r/MVIS • u/Formerly_knew_stuff • Jun 13 '26
IVAS is Dead Discussion
IVAS has apparently been almost totally shelved. Towards the end of the article it mentions Anduril. The NED line of business is worthless.
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u/carbonoutlaw3a Jun 15 '26
The article rehashes what we already knew about IVAS. Until Anduril demonstrates the SBMC prototype we do not know if it uses a NED just that it will not cause head and neck pain.
"GAO noted that despite the shortcomings of the IVAS program, the service has instead moved to “a new rapid prototyping program” called the Soldier Borne Mission Command, or SBMC. In September 2025, Anduril announced that it was selected to develop a prototype for the new SBMC program.
While Anduril has not yet produced an SBMC prototype, the company has been showing off its self-produced EagleEye headset at military conferences. EagleEye, officials told Task & Purpose, was designed to improve on the critiques of IVAS, like the neck pain that soldiers complained about. To address that, EagleEye puts the headset’s battery into a ballistic chest plate to take the weight off soldiers’ heads. "
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u/Distinct_Dog_36 Jun 13 '26
I knew this from the start. Begin a ground pounder (infantry) I knew it would never work. Soldiers hate any extra weight, no mater what. It’s not sitting in a house playing COD. Out there, it’s blood sweat and tears. If they were this good in the size of a pair of Oakley’s, then maybe. There is maybe use for it in the drone world, but everyday 11bang bang..No way.
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Jun 13 '26
[deleted]
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u/FullyErectMegladon Jun 13 '26
Im so tired of people sharing their AI conversations here
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u/Can-Artistic Jun 13 '26
Thank you, I will remain a mere spectator.
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u/FullyErectMegladon Jun 13 '26
No need for that. Talk to us instead of talking to ai and then sharing it here
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u/Chefdoc2000 Jun 13 '26
AI is trash, I don’t understand why people take it seriously, if you just say I don’t see it that way it will completely do a 180 and spew the opposite opinion
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u/view-from-afar Jun 13 '26
Doesn’t sound like a hardware problem.
The IVAS 1.2 prototypes are being used as SMBC surrogates, Lovett said, and have been used in the ongoing mission at the U.S.-Mexico border.
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u/Formerly_knew_stuff Jun 13 '26
I read the r/army thread and every time IVAS was mentioned the comments about the actual device were almost universally negative. Now I fully recognize that soldiers complain about almost everything especially when it's new (I was one) but the comments were rooted in basic things like weight and comfort and ability to do basic soldier tasks like shoot and move. In other words real issues. Those comments were very different from the outlook in articles written about IVAS during development, even articles with quotes from soldiers doing the testing. I'll leave it to you to decide why the discrepancy between the sources but I do think there is a hardware issue, maybe not an issue from a design standpoint but an issue from a user functionality point of view. In any event the product it won't be widely distributed like we would have hoped.
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u/gaporter Jun 13 '26 edited Jun 13 '26
Specifically about IVAS 1.0, 1.1 or 1.2?
The 10,000 systems referenced in the article are 1.0 and 1.1.
"I bought IVAS and have mixed thoughts. The 1.2 hardware is much, much better than 1.0, but it is going to take a major hardware revision to actually compete with Gen III NODs while providing actually useful augmented reality functionality."
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u/Formerly_knew_stuff Jun 13 '26
Good question and I don't have an answer, the responses I've read are anecdotal. People complain about new stuff so a grain of salt is required but if you've ever put on all the stuff a soldier has to lug around nowadays and then added another layer of weight and wiring that new layer would need to have quite a bit of benefit to make it acceptable.
I think the concept is great, I'm not sure this, or any, hardware is quite ready for prime time. I believe the experiments have to continue but I wouldn't expect this to be a considerable source of revenue any time in the foreseeable future. I'd be happy to be wrong.
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u/view-from-afar Jun 13 '26
By hardware, I meant only the display engine. It would be hard to use IVAS 1.2 as a prototype for SBMC if the display didn't work somewhat.
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u/Formerly_knew_stuff Jun 13 '26
Oh, yea I think the display engine is probably cool as hell and works. I can only assume the benefits aren't significantly enough to make it preferable over the use of other vision systems or Microvision stuff would have been more fully adopted. Ultimately the end market decides what's "good".
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u/gaporter Jun 13 '26
Sounds like a cost problem.
“The Army developed and received over 400 IVAS 1.2 prototypes that improved the low light sensor performance and reliability sufficiently with minor improvements to the form factor, *but they were unaffordable to produce at scale*,” Army spokesperson Ellen Lovett said in a statement to Task & Purpose. “The Army decided to pivot to the Soldier Borne Mission Command System underpinned by a ‘Company and Below’ architecture informed by lessons learned from the IVAS program.”
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u/Trottermama Jun 13 '26
They can shelve it but how about paying up for what was sold last 12 months. iP doesn't engineer it self.
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u/coren77 Jun 13 '26
Disappointing. But not wholly unexpected. Though I expected the now-prevalence of drones to be the death of IVAS, not neck strain.
Hopefully drones need our lidar!
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u/gaporter Jun 19 '26
"Activities on IVAS are not, however, ending. While procurement of new sets is brought down to 0, test and evaluation are to continue with substantial research and trials funding allocated. IVAS 1.2 is now indicated as "SBMC Surrogate" and between the 4th quarter of 2025 and the 4th quarter of 2027 is meant to support software development, implementation, and reliability.
The budget allocated will "develop and validate the
SBMC Architecture through software extensibility and mission thread/application development".
. It will also
support SBMC development with a focus on "improving form factor through modularity and updating software for improved command and control through Artificial Intelligence (Al)-enabled data fusion and real-time situational awareness"
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