Does this $60,000 Combat Goggle Actually Work?

this is ivas It's the US Army's very own

version of Apple Vision Pro but instead

of helping you call for Uber it helps

you call for fire the military has

actually been busy working on the

concept for decades with the newest

attempt integrated visual augmentation

system being issued to 10,000 soldiers

for testing so far but an internal

investigation by the Pentagon and

initial poor Soldier feedback suggest

there are some major challenges ahead

and that's why ivas has become the

subject of a fierce Congressional debate

whether the Army should invest in ivas

or next Generation EnV GB goggles

goodbye fog of War hello crippling

addiction to technology what exactly is

ivas well according to the Army it's a

mixed reality heads up display to

provide Soldiers with improved mobility

and lethality during the day or at night

so essentially it aims to replace your

night vision goggles Communications GPS

and take over how you target enemy

positions and run training simulations

with your squad the Public Defense

contract for ivas has an option to buy

as many as 120,000 goggles over the next

decade for as much as $22 billion if

they want so a lot is at stake here with

this device version 1.2 just dropped in

2023 and we're going to talk about all

of its new upgrades as well as my

concerns as a regular old grunt about

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luck beare Parts Army it's obvious why

Apple Microsoft Facebook are all pouring

the GDP of small countries worth of

dollars into developing this augmented

reality Tech this is because the Apple

vision and ivas goggles could

potentially unlock tremendous potential

in US mere mortals the promise of

networked soldiers is a dream that big

army has feverishly been working on in

one form or another since the 1980s each

time it's failed over and over again but

it's taken us one step closer the latest

iteration ivas started in 2018 so I

think the best way to break this down is

to start off explaining how it works

ideally in theory and then get into to

all of the negative soldier feedback and

the controversy surrounding it developed

by Microsoft it's based on their Hollow

lens 2 smart glasses headset technology

and they just delivered 20 of the new

and improved versions The 1.2 prototypes

a quick rundown of its promised

capabilities that were tested include

night vision GPS navigation thermal

vision 3D maps weapon targeting

objectives visually highlighted friendly

and enemy markers you could fire from

the hip or around the corner from behind

cover while seeing where the target

reticle is personally I could think of

one reason why better 3D maps would be

useful during my first raid on a house

in IR rock it took six kicks to get the

door open so everyone knew exactly where

we were coming from and then we figured

out it was the wrong house in the first

place and as I'm saying this out loud

I'm realizing it's an embarrassing story

I probably should have kept to myself

according to the Army the new IVs 1.2

version will give you the ability to

hinge the device so you can raise and

lower the display very similar to how

you do with with night vision goggles in

case you need to use your old human eyes

for a second and so from what I can

gather one of the major upgrades here is

improvements to the low light night

vision image intensifying ability the

ivas is made up of a few separate parts

actually kind of like the Apple Vision

it includes a heads up display goggles a

body worn computer known as the puck a

network data radio and three separate

battery packs for each Soldier more

stuff to carry yes I can't wait please

sir I want some more and in fact right

off the bat the first thing that jumps

out to me compared to the older variants

is its much smaller improved lower

profile glasses the first version in

2018 looked like cumbersome ski goggles

and now they look like lighter weight

hater blockers I mean look at the

original version they look a little

goofy looks like RoboCop 2014 and I want

to look like Robocop 1987 in all

seriousness this new version is a big

step up in addressing one of the biggest

points of criticism isms that the tested

soldiers had which was that it was

uncomfortable and annoying to wear now

where do they get those criticisms from

well hias was officially tested in the

field in June of 2022 over the course of

3 weeks by 70 different infantrymen to

see what needed tweaking they wore them

during three 72-hour training scenarios

which included movement toward an enemy

attacking and defending a position

couple of live fire events during day

and night and they put them through the

paces the goal of the mission today is

using the avas technology to launch and

recover other aircraft and to also call

in a nonline metac while they're also uh

receiving Dynamic Mission changes while

they're in route and also on the ground

what I wouldn't give to be able to test

those out at least it promises to make

recording Tik toks easier one of the

biggest updates to the program that I

never thought about before is how the

heads up display will work in

combination with another new technology

that's changing the face of Modern

Warfare drones according to the Army IVs

will integrate with ground and Air

Platform sensors what that means is it

can take in data from manned and

unmanned aerial Vehicles a drone flying

overhead will be able to send you live

pictures of what you're walking into in

advance what does that mean for your

regular grunt the way you conduct

reconnaissance will completely change

but it also gives us a hint as to why I

think the Army is pushing this device so

hard the ivas would turn every Soldier

into a sensor node it's the concept of

soldier as a sensor you know as opposed

to Soldier as a human being think of all

the live data that this thing will

passively collect on your head is your

unit currently retreating or moving

forward is your Battalion at 20% ammo or

90% that info could be collected from

your weapon sent to your headset back to

command did you just make fun of your

Commander's uncanny resemblance to

Napoleon bonapart these these are all

things that your command wants no needs

to know Facebook and Instagram in their

Wildest Dreams want this level of access

to your personal information while many

of my favorite creators on YouTube are

busy reviewing the new Apple Vision Pro

wondering how it might change the way we

work love and play I'm wondering how

augmented reality will change the way we

fight Wars if I were to take a little

bit too big of a hit from the pieace

pipe I would say that these devices are

going to record every second of War so

they can be used this train models for

robotss to eventually replace soldiers

in the future they're like how we train

machines to recognize objects with

capture not sure how I would like a

video recording of all my war crimes but

everything has its tradeoffs the big

takeaway here is that you're now adding

a 100,000 data collection devices

running around on the ground feeding

targeting information to your bigger

ticket assets like your himars and f-35s

and developing a shared picture of the

battlefield infantry have one device

really since World War II that's been

issued to them that has a operational

level impact and I think that's the

radio it's their ability to call for

fire like a hell diver the IVs would be

the second device with an operational

impact for the grunts as it feeds

realtime information of the battlefield

picture back to headquarters and makes

calling for fire easier I suspect it's a

command and control device as much as

anything else it gives a shared picture

of the battlefield so you can know what

second Squad is is doing right now wait

second Squad what the are you doing

right now while all of that sounds

really exciting and it's easy to get

carried away about future potential here

there's also some big potential

downsides that we're going to need to

address and we get these straight from

the 50-page Inspector General report

that investigated the Army's management

of the program the IG is like when you

see police internal investigation

departments except for the military

these are the dudes who are responsible

for holding a lot of the defense

spending accountable if you blow the

whistle on defense project you'll end up

with an IG report unless it's one of

boeings don't do that what I'm assuming

is that someone close to or involved in

the project maybe someone who trained on

the device brought it to the attention

of the IG that the Army was moving

forward with the project even though

there was a high number of troops who

didn't find it effective that's

typically how these Inspector General

reports are spun up it could have also

been the fact that there was all these

major delays that have hindered the

program so far according to the internal

investigation the biggest thing is quote

ivas program officials did not Define

minimum user acceptance levels to

determine whether ivas would meet user

needs the report States Army future

command officials inferred user

acceptance as a soldier doing their job

better and quicker using ivas however

the Army has not developed any

percentage or otherwise measurement of

user acceptance to determine whether the

system is acceptable now with what the

internal investigation is suggesting

there is that the test results which are

mostly redacted from the public report

as you can see are not designed to

accurately determine if troops actually

found it useful or not Business Insider

got access to that actual Soldier

feedback from training according to

their report IVs failed four out of six

operational tests during the 2022

demonstration one test Soldier even

threw some serious Shades saying quote

theice would have gotten us killed when

referring to how the light from the

holographic display onto the goggles

would betray you by being visible for

hundreds of meters away so much for

light discipline to be fair I don't know

if they solved that in version 1.2

though so what this means is that old

versions The 1.0 and 1.1 will mainly be

used in training units to teach the

basics on the device Meanwhile your

close combat infantry units will start

receiving ivas 1.2 since it's more ready

for the prime time for example just how

effective will the night vision and

thermal sensors on it be compared to

Generation 3 nvg tubes I'm assuming it

uses digital night vision and thermal

which is currently not as bright or

clear of an image as far as I know sure

the ivas aims to offer an 80° field of

view which is like double what your

standard night vision goggles produce

however earlier versions that had that

wide field of view contributed to making

users feel weird and sick while wearing

them because resolution at the edges was

blurry I'd be very curious to know what

the refresh rate on the night vision is

for the ivas because if it isn't really

good latency the delay could make

operations like night driving more

dangerous compared to traditional nvgs

these are things I don't know however

there is an important aspect of

procurement that we need to address the

Army has stated that there are many

examples where Soldier acceptance was

initially low such as the original night

vision goggles in the 1970s machine guns

and the invention of automated transport

which obviously all turned out to be

very useful user acceptance isn't always

a metric that lends itself to objective

measures partly because troops can be

biased towards what they already know so

the arm is basically paraphrasing the

late steeve jobs here saying some people

say give the customers what they want

but that's not my Approach our job is to

figure out what they're going to want

before they do but there are more

downsides part of my degree of

skepticism of the I as comes from a 2022

and 2023 annual report for the office of

the director operational test and

evaluation this is the group that's the

main advisor to the Secretary of Defense

on equipment tests and evaluations

they're the ones that hold acquisition

programs accountable basically providing

independent assessments to Congress who

will end up approving what equipment

ends up in the budget and what does not

so what says has a Major Impact I'll put

a link in the description if you want to

read them yourself but the test office

wasn't exactly stoked on the new tech

stating that troops specifically wanted

improvements to the low light sensor on

the device saying quote the results of

the Ops demo user acceptance remains low

soldiers prefer their current equipment

soldiers cited ivas 1.0 poor low light

performance display quality

cumbersomeness poor reliability

inability to distinguish friend from Fox

difficulty shooting physical impairments

and limited peripheral vision as reasons

for their dissatisfaction I get it I can

barely hit the 300 met Target without

six camera strap to my head how much

does it weigh exactly Todd south of army

times wrote an article stating that ivas

1.0 version weighed a total of 3.4 lbs

with 2.4 of those pounds being the most

important part which is placed right on

the solders Noggin for context I was

surprised to learn that the en vgb also

weighs about 2.5 lb but un like that

this is something you're going to be

wearing either day or night this

suggests to me that it's possible to

slim down 1.2 version of the goggles

weigh even less so that's encouraging

news I'm uh Captain Wright I'm the

Charlie trip Commander 573 had second

airborn division it's being marketed as

kind of a night vision goggle that ties

Optics thermal messaging and planning

all into one one of the weirdest

problems identified in that

investigation that I found I think will

be familiar to any one of you who have

used civilian million virtual reality or

augmented reality devices the

physiological impacts which means troops

suffered headaches from wearing the

device in fact 80% of them who experien

problems found that after 3 hours of use

you would have eye strain and nausea

issues it's interesting because users

also reported feeling the same way when

using Apple vision and similar products

like VR here's the quote from the

operational test and evaluation report

by the government the majority of

soldiers reported at least one symptom

of physical impairment to include

disorientation dizziness eye strain

headaches motion sickness nausea neck

strain and tunnel vision in the Army if

you complain about a headache I

guarantee your squad leader will advise

you to get the sand out of your and take

a few moin but that's not exactly an

option when you can't take these off I

own virtual reality goggles and while I

find it to be an amazing experience

personally I also found that it gave me

a weird dissociative feeling after using

them for more than an hour Eddie burbach

did a great job outlining how that feels

in his review of the Apple Vision I

don't know maybe the Army sees that as a

good side effect that you're

depersonalized in the middle of combat

but this is part of the reason why I

think it's possible and I'm just

spitballing here let me know what you

think of this I'm just talking off the

cuff just Playing devil's advocate here

it's possible that the Army believes it

might be worth it for soldiers to be a

little uncomfortable and a little

impeded when it comes to shooting if it

means that the ivas is a device that can

better call for precision fire and give

better Battlefield picture on an

operational level even if it sacrifices

a little on the Tactical level uh think

of it this way body armor was

uncomfortable and reduced Mobility also

and I'd rather take that off but it also

is true that it saved a lot of lives but

that's not where the debate about this

comes from it comes from the possibility

that the Army might be prioritizing a

technology that's not yet ready to field

at the expense of one that is

what happened is the ivas program has

recently come under intense scrutiny

because the Army appears to have not

requested additional funding for

acquiring the en vgb enhanced night

vision goggles and has instead requested

funding for ivas despite the problems

it's run into they're pushing full steam

ahead with plans to field the ivas

goggles which they originally wanted to

do by

2025 here is the US Senate armed

services committee asking the secretary

of the army Christine waral questions

about the ivas program I asked um why

the Army had once again failed to

include full funding um for the enhanced

night vision goggles binoculars

emgb um Congress stepped in last year to

restore the full 300 million I think

Microsoft knows that this is this is it

they either get it done and get it to a

place where our soldiers want to use it

or we will move on so you can see they

have two different competing points of

view about what's happening there

exactly but this is why Congress denied

the Army's request to acquire 6,900

additional headsets and reduced their

overall budget they now have 40 million

to fix problems that these soldiers

identified and there's 125 million that

of the original funds that could go

towards completing version 1.2 so that's

what's at the center of this procurement

showdown in the one corner you have your

EnV GB it's a classic you know it you

love it soldiers love it it's a crowd

favorite then in the other corner you

have ivas it's a little risky it's bold

but it could eventually be the future of

warfare and a potential game Cher but

the two projects are indirectly

competing for funding and if you're in

an army leadership position it's your

job to figure out how to balance

allocation of the finite number of

resources now it's important to note

that the Army believes this is a

non-issue they state that they've

already procured the number of enhanced

night vision goggles that they thought

would meet their requirement one of the

biggest criticisms from the dod internal

investigation says quote procuring ivas

without attaining user acceptance could

result in wasting up to 21.8 billion in

taxpayer funds to feel the system that

soldiers may not want to use or use as

intended but saying the Army could waste

$22 billion is a little bit of an

exaggeration and some critics have

pointed out that it's kind of an appeal

to a motion because that assumes that

the entire 120,000 devices would be

fielded while the device doesn't work

which is unlikely that number is the

total hypothetical ceiling for the

project if it hits all of its

performance development milestones it

even includes the cost of spare parts

maintenance and training on it why

120,000 goggles that seems a little

arbitrary well my guess is because

that's how many active duty US Army

infantrymen there are although I've seen

estimates that are much lower than that

and the dod doesn't release that

information publicly believe me you I

would be the last person that you'll

find arguing against investing in

Innovation for our soldiers I think

incremental development of these devices

is absolutely the correct thing to do

they've already advanced leaps ahead in

just three short years and if I had to

guess I would say that Army leadership

is seeing how much better these are

getting in such a short period of time

and they believe they can get it to work

before they run out of funds many of the

reviews of those device also point out

the insane price of them costing roughly

as much as a used car but the military's

ivas takes it a step further running

taxpayers the low low cost of only

$60,000 per unit this is offset somewhat

by the fact that it's an all-in system

that replaces many other Standalone

devices like your night vision goggles

your GPS another major concern that t&

named was the quote IVs 1.0

vulnerabilities in a cyber contested in

electromagnetic spectrum environment as

detailed in the classified version this

means there's some concerns about if the

enemy could hack into the this device or

it could just be turned into a 32 lb

$60,000 brick I also heard rumors from

those close to the project that the

original version had trouble in light

rain and would frequently turn itself

off and had glitches often what would

every training NCO do if they couldn't

use their favorite phrase if it ain't

raining we ain't training I'm not

certain if that was fixed but some

evidence that it might have been comes

from the newest press release from the

Army which specifically calls it an all

Weather fighting goggle this is a new

term for the device that I haven't seen

any army Publications used for it before

the whole point is that it's supposed to

increase your vision not decrease it and

when they work out all the BRS and

improve it troops will have increased

Vision in some ways for example they'll

be able to see through their vehicle and

have situational awareness as to what

the heck is going on outside never mind

don't look out there what's going on

outside the vehicle isn't important this

prevents you from dismounting though

into dangerous situations now we've got

relatively high-end cameras all the way

around the vehicle both day and night

and the soldiers wearing the new ivas

technology are able to use those cameras

and access it while they're in route to

Mission so instead of staring at a blank

steel wall they can keep up with what's

going on around the vehicle if you're a

regular viewer of the channel you'll

know one of my least favorite things

about being in a mechanized infantry

Striker unit was being locked in the

back of a dark hole having no idea

what's going on outside the vehicle When

we dropped ramp having said all of that

my personal feelings on whether your

average INF would benefit from the ivas

device I think absolutely if it's given

enough time and money to further develop

the ivas it'll become an essential tool

even if it's just something that all

Squad leaders or platoon leaders are

given at first so that it's a tool for

command because that's really what a

squad Leader's main job is they're meant

to be setting up the most effective

fields of fire they're meant to be

coordinating Logistics ammo resupply it

wasn't me your lowest grunt who was

navigating and making sure your map was

correct that we were hitting that right

house during raid that responsibil is on

the squad leaders and Leadership and to

a lesser extent your team leaders that's

who I think would benefit the most from

having an ivas first so if you're

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