development going forward.

I am Jack's total lack of surprise.

Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter was dope

Google presents: Butcher's nails!

Microsoft doesn't seem like a natural fit for military force multiplication development.

Lots of people here are teenagers. The other half didn't pay attention in high school and force others to argue with them.

I guess we should write it off then.

The first Gen air to air missiles were unreliable resulting in the Top Gun program. Today the air to air missiles are so good, the enemy will still be looking when they lose a wing.

This specific AR program was doomed to fail. Just look at Army procurement the last few decades, and those aren't bleeding edge technologies. Processors and responds times simply aren't fast enough yet, the battery life isn't there yet in a convenient package. However the fact is every game knows how powerful effective hud elements can be to gaining an information advantage. Whether it's integrated target tracking with squad mates and weapon systems, to just seeing things easier. Near peer states are going to have night vision and infrared vision. Soldiers won't be able to use infrared lasers without giving away positioning. A reticle in your hud for your rifle can give significant advantage.

Combat AR sounds like it is taking the wrong approach. Use AR plus WI-FI to trace bodies and create IRL wall hacks. You’re welcome.

Pleb scrubs. Pls send check. I’m poor.

Don't really know what you mean. Civilians have access to good NVG.

Well, with batteries you could run a cable from the hypothetical glasses to the battery that hangs on the hip/back or whatever.

> A Google Glass-like device with a small lumbar battery pack might work.

Well that has nothing to do with AR tech, so it would be performing a different function at that point.

Fighter pilots already essentially already have this and it works great for them.

It can definitely cause nausea with today's tech. That was one of the complaints for HoloLens IVAS in military testing.

Tech is cool but just slapping together the latest ideas without understanding how humans will take to it is stupid

“But his parents are wealthy! They don’t need a share!” - Yossarian “Then they will understand.” - Milo

How is that not AR tech?

You want to Let a Mil doc operate on your brain? You first champ lol.

AR is like having eyes that talk to each other telepathically. Some of what you detail is being worked on, but from the first person perspective of a solder in the field, the value prop of AR is always knowing what everyone else (sensors, satellites, drones, other soldiers) are seeing.

That's what the thought leaders tell me.

>as if tech don't always get faster, lighter and cheaper over time

Well, hardware does. Software, on the other hand...

Google Glass is a 2D HUD. It's as if you were to take a smartwatch and put it on your face - that's the limit of the functionality you can provide.

AR deals with actually overlaying information into the real world.

HoloLive > HoloLens

Not sure if there are enough sheep, pigs and monkeys on this planet to make it work.

5 class-A’s, mostly older models. I don’t think the military minds writing off a couple old F-35s, the first production runs were kinda shit.

There is stuff that could work, but it has to be small and simple. And the UI has to be tailored to the mission.

For instance, smart watches are good. They’re even pretty durable and reliable these days. The smartwatch team should do AR, and if they say the tech isn’t there, they’re probably right.

Speaking of smart watches, if I was gonna do military AR, that would be my first product. Sunglasses with the time on them. Even if it’s just an analog hour/minute hand, I think people would find a use.

Carrying around extra kit that provides no value on the battlefield makes you less lethal.

Hardware surely is the responsible for tech getting faster. But there are many kinds of software, what Meta did with the Quest is amazing when you think of the amount of sensors that thing has processing all the time. Wirth's Law is really felt on web stuff and other enduser applications

I wonder how they measured this. Brown kids killed per deployment? Murder vs casualty rates? If it prevents them from being even more murderous in our name, I say make it mandatory.

They straight up made LandWarrior from World War Z, of course it’s ass.