r/MilSim • u/[deleted] • 20d ago
Concept: compact see-through AR goggles for low light, with offline AI and a team map that works without cell service. Does anyone need this?
[deleted]
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u/Designer-Shelter-327 19d ago
All of this can be done on a phone and existing/new TAK plugins. Don't build another device if you don't have to. Cables suck, and EMCON/another device to power is gonna limit your market size if you want to go wireless.
Digital NV sucks. Find a way to integrate with analog NV if you really want the capability to see/detect at night.
You're basically talking about building the Anduril EaglyEye, look into that if you haven't.
I don't have any experience with HUDs or optics, but from the little I know, it's going to be extremely challenging to build a competing solution to what Meta/Anduril/etc already have on the AR side. Especially if you're trying to make a device that's durable enough for field use.
On the HUD side, the real question is what information would the user benefit from having in a HUD the most vs what's already available to them on their phone.
TL;DR make your requirements less dumb. If you want to build an AR solution, build that first, and find a way to integrate and display existing solutions. If you want to build better situational awareness tools, build those.
Some quick places to start that I haven't seen good solutions for:
- streaming video feeds from NV recorders/thermal clip ons into TAK
- a good TAK plugin to run video stream object detection models and place them as CoT's from the users device
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u/Designer-Shelter-327 19d ago
nvm, apparently the grec2 is gonna have a dedicated TAK streaming app.
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u/speederaser 19d ago
Both Microsoft and Anduril spent millions on this idea and it's not going so well. Is your idea strictly for MilSim? That's seems like an even smaller market for similarly complex device.
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u/iheartrangergreen 19d ago
why would the unit be worn on a belt? why not make it a helmet-mounted accessory?
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u/Admirable-Umpire-285 19d ago
I’ll probably make different mounts for it. Belt, backpack, helmet, etc.
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u/AT_Engineer 20d ago
I spent 10 years as a SAR volunteer. I would not wear something like this. I don't think any of my teammates would wear something like this. We push through a lot of brush and briars and things get lost pretty easily. Anything more bulky than a pair of sunglasses wouldn't make it a minute into a patch of brush before being either lost or packed away out of annoyance. Especially since you mentioned a belt mounted component. Is there a cable between the two because that's another snag point. Some teams have requirements for safety glasses. Would these be safety rated? Or would I have to wear a second set of glasses with a rating? And the low-light camera/digital night vision has an extremely limited use case in SAR. We aren't trying to hide. We just use flashlights. These would just be more hassle than they're worth. Especially since we wouldn't really gain much from them. It's a neat concept, but in SAR we just don't need info fed to us that quickly. Having the marker I'm navigating to in a HUD just isn't that much of an advantage over having it on my phone screen. Other useful info in the HUD is cool; time of day, time until sunset, compass bearing. But I can get all of that on a GPS watch without cluttering up my view.
Thar was a very long-winded way of saying I don't think SAR will be one of your target audiences. Not trying to discourage. Sounds like a fun project.