I think that the problems you mentioned are either obvious (clearly being on always will reduce battery life) or just require better design: if the device is distracting, it needs to be adjusted so that it isn't (as an example, it could usually be pass-through displaying only a tiny information panel out of the line of sight like Glass, and only expanding over the whole field when some special feature is activated. Being artificially limited to never being an overlay isn't better than being able to be both an overlay and also just an info panel.)
The author posits that Google placed the screen out of the line of sight to avoid vision misalignment and misadjustment problems.
(Also, the eyestrain due to focus distances was mentioned, and apparently solved by using an "aremac": a pinhole camera in reverse which means the video is focused at every distance.)
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I think that the problems you mentioned are either obvious (clearly being on always will reduce battery life) or just require better design: if the device is distracting, it needs to be adjusted so that it isn't (as an example, it could usually be pass-through displaying only a tiny information panel out of the line of sight like Glass, and only expanding over the whole field when some special feature is activated. Being artificially limited to never being an overlay isn't better than being able to be both an overlay and also just an info panel.)
The author posits that Google placed the screen out of the line of sight to avoid vision misalignment and misadjustment problems.
(Also, the eyestrain due to focus distances was mentioned, and apparently solved by using an "aremac": a pinhole camera in reverse which means the video is focused at every distance.)
The author actually says that Google's design creates eyestrain by requiring viewing at a fixed focal distance.