Microsoft's Army Goggles Look like a Failure Thus Far
The Metaverse adoption lows are chilling
As Meta’s Metaverse hopes look very dismal in terms of product quality and consumer adoption, Microsoft’s HoloLens 2 contract with the U.S. Army looks pretty bad itself. AR and VR is hard, just as Florida based startup Magic Leap.
In March, 2021 it was announced that Microsoft would deliver to the U.S. Army more than 120,000 devices based on its HoloLens augmented reality headset. Microsfot works increasingly with the National Security and National Defense sectors. The deal, which could be worth (have been) as much as $21.88 billion over 10 years, follows a contract Microsoft received to build prototype headsets for the Army.
This past week however a few scathing reports came out regarding the first pilots. Microsoft’s augmented reality Hololens goggles are getting a dismal rating in tests by the US Army, according to internal military evaluations seen by Bloomberg and Insider. While the writing was on the wall for Microsoft’s Hololens 2 project, the initial reports are concerning.
Microsoft’s Army goggles left U.S. soldiers with nausea, headaches in test
There have been rumour’ of course that Microsoft has reportedly scrapped its third-generation HoloLens, leaving the company's “metaverse” plans in disarray. According to a report from Business Insider, Microsoft killed off the HoloLens 3 in 2021, shifting to a planned device with Samsung instead.
Obvious Issues
Soldiers reported feeling ill from wearing the headsets and argued the tech is not helpful in fulfilling their duties.
Illumination from lights on the goggles has been another point of contention for Army personnel, who believe the glare could give away their position to the enemy.
Many products around VR/AR and mixed reality have been difficult if not fraught with hype that led nowhere.
Acceptance of the tech “remains low,” says a summary prepared for Army and Defense Department officials and seen by Bloomberg, with soldiers complaining that the headsets don’t “contribute to their ability to complete their mission.” There’s a clear lack of product-market fit, from Zuck’s pathetic $15 billion spent on poor immersion VR, to Microsoft’s wayward ambitions with its AR headset. The Army? Really?
Some of the issues around the device seem really a head-scratcher. The Verge reported: One testimony reported by Insider was even blunter. “The devices would have gotten us killed,” said the tester — referring to the light emitted by the goggles’ head-up display, which could alert enemy troops to the wearer’s presence.
Alex Kipman, who had been with the Redmond, Washington-based software firm since 2001, was accused of inappropriate behavior toward female employees at Microsoft by current and former workers in an Insider report in late May, 2022 and had to leave the company. But there were already issues with the Hololens project way before then.
There Microsoft even scored the $22 Billion contract with the Army is really weird.
Army must improve the ‘human factors’: Pentagon test office
On plus side, goggles aided navigation, mission coordination
To be clear the Army version is even further customized for the huge contract. The goggles, which provide a heads-up display and night vision capabilities for soldiers in the field, are based on modifications to Microsoft’s existing HoloLens augmented reality technology.
Meta’s Horizon Worlds Metaverse is in even worse shape. Meta initially aimed to reach 500,000 monthly active users in Horizon Worlds by the end of the year, but the current figure is less than 200,000, according to the report. The level of the graphics of the VR feels like a step backwards, not one forward.
Early Woes in Adoption
Only 9% of worlds are visited by at least 50 people, and most are never visited at all, according a WSJ report. The numbers were not good. The Metaverse is failing in some of the continued attempts at building more platforms for VR and AR to scale. In such an environment Zuck’s e Meta Quest Pro is a joke for shareholders who must be realizing how poor Facebook is at anything remotely innovative. It’s a display of Silicon Valley failure that’s more than a bit shocking considering the price tag.
As for Microsoft, it’s clear it has no idea how to test and build an AR product that’s useful for army personnel. Worse yet, more than 80% of those who experienced discomfort had symptoms after less than three hours using the customized version of Microsoft’s HoloLens goggles, Nickolas Guertin, director of Operation Test and Evaluation, said in a summary for Army and Defense Department officials. He said the system also is still experiencing too many failures of essential functions.
Still a Potential IVAS Success
The Army does still see potential for the Microsoft experiment however. A spokesperson for the Army told Insider that tests of the goggles — known as the Integrated Visual Augmentation System, or IVAS — were so far considered to be a success.
Microsoft won a series of contracts potentially worth tens of billions of dollars to supply the US Army with its AR glasses. The contracts have been seen as validation not only of Microsoft’s augmented reality strategy, but of the feasibility of the AR tech in general. This has about as much chance in my opinion of success as Meta’s Horizon Worlds and Magic Leap’s Enterprise product. I actually think Magic Leap 2 might have the most potential of the three.
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