My two-week review of Google Glass: it all depends on the price

Interesting he feels so strongly about that... but then again, he always kinda does. Not sure what to make of it. I used to follow Scoble's blog back when he was evangelizing for Microsoft, but he's abandoned his mediums so often and so vociferously that I sort of lost track. Is Google Plus his latest platform now?<p>Personally, I'm consciously trying _not_ to get stuck with a single company's ecosystem, so a lot of the advantages Scoble mentions simply don't relate to me. But then again, I never really ventured past search and Gmail... is the rest of Google's services really that good to justify buying into?

Link to the desktop version of this post: <a href="https://plus.google.com/111091089527727420853/posts/ZLV9GdmkRzS" rel="nofollow">https://plus.google.com/111091089527727420853/posts/ZLV9Gdmk...</a>

Some observations:<p>From what he wrote it seems to me like he only gauged the reactions of technically-oriented people. Of course tech people are going to be pretty excited about this, more-so than the average Joe.<p>He also seems to feel very very strongly about this. I don't think many people feel the same strength of opinion towards Glass.<p>He's right about the price. If they could cut it down to subsidized-smartphone levels, people will be more open to trying it.<p>It's certainly cool and most people will probably think so (hence everyone wanting to check it out), but thinking it's cool and actually incorporating it in daily life is very different. Of course Robert is an early adopter so he was more open to the notion of having something like that on his face at all times, but I don't think many people will be as open to it.<p>He notes that its a more social device because you don't have to look away to use it. Well, I've also tried Glass and you do have to look up and to the right to use the device. The actual display is in your peripherals so if someone is talking to you and you wanted to use Glass, they would most certainly notice because your eyes would drift to your peripherals. I don't think it'll be too different from pulling out your phone from a politeness standpoint.

I appreciate this review, and I agree with him 100% on the price point. Had I been in the audience I wouldn't raise my hand till $200-300 either ($1500 is almost comically absurd). But at the same time, I'm gonna wait no matter what till it does more. A head mounted camera (which seems to make up the bulk of the advertising use-cases for it) just isn't important to me...at all.<p>I think the head mounted navigation stuff could be very useful, but I can barely get my Android phone to understand spoken address searches right now, and I don't mind having it shout out directions to me. I'm not sure I need to pay a few hundred bucks to get the directions up on my face.<p>The one thing that I hope somebody creates an app for is a quick barcode/item scanner and price lookup app. Just tell me what the best price is for an item I'm looking at and where I can get it. I've tried a few phone apps for this, but the experience is atrocious.<p>But is it worth $200-300 for those limited use cases? I dunno. I really am going to wait and see.

How can you possibly say that you aren't willing to spend more than $200 dollars, but would wear it on your face every single day? People pay more than that for sunglasses which provide no functional utility above the $5 sunglasses.

Hrm. I find that wearing things that aren't strictly necessary irritates me. I don't even like watches, let alone some thing attached to my face. When I raced bikes, I ended up dumping the annoying heart rate monitor too as I did not like having this <i>thing</i> strapped to me. Phones work pretty well as they're just along for the ride, like a wallet or keys, and don't constrain me.

Couple of questions for those with Glass:<p>Do they work with eyes older than 40 - those that can't focus within 18 inches without multi-diopter help? These folks still have money to burn.<p>How about astigmatism? Makes for interesting curves rotating my progressives. Dptical artifacts on two axes!<p>Will they be snatched off your face like apple gear has been grabbed at times. High value, small package. Easy to fence if google doesn't have or use a kill switch.<p>Price will be an issue. My glasses already cost 400-700 usd depending on where I get them. This assumes I can get prescription Glass...

I don't see why people think google are going to struggle to get this out for $200.<p>It is essentially galaxy nexus hardware without cell phone modem, a much smaller battery, and a small LCOS display instead of the large 720p AMOLED one. Yes, there will be higher non-recurring engineering costs with glass- fitting it into such a small space- but if they plan to go fairly mainstream these costs shouldn't cause too much of an impact on the unit device cost. Once you get into mass manufacturing, the marginal cost of making another one should be quite a bit lower than a current smartphone; as they are eliminating or massively reducing the cost of many of the major components.<p>If we look at google's track record, they haven't shown much desire to become a hardware company (that is, make the bulk of profits from selling hardware). Taking into account what google have been willing to price the nexus 4 at, with better hardware all round, I believe google are definitely capable of doing $200 unsubsidised if they want to. I can see $99 possible in the future.

I just read this and this (1) and together they paint an interesting picture, though I'm with the TC author on this one. I hope they're very akward to use and very much like the Segway in popularity. If they're worn in public and are recording, I want a large, unmistakable red light to come on. Even so, I'm pretty sure people who record without permission will get roughed up on more than one occassion, if not just pushed.<p>On the flip side, recording activity or family-based events (ie, going down a mountain at Tahoe, or your kid taking his/her first steps) and having hands-free internet is pretty cool.<p>1 - <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/26/eric-schmidt-is-right-using-google-glasses-is-weird-heres-my-experience/" rel="nofollow">http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/26/eric-schmidt-is-right-using...</a>

<i>The success of this totally depends on price. Each audience I asked at the end of my presentations "who would buy this?" As the price got down to $200 literally every hand went up. At $500 a few hands went up. This was consistent, whether talking with students, or more mainstream, older audiences.</i><p>$500 standalone and $200 with some kind of carrier contract? (or is glass meant to be an accessory to a phone? maybe the battery would be inadequate to take on many of the phone features?)

Wasn't Robert Scoble The Great Antihyper? Everything he hypes will eventually fail?

It's funny, the whole post is about how nice those glasses are and how amazing. But I cannot really see <i>why</i> they are useful. If I understand the OP correctly, it features the same functions as a cell phone but without ads and being more social. I think he misses the point, staring at a cell-phone every 10 seconds is not non-social because of the looking away but because of the permanent distraction. It's a sign of politeness to be 100% focussed when talking to someone else.<p>I think I'll buy them if they are below $200 but I won't use them much. Watching Terminator is much cooler anyway ;)

I've had the chance to try them a few months ago, and my only concern with them (while cool), was that they would suffer the same fate as either: bluetooth hands-free kits (aka douchebagy), or segway (aka dorky).<p>The only killer app I think is driving directions, that was nice.

I find it interesting that social cues like flipping the glasses up while in the bathroom are becoming normal.

&#62; 1. I will never live a day of my life from now on without it (or a competitor).<p>This seems like a massive statement.

&#62; I believe Larry Page is moving Google from an advertising-based company to a commerce based company.<p>What planet is this guy on? Google's product has always been eyeballs. This is just the most direct manifestation of it.

I hope Google improves the camera by the time they release the consumer version. I saw the demo from Engadget editor, and the video seemed a little too shaky for my taste. It needs OIS, or something to make the video recording much more stable. This is even more important than in a smartphone, because you're moving your head a lot more. So Google should really prioritize this. I would also make it a lot better in low-light, and maybe even give it a flash for night shots and so on.<p>Voice will need to be flawless, so if voice recognition depends on how fast the processor is, then they need to put the fastest one in there (maybe a quad core Cortex A57 at 20nm, for efficiency, too).<p>They also need to keep working on the design, and make future generations as minimal as possible, and as "cool" looking as possible. They need to keep improving on this.

This is hard to read. And when I switch to the desktop version, Google wants me to log in. WTF?

"Also, Google is forbidding advertising in apps. This is a HUGE shift for Google's business model. I believe Larry Page is moving Google from an advertising-based company to a commerce based company."<p>Does anybody think this is their permanent stance? I certainly don't.

Why is the picture quality so bad?

I'm actually pretty curious how this will fit for people who already wear glasses or some kind of eyewear. Will there be prescription Google Glass(es)? That could shoot the price way up, especially if Google is the only merchant for them. Who will make the lenses for me? Could I get my favorite glasses merchant to make my glasses, or will I be forced to get a $700 special prescription pair from Google? Maybe people with poor eyesight could never wear them at all?<p>I am completely on board with the product and hope for its success--but I am convinced that the entire product is merely the first iteration that will eventually make way for contact lenses, which will be the true long-term viable version of this product. Right now, Google Glass will be good for gathering information not only about the world around us as we already do with smartphones, but for understanding how customers and developers would begin to use such a product--and then applying that information towards improvement in what will ultimately be lenses.

I think part of Scoble's enthusiasm must derive from the fact that he is an always connected person who travels, networks,communicates as his job. Nothing he describes sounded that great, but if you are online all the time while moving then I can see it. I'd like to be online less, and try to experience the world unmediated.

I would be hesitant to talk to anyone wearing the google glass about any controversial subject matter. Big brother really is watching you... As for price, if google thinks it can make money off of it, the price will indeed be $200 or so.

I wonder what will happen when Google Glass goes consumer for Explorer upgrades. When Google released the Nexus One, I hopped on board and was satisfied until I went through two recovery requests on the power button. Google Glass is quite a chunk of change. I understand the value in their utility and scarcity, but come time when Google releases the Glasses at a consumer prices, I hope not to be disappointed by the same feeling of getting left behind.<p>Does anybody know if and what upgrade options will be available for Google Explorers when they release the consumer version?

I don't think that Google has done a good job of explaining what it does. As of right now, it just seems like a second screen for my phone. My reaction to it reminds me of the reaction to the iPad, but in reverse -- the tech-minded folk were confused while the average joe was excited.<p>I do think it is cool tech and probably the next logical step in personal computing, I'm just at the wait-and-see stage. Mainly waiting to see if there will be competition and what everyone will do with it.

What review? I read this and other than saying he won't live without it he doesn't say what makes it amazing. The price point discussion is nice but I don't understand why I would want one. I can see for vacation to take videos to share with my family bu I don't get why it's amazing. Am I going to read my Facebook feed on it? What am I going to do with it other than pictures? Give me details!!

Isn't it clear that, as with any electronics product, price will go down over time? So even if they launch at $500, in a few years there will be a version for $200. So the question might be more how strongly they want to boost adoption at launch. And this could be a product that actually needs a slower adoption, to get people used to it.

I was surprised at how low quality the photos taken by Glass are. Is that the planned camera for rollout?

Are there any Glass users around here? I have a basic question. Can the wearer see a video? I ask because I've seen captured video, still images of ... still images, etc. ;-) Conceptually, video is similar but I want to verify that video playback is in there.

I just hope the voice commands are going to be <i>significantly</i> better than on Android now. Whilst they are much better than anything else, I still don't find them actually usable, and I'm a Brit with an average voice.

<a href="http://www.google.com/glass/start/what-it-does/" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/glass/start/what-it-does/</a><p>The next step is a brain computer interface so you don't even have to say commands out loud.

Dying to read a whole bunch of reviews from non-techie people. For the time being I can't help but feel like this thing demos well to many geeks.

I love apple products but at 200$ willing to buy one for my whole family.<p>I would like map app prebuilt on it

Unrelated sidenote: Posted the exact same thing about half an hour earlier (<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5617110" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5617110</a>) but didnt get an upvote. Not that i care since i rarely submit new stuff, but HN is strange sometimes ;)

"I believe Larry Page is moving Google from an advertising-based company to a commerce based company."<p>Maybe I'm not reading this sentence right, but isn't it quite obvious that Page is doing the quite opposite?

interested in working on a Google Glass product/app....ping me if anyone's working on anything or has any ideas?<p>james@livcard.com

To be honest his first observation felt absurd, so much that I dared not read further of the post.<p>Sometime ago I chanced upon one of his posts and it had the same mood - an attempt be voracious and fanatic about sth even though he would be actually sounding extortionately absurd.

I have no doubt Microsoft are working on their own glasses, so maybe I'll hold out for that.<p>I jumped from Google's ecosystem to Microsoft and I'm totally happy with the Outlook.com/Skydrive/Office trifecta. The Windows Phone 8 is awesome and integrates nicely with Windows 8 OS. Even Bing has strengths that Google search can't touch.<p>Internet Explorer 10 is almost tolerable.<p>So yeah, lets see what Microsoft brings to the party.