Steve Mann created a prototype yeeaarrss ago that looks incredible, but no one has taken it to the commercial stage yet: http://wearcam.org/mannventions-password-stefanosmannaz13/ma...
I suppose people making the decisions (i.e. with the money to invest into such things) are not doing the welding.
This makes me pissed off, it reminds me of my time where "stake holders" would not let me work on simplifying the systems I was charged with maintaining mostly out of fear of something going wrong, but really because it was cheaper for them to pay me to suffer through that shoddy system and all I could really do about it was quit, which I did eventually. where is that startup now? acquired by a bigger one.
But there are real, and pratical use cases out there done by smaller companies in specialized fields. The issue lies in creating something with mainstream appeal, which I do agree with you, that's a whole other story.
It wasn't totally clear, but it looks like Mount Sinai might be using Microsoft hololens.
It does seem like John Hopkins has something interesting.
I am not saying it is impossible, but I certainly would not say I was "surprised" Miller welding has not developed full AR glasses for welding. AR is hard and this is early days.
That being said, I'd imagine the active circuitry required to capture and process the images in realtime (or 30fps, in this case) is expensive and bulkier than what's currently used. Processing stereoscopic 2048x2048 HDR streams is no easy task, you'd basically be looking at a VR helmet once you consider where to put battery and compute unit.
It's a cool invention, but probably one of those "analog computer" ideas that's harder to scale/apply than the cheaper alternatives.
And any processing bulk could be belt worn or even sitting on the ground connected by a cable: you're already tethered to the welder and buffer gas tank after all!
idk if thermal would be that useful for steel, especially if you can clearly resolve the boundary of the melt pool - but for high conductivity metals like copper and aluminum, it might be a real godsend. the problem with these is that since they wick heat away, you need to build up the temperature of the whole piece until its close to melting, and then just push it over with the arc. its pretty common to take it too far and have a big section of work turn into a slaggy mess.
I could see a solution that provided off bore data/feedback but that could probably be managed with a mini led projector or just leds since it's so dark already.
To me the holy grail of AR would be expert level overlays for construction or repair jobs. If I could wear AR glasses and see part removal order, torque specs, and reassembly order I could do any mechanical repair job, provided I have the tools.
What would really help welders would be actual augmented reality welding - like you have a monitor in your helmet which shows you the environment in normal daylight with high contrast and also shows you the puddle under the arc in normal daylight with high contrast - but doesn't show you the blinding bright arc itself (instead it shows a convenient indicater for where the arc hits the surface and whether you are too near or too far from the surface with the gun).
Basically welding as if you had eyes capable of filtering out the bright arc without any reduction of contrast or brightness anywhere else. For extra satisfaction add some microstabilization to the gun, so it can help you keep the tungsten needle at the optimal distance to the surface despite your hands becoming more jittery as you age.