The United States Army has decided acquire more units of Microsoft’s advanced mixed reality glasses designed for use in combat situations, as reported by Bloomberg. This order comes after Microsoft sent a batch of 20 improved headset prototypes to the military in late July, which were tested by two squads of soldiers in August.
According to a report by The Vergethe results were positive, as soldiers reported that They no longer experienced nausea or discomfort when using these devices.
Last year, Microsoft collaborated with the US military to develop a mixed reality headset similar to HoloLens, known as the Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS). However, initial reports in 2022 indicated that these headphones caused headaches, nausea, and eye strain during testing.
These problematic headphones were part of an order for 5,000 units that the Army began receiving in September 2022.
The improved version 1.2
The most recent version of the lenses, now in version 1.2, has demonstrated improvements in terms of reliability, sensor performance in low light conditions, and its form factoraccording to David Patterson, army spokesman.
It is important to mention that the Army had requested Congress for funds to purchase 6,900 units of these headsets from Microsoft, but this request was denied earlier this year. Instead, Congress reduced the military’s requested funding from $400 million to just $40 million to improve the system.
In addition to that funding, an additional $125 million was awarded to continue the development of these devices.
The US military plans to spend up to $21.9 billion on this project and plans to test the headsets in 2025 for use in combat situations. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s HoloLens technology continues to make progress on these special military glasses, as development of use cases for home and work appears to have slowed after layoffs hit the teams involved in January.