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Google Glass is Dead; Long Live Google Glass

This next bit of news is no surprise to me.

After years of research and development and two years of limited sales, Google announced today that it are ending sales of its heads up display, Google Glass.

The project is being promoted out of the Google(X) labs and placed under Nest founder and CEO Tony Fadell. Ivy Ross will continue to run the day-to-day operations of the Glass organization, which it appears is now part of Nest.

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from a Museum of the Future …

But most importantly:

As part of this transition, we’re closing the Explorer Program so we can focus on what’s coming next. January 19 will be the last day to get the Glass Explorer Edition. In the meantime, we’re continuing to build for the future, and you’ll start to see future versions of Glass when they’re ready.

I don’t want to sound like I have 20-20 hindsight, but I’m not surprised that they’re ending sales, and I don’t expect Google Glass to ever be available again.

One of the posts I had been planning to write for CES focused on Google Glass. Last year it was incredibly common, this year not so much.

When I say that at CES 2014 I could look across the crowd and see a dozen Google Glass (or more) being worn, I am not exaggerating; it really was that common.

This year, not so much. I rarely saw more than a single Google Glass at a time. While that is not by any means a thorough market research effort, it does tell me that the rich techies who can afford Google Glass bought it and then stopped using it.

That kind of an adoption and abandonment rate is startling to say at the least; can you imagine if all those techies had decided to abandon their tablets? Their smartphones? I cannot picture it, and yet I saw for myself that the Google Glass came and went, with most of the discarded wearables relegated to the closet or CraigsList.

Speaking of which, I can see several listings for Google Glass on CraigsList right now; the asking price is under $900, far below the retail price of $1,500. The prices are even cheaper on Ebay.

Android Central

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Daily Links: Schedule tabs to open and more | The eBook Evangelist January 15, 2015 um 5:11 pm

[…] Google Glass is Dead; Long Live Google Glass (Digital Reader) […]


The Commons January 15, 2015 um 5:34 pm

I’m not surprised that they’re ending sales

I’m not surprised either. Know why? Because literally less than half a year after Google Glass was announced, Texas Instruments abruptly announced that they would be ending support for their low-power chips in mobile devices. No one else had a suitable chip for the product, so Google was stuck spinning its wheels.

By the time that Glass got into people’s hands, the chip (and thus TI’s support for it) had been dead for over six months. That’s part of the reason why it was stranded on Android 4 for the longest time, and why Android 4.4 sucked so much on it. Frankly I’m surprised they continued selling it for this long.

This is why the fact Intel is working with Google on Intel’s low-power chips (which was revealed back in Decemeber) is so important. You need an actively-supported chip to to do any real development with it.

Nate Hoffelder January 15, 2015 um 5:51 pm

In that case, I would not have gone for a wide release with this model, but ibsted tarted working on the next.

The Commons January 15, 2015 um 6:01 pm

The hype train had already left the station, and they needed a bigger test pool anyway. What they should have done ended sales exactly a year after people started getting Glass. Would have been much easier PR-wise.

Nate Hoffelder January 16, 2015 um 5:50 am

Yes. In that case I would not be able to point to a couple CESes where everyone had them and no one had them.


anothername January 15, 2015 um 10:11 pm

I figured the product was junked because it lacked general appeal.


inkstain January 16, 2015 um 3:24 am

Google Glass failed because it made the wearer look like a Walking Tech Victim, a doofus who had so little self-respect for his/her own brain, they needed to attach an artificial chip to their head so that they could 'experience' their own life.

It was the very epitome of Not Cool. Sort of like attaching an Iphone to your nose.


anothername January 16, 2015 um 11:42 am

Coming next: Stick a microchip up your butt.

Nate Hoffelder January 16, 2015 um 12:08 pm

The iButt ™: Where no Chip Has Gone Before. Due out in spring 2017.


Greg Strandberg January 16, 2015 um 12:04 pm

Anyone who bought a Nintendo Virtual Boy back in the 90s saw this coming.

Nate Hoffelder January 16, 2015 um 4:51 pm

Yeah, I didn’t see the point of that either.


Sony's Smart Glasses Will make you Look Twice as Nerdy as Google Glass at Half the Cost ⋆ Ink, Bits, & Pixels February 17, 2015 um 9:49 pm

[…] Glass may have been shoved in a closet, but that doesn't mean Google's competitors have similarly given up. Earlier today Sony revealed […]


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