this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2024
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It’s very dangerous to focus your vision four inches in front of your face while driving. It also takes a second to switch from distance vision to being focused so close, which undermines the whole “at a glance” value of a HUD. Race cars have instrument panels pushed as far away from the driver’s face as possible to make the focal length changes inside your eye easier and faster to switch between. A helmet HUD is the extreme opposite of that.
That is not an issue with anything that is supposed to act as a HUD, as they project the image in such a way that it looks to be further away. They have to, because humans are terrible at looking at something that close to their eyes anyway.
Google Glass for example projected it so that the image looked like it was 2.5 meters away from your face.
I'm really curious what the Google Glass concept would be like with modern technology. I feel like the form factor was poisoned from the backlash at the time, but it seems so much more viable than the stupid bulky headsets.
Lensing. BMW HUDs bounce off a few curved mirrors before reflecting off the windshield so some key details appear 30ft in front of the car. Meanwhile, VR goggles have the screen unfocusably close but due to lenses inside, objects can appear any distance away (and it's not just parallax, there's near and far focus)
My Cadillac has a video display as a rear view mirror and it has that issue. With a traditional rear view mirror your focal length doesn't change much, but in my car your focus has to shift to the mirror 2 feet away.
It has upsides though, as passengers or objects in the rear seat don't affect your mirror view.
Whenever I change vehicles it takes a few minutes to readjust.
What if the helmet had a camera that projected it's view along with the hud? You might lose some depth perception but at least you could see the road while looking at the HUD.
Now you’re talking about mix reality VR. Like driving with an Apple Vision Pro on. The technology isn’t good enough for this yet. Maybe someday.