NOT shooting the messenger here. A sponsor is a sponsor. And the phrase "to mug people" has a new meaning now.

Since it's made by Microsoft based on their HoloLens, wouldn't it be more accurate to call it the Army's version of HoloLens rather than Apple's Vision Pro?

I can see AR being used for quite a few things in combat... like a tank driver getting a 360 view of his vehicle's surroundings, a squad leader seeing a birds-eye view of the battlefield and where their soldiers are, or having drone operators "ping" enemy locations to allow gunners to know where to shoot... that kind of thing. My fear is that they're trying to do an "All-in-one" approach where soldiers need to spend too much time and thinking into their headsets and it becomes counter-productive. Whatever final iteration the army adopts needs to be absolutely idiot-proof second-nature with little-to-no maintenance involved.

*49 dollars for a coffee mug is absolutely ridiculous dude*

Don't know why Apple is mentioned so much. This is a Microsoft program and device. I see and support these head sets everyday and the capability has no comparison to Apple's product.

The US military has been working on this since the 1980s. But the tech was not yet ready, now it is ready and in a new infancy.

Fusing thermal and low light magnification into one image would be a big deal.

Once they've overcome the burdens of nausea, dizziness, loss of vision, and anal bleeding, the troops will love this tech.

All sandboxx viewers should also watch task and purpose. They did a great video on this as well.

A $50 cup…. I’ll wait for the $90 T-shirt

I think every soldier should have an active electronically scanned array radar on their helmet.

Didn't mention the impact of the weight on the soldiers neck over time. Speaking from experience just the weight of NVG's its battery pack and the counter balance weight on a flight helmet which is lighter than the ground pounders ACH my neck and every other helicopter aviators neck becomes an issue when disks collapse and surgery is needed to stay in flight status. Between the horrible seats in the aircraft and the helmets with NVG's, back and neck issues are part of Army aviation and a number 1 claim for VA compensation claims among helo aviators... which has yet to be approved for me. The fight goes on, I'm determined to be the first.

Soooo.....it's the Apple Vision Pro....made by Microsoft...... Too bad we just can't title the video "The Army's New Augmented Reality Headset." But I get it.

When i was in the service back in *cough cough * 1987, they had a version of open VR at the Aberdeen proving grounds. It was a dome that you gear up, go in and could practice tactics. Everything was projected all around you and was totally interactive; so yeah they’ve been working on tech in this space for a long time. 😎🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸

Is someone getting paid for everytime they say "Apple Vision Pro"? 😂😂😂

I think the even more notable thing would be the current NVG and thermal goggles going down to lower ranks. I know that happens all the time, but the idea of even the lower ranks having some pretty good stuff is pretty impressive.

well i didnt expect this to be an apple ads, yet here we are lol

Another technology that would work very well with augmented reality is acoustic cameras where one can see sounds. e.g. Goggle Acoustic cameras can SEE sound and The FLIR Si124 PD | Acoustic Imaging Camera for Partial Discharge Detection and FOTRIC TD3-LD Acoustic Camera: Unlock Efficiency in Your Anomaly Detection! So on the Battlefield there are many sources that make loud noises, gunfire, artillery, quad copters, and these could be detected, ID' ed, and located using an acoustic camera, which is just an array of microphones plus processing. Thus a soldiers can see where a sound came from and then immediately target it as it is shown on their augmented reality displays.. These mikes can be really small and mounted on a helmet sort of like insect antenna.

Sounds incredibly expensive, but practically all the modern consumer digital tech we all enjoy today began as a crazy expensive military experiment decades ago.

Imagine being able to mark your enemies position for everyone to see or setting a waypoint around the map and your whole team seeing it

1:21 🤣 F'n Shameless, Devil Dog... I love it!

Another great Sandboxx video. I love them. My only thought regarding US frontline fighters is that the US military complex are going to have to solve the Ukraine phenomenon, which is the use of drones on troops. I think the US military urgently needs to develop effective, defensive, directed-energy weapons to solve this challenge. Either radio frequency jammers for lower end drones, or laser, or EM pulse weapons for autonomous, AI-enabled drones. Otherwise, we’ll loose troops, goggles or no goggles.

Hololens: Does all the heavy lifting + years of R&D. Vision Pro: furiously taking notes.

Imagine a scanning system spotting a drone and putting a pip on every soldier’s view screen, you align your weapons optics with the pip and start shooting. Cheap and effective last mile drone defense.

Great to see your back 🎉 hope the heal is a quick process

I hope those batteries are "squaddie proof" I can just imagine damaging one and going up in flames while wearing it!

Did i just watch an advert for Apple?

$49 for a mug has certainly augmented my reality 😮

The biggest shock of this video to me was a $49 'collectible' mug, wtf man.

Like how you're branching out into new topics! Great show!

Theyve been trying to do this for over 20 years. Big Army doesn't get it. It's still too heavy, the batteries do not last long enough for a real world mission and the troops absolutely hate it because they can't shoot with it on. Add in the constant battle against excessive weight in the typical ground pounders kit, especially when it's stacked on their heads causing neck injury after neck injury, and I don't see this thing staying in rotation as a viable system very long. ( watched a platoon receive brand new squad level net warriors gear from a contractor and soon as the presentation was over, they walked to the nearest dumpster and dropped each of those 26 lb boat anchors inside)

Thank you man, sandboxx is my best military news channel

But when everything goes to hell you better make sure that you're soldiers can use iron sights.

imagine it being able to detect enemies by placing their bodies glowing hot while everything else is natural colored or being able to zoom 1000x to see where enemy fire is coming from also while rendering the distance of the shot tailored specifically to your weapon.

One thing needs to be pointed out, IVAS does not use screens like in the Vision Pro. It uses diffractive waveguides based off of those in the MS Hololens or the Snap Spectacles. Completely different tech and of importance to point out here as I can see questions about camera passthrough latency to the screens on the Vision Pro. Diffractive Waveguides do not have this issue as they are transparent lenses with the visual overlays projected through them. Therefore it has no nausea issues too

I've been following the IVAS for a couple years now. Never thought to comment on your vids about it. This should've happened sooner. Great stuff!

Damn, Alex ! Pumping out the info ! Thanks !

Alex, you and your team constantly hit it out of the park, well done!

its a heads up display. not a apple product

with the added bulk and weight , i feel having just the lt.'s and hq. connected along with drones and unmanned ground vehicles , commanders etc.. to help orchestrate the tempo and flow, would be the best use of...

The intro music and footage for this episode was FIRE

My Mercedes-Benz has augmented reality navigation and it's awesome

Can we get a CCA update, please? Love to see your take on the news on the conclusion of Stage 1.

One eye looks out into the fog of war, and the other is watching Subway Surfers. Beautiful

Imagine if Microsoft sees this video :D :D

Having these in vehicles immediately double their effectiveness given the way they can look through the hull. The vehicle could have a simple plug in umbilical to keep it charged or remove the battery altogether. Building helmets in a shell format to go over the VR electronics liner might be the path forward. the polymer battery technology in cellphones could then be used so the weight is evenly balanced all the way around instead of just front to back. Infantry might want to go back to an old armor concept. Something like a shoulder yoke that holds battery and computing with the flexible neckpiece being just wired "Fabric" like a fireman's smoke hood. Then you just have to mount gesture and light/ motion sensors to give a 360 degree view. Maybe a facepiece like the modern firefighters use with their tanks.

Oddly enough, the military version costs the same.

Good luck with your operation! Hope all will be well

Looks more like a quest 3 military version than apple vision Pro. But probably cost way more than a vision pro. Vision pro doesn't even play games I heard.

I've seen enough combat footge to know that our troops would really benefit from systems that can pinpoint the location of enemy shooters. Affordable and relatively small Doppler radar units are now available to track the ballistic trajectory of bullets. If such a capability was incorporated into each headset, the data collected from each headset could be used to pinpoint a bullet's point of origin.

alex going full cyberpunk for one video. about the military headset, its going to augment soldiers all those "nifty" stuff you often only found in video games. like the HUD and indicators that shows waypoints that are faithful to the actual pinned 3 dimensional locations of the waypoints no matter where you turn your head to. including real time feeds from combat managers that would warn soldiers at field of potential threat spots from fresh intels. and could make soldiers litterally do "wall hack" where they already informed how many people armed inside a building and where they could be located. or new intel just in about possible ID of a suspect and you could have that shown in the corner of your HUD vision, 3D arrow pointers of vector of where air supports is coming in, including the HUD indicators that highlight WHICH are allies on the battlefield so you dont misfire at them from the distance. you could see your fellow squadmates "icons" representing their presence at any given time in 3 dimensional position even behind walls to have the best coordinations, including WHO those indicators are (with name/callsigns on the indicators). its inevitable. its how tech evolves. everything you saw in cyberpunk movies, and futuristic novels etc. those will eventually be a lifestyle. because those were coming from expectations. which DRIVES the developments.

Ok, hooking it up the rifle optic may be the killer app of VR headsets.

Wow! When you compared the price of investment to this tech to 2 Ford class carriers and the aircraft to boot...amazing stuff !

Are they hooked up to the optics/computer on the gun sight? Would be pretty effective to have a sight that compensates for drop that you could use while hunkered behind cover. Is it finally time for the future warrior? Surprised they can get it light enough to not need a supported neck guard to transfer weight to the chest rig. Even if it didn't do this, the training, navigation, and coordination advantages would be immense. Being able to designate targets for others, ping exact locations you want people or notice things, get visual confirmation on targets from other assets, and generally have more options to not expose your position in day/night operations will be fantastic. The extra weight and limited up-time in a non-conducive environment will add some restrictions. Also not super excited about people strapping energy packs to themselves where, you know, metal fragments can turn you into a dancing sparkler. Need a fast release or something for those batteries. Maybe they are light enough that a few drones can do a battery exchange out in the field to increase endurance.

Glad to have you back Alex, things supposedly went will with the medical stuff.

wouldn't it make more sense to compare this to the hololens? microsoft is the one that's been working on the IVAS' development. task and purpose did a decent piece on this. my school has tried using this for anatomy demos and it seems like its effectiveness depends on how good the model is. given how nauseous and dizzy it makes students in a calm/climate-controlled classroom, i'm not sure this can be widely implemented in combat. with how expensive it is and the challenges in ruggedizing it, i think it'll be a while before it sees significant fielding. I can see this going out to key leaders and personnel at the tactical, operational level like RTOs/FOs/JTACs coordinating fires, squad leaders and senior team leaders coordinating their movements, company and platoon leadership for command and control and coordinating with higher assets. but i don't know about PVT snuffy getting a set of these. he seems more likely to jerk off and get it pregnant than to use it in room clearing or good ol fashioned 1A. plus with all the shrapnel flying around these things will need to be damned tough to stand up to not just getting tossed around by users but the rigors of combat itself. couple that with the logistical need for even MORE batteries, maintenance techs, and replacement parts, well who let's just say there are a lot of hurdles to be addressed. i'm all for making us more lethal as a force but until these get WAY smaller and way more rugged, it's hard to see these going out en masse any time soon. at this point in development they seem more a hindrance than an asset, at least to the average joe, as fantastic as the potential for it may seem.

Great coverage... Thanks!

4:21 It most certainly does have that potential, Brother. On a wholly unrelated note, how long until you begin dropping AR content? 🙂

Great job on the video. I think the concensus right now is that it may be a little awkward to work with right now but the promise of it really is worth it. My comments are forward looking and may not reflect the current status of IVAS because I have used it. Training alone would be huge as the hardest part about conducting training is making it actually simulate combat. You always need some sort of opposition so training small elements like squads or platoons is relatively straight forward as you can just put those elements against each other. How do you effectively train a battalion or a brigade though? It becomes much more expensive to do so. It also allows you to simulate scenarios where you might be outnumbered much better. Having a squad train against a platoon of enemy fighters may be great training for the squad but you are basically wasting the time of an entire platoon to do so. This also really doesn't scale well. You may want to train where an entire company is outnumbered in your scenario but are you really going to waste the time of an entire battalion to do so? This gets rid of all those problems. This also fixes other training issues. Urban warfare is very common in modern wars but how do you train soldiers on it? Are you going to let a company of soldiers just go to the local mainstreet and practice? Of course not. Instead we build fake buildings and even small towns to practice on but those have very clear limits. They are usually pretty sparce because it doesn't make sense to furnish them or put windows in them that are just going to get broken even though you need to account for all of that in a real fight. They are also very expensive which means you share them with a lot of other units for training, sometimes even transporting units 100s of miles, just to use them. Lastly they are really hard to change. This means that it is very easy to get used to the layout of your local training building which is bad. You know where people hide. All of this can go away, potentially, with IVAS. Then we get onto actual war. It isn't just being able to see around corners and in the dark. You can share unit and enemy locations with other linked units. Think about how much easier it will be to do things like call in an airstrike or artillery support. How about submitting a 9 line medivac? What if they eventually are able to pair field medics with trauma surgeons virtually that could walk them through how to save someone's life? How about looking up weak points on the enemy tank that is infront of you with the built in database? Connecting with drones for surveilance? Showing the round arc when firing a m230 or a mk19? There really are a ton of options for where this can go.

Augmented reality like these is phenomenal for doing repair work you are not familiar with.

Why would you say Apple when it's literally Microsoft?

The US Army just chose General Dynamics and Rheinmetall as finalists for the 4000 Bradley replacement IFVs. Could you do a Firepower series video about this program, the two finalists and the other three that dropped out. Or more generally the current state of IFVs (Bradley, CV90, Puma, Lynx) and their most likely future. Maybe even including anti air IFVs like some CV90 variants and SkyRanger.

Could you imagine them using this to change what enemies look like so soldiers don't see all the blood and death of those that they kill but instead something else like robots, cartoony enemies, etc. no PTSD, however this can also be used for evil, like changing what people look like to become enemies, adding information that's not there to force them into situations for objective goals against people who aren't enemies. These things are the tip of the iceberg. It's super cool to have these capabilities, but we also need to ask ourselves: how can these be used against us?

Well, you've missed an important alternate use. Mix this with Boston Dynamics robotics, you could literally put soldiers in a warehouse and have them control the stronger, more agile, and more injury resistant robots to do most missions. That would make some parts of the infantry a little more like the drone units...THAT would change the game.

So that's why most weapons in scyfi movies don't have many scopes and gadgets on their rifles; everything's all built into their optics!

If only for the ability to give each soldier or Marine an integrated IFF system, that would potentially be game changing.

Thank you ALEX 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸👍

What I see right off in addition to the weight is the neglecting neck protection and shoulder support for its weight. They need to adapt like back packs supporting based on your hips. taking the stress off your back.

They could also be used in rehab of soldiers who've been injured I battle also,, or civilians etc also❤

Hmm wish you would have actually stated what the Army actual AR setup is based after, the old MS Surface platform now known as Hololens . The whole unit is based after MicroSoft's Surface AR platform and not Apples... Apple Vision Pro is similar to what MS had been doing with Surface in the early 2000s before they shelved the use of the name for AR and moved it over to a non AR touch-based computer platform.

Tried a hololens goggles in our print supplier. They were developing a holographic assist of telling you how to fix things. It was pretty awesome. Its like how you "scan" in games, the lens pretty much knows your surroundings and objects. Interfaces just float in front of you.

This won't be every fighter, but certainly every squad, and some spec ops groups. The real biggie isn't going to be the personal view of the battlefield, it'll be the ability of a soldier to mark a real world spot and have the kit work out his location, the location of the bad guys, and target a strike, with artillery, a drone, or conventional aircraft.

So what does this have to do with Apple? The Integrated Visual Augmentation System (IVAS) is an augmented reality headset being developed by Microsoft. So the civilian equivalent is the HoloLens. 🤔

Hey Alex I missed the update (if you posted one) how was the eye surgery?

One step closer to the Future Soldier glasses, YES!!!!

Peripheral vision and timely inactivation are the first two issues that come to mind. I can see it working great, but there will have to be a lot of repetitive user testing to get it right (which Alex mentioned the military doing). This is also going to cost A LOT of money to develop (EDIT: Yeah. Alex confirmed that, too.).

3:56 your desk is beautiful dude

that intro is sick

The computer is not built into the external battery on the Vision Pro. It’s in the headset itself, behind and around the lenses. That’s why it’s so heavy.

Very nice man! Keep it up! Team America!

Sandbox I follow Alex ... Fire power I am from I wish I see you here in Africa I love your military up date expertees

Great video. A counterpoint to the spend would be the army investing in bipedal robots with the same tech and or tele-operated. How many brigades could be outfitted?

Nice commercial. Practicing for the county fair circuit? Ward Carroll did note that Apple Vision would not work with his flight sim. rig (Win-Tel).

Small correction: the AVP battery is only a battery. The computer is within the headset itself. 10:34

im going to boot in may 6th. I want that 1.2 so i can try it out. Yes i know its heavy.

Will it be creating blind spots? It seems that it has clear sides for the periphery, but is the monitor "edgeless", or are they getting a blind spot similar to what you get in a car's windshield? Will putting that much extra weight on the head increase neck injuries in say car accidents or if the helmet catches a bullet? What level of latency are we looking at for the Army version? VR vertigo can be nasty.

Spatial computing is a truly transformative method of interacting with a computer but the tech has to improve drastically before it becomes common.

That is funny like I would buy a Chinese mug for $50 bucks

The IDF already has plans for Elbit's Iron Vision augmented crew vision system in the latest Merkava Mk.4 Barak MBT version.

This is Minority Report stuff. I got nauseous playing Walking Dead using the FB Oculus and I'm no stranger to first person games but this is an entirely different beast.

Someone's gotta be working on the Mission Impossible contact lense version...with Lv 3+ protection.

You'll need one of these

Getting the microsoft software update mid fight would be crazyyyyy... 😂😂

Amazing.....Alex🇺🇸

I’m curious to know if they ever did a simulated battle of soldiers with the headset vs ones without in a direct conflict.

Pretty sure I saw reports a while back about how unacceptable this was for the needs of the soldiers that would be using it.

Assisted hive mind with perception management tech makes sense

I figured a Apple Vision Pro as a gun sight would be amazing. Just put a camera on the gun and link it to the headset. You could integrate all kinds of tech like infrared and nightvision and object and facial recognition tech.

How are they going to prevent sweat and moisture from getting on the lens?

2:03 I am Alex Holling, and this is vision power : )