Google Glass - Dead, but not buried

Last month Google announced that they would be ceasing sales of Google Glass in its current form. This was announced by some commentators as “The death of Google Glass”, or proof that Glass had failed but closer inspection suggests this is not the whole story.

When Google initially released the Glass Explorer programme in April 2013, it was by invitation only in limited numbers. The intention was that it would be a testing stage, allowing use in the real world to help inform the development of the product itself and for third party developers to create apps for Glass. In May 2014 Glass was made available to all developers (or anyone else with $1,500 to spare) but this was still very much a development release, not a full commercial launch. This testing stage raised some clear barriers to widespread adoption; most notably social rejection based on how the product looks and how the wearer is perceived, a short battery life and a lack of clear usage occasions to make users choose to use it over their smartphone or tablet. The problem for Google has been that due to their size and popularity in the new age of online information, what was a quite normal development stage for smaller tech companies (successfully proved by the Oculus Rift development kit) was re-packaged by some parts of the media into a full commercial launch. They were quick to identify barriers and have taken the end of this stage as sign of failure, rather than the natural end of a testing process. In the future large tech companies need to account for this and think very carefully about how any beta testing is conducted so that this process is not misrepresented.

The announcement earlier this month signalled an end to this testing stage and a move towards developing the product into something ready for the general consumer. Google are moving the Glass project away from Google X division and making it a standalone project. This move is an indication that rather than abandoning the idea, they intend to further develop it and overcome the identified barriers. From our experience with product development and internal experiments with wearable tech as a research tool, this is a very wise move. Wearable tech is appealing to users and technical problems like battery life and aesthetics will eventually be resolved, but the biggest barrier is finding the holy grail of any technology: a clear usage occasion.

For those of us of a certain age, hearing the barriers to Google Glass may well ring bells. When mobile phones first started to appear in the hands (or briefcases) of city types in the 80’s they were roundly scoffed at; “Who on earth would pay that much for a phone!”, “It will never catch on!”. Early mobile-phones were bulky, inefficient and very expensive but slowly as the technology moved forward and mobiles started to make their way into the hands of the general public, they evolved in to something more than just a phone; changing many aspects of the way we live, not just the way we communicate. So what changed?

Although the initial execution was not perfect, the user benefit was clear, and small additions to the original concept overcame the initial barriers and gave users something unique; phones got smaller, SMS gave an alternative way of communicating, and eventually games, cameras and web access helped it make the jump from novelty to something really different. Wearable tech is still in this early stage where people can see it has something to offer; but are not entirely sure what that is. The only way to overcome this is to further invest in the development and testing of the things that will set it apart; those killer apps or functions that turn it from a nice to have, into a must have. There are already some positive signs that this could happen, with some third party Glass apps that offer something unique and perfectly suited to the Glass technology. Captioning on Glass, an app that turns speech into text in front of your eyes offers a real benefit to the hard of hearing, and KitchMe allows recipes to be read whilst cooking without getting sticky fingers all over your phone, tablet, or recipe book.

Although apps like these alone are not enough to make the average consumer spend $1500, it is a step in the right direction and shows that the potential is there to make something really special. It seems that this is not lost on Google, and their decision to continue with the project is a clear sign that they have identified some future potential and that the naysayers may have written their epitaphs too early.