But it doesn't do that, it just alerts you when you face north.... the rest of the time, you'll have no idea if your east, south or west... I would assume you'd have an always-present general force towards the North to make sure you always know your orientation; this is not like that; it just alerts you whenever you happen to face North.

Yeah, but when you are getting hints about direction of North while moving around, you'll subconsciously be aware of orientation all the time. Your spatial orientation would improve dramatically.

For me this looks too bulky and inconvenient to actually use.

This is my understanding as well. There are tribal groups of people even today whose communication depends largely on cardinal directions. They don't use the concept of left or right, they use a cardinal direction. As a result, they are always aware of which direction they are facing. This implant would be essentially training you to do the same, and possibly wouldn't even be needed eventually.

Alright, I can see the appeal for hikers and long walkers, urban explorers, and a whole subset of hobbyists that I didn't appreciate before. Thanks for the interesting read, and the context.