Indeed, I find it mildly painful to look at IR emitters, for example, on a "night vision" security camera. I don't believe it is dangerous or will blind anyone, or anything, but it is plausible to me that there could be an unanticipated effect.

EDIT: It appears that this is given a passing mention in the article:

. . . it can receive at a wavelength of 1550 nanometers, deep in the infrared part of the spectrum. That makes this wavelength much safer for human eyes than today’s standard wavelength, 905 nm.