Google Glass: Die before its ambitions are fulfilled?

Recently, Google plans to close its four Basecamp retail stores that sell Google Glass in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and London. The official explanation given by Google is that most users purchase Google Glass online or over the phone and get technical support, so there is no need for physical stores. So is the reality really as reasonable and optimistic as Google's official explanation? Or is there another omen?

As the pioneer of wearable devices, Google released Google Project Glass two years ago. It is mainly composed of a wide computer on the right side of the frame and a micro display above the right eye. Users do not need to use their hands, but only need to give voice commands to Google Glass to make it perform a series of tasks such as making and receiving calls, taking photos and recording videos, sending and receiving emails, checking weather, maps and navigation.

But to this day, the glasses that were once considered cool by Google and the industry have not made any waves in the market. On the contrary, since the beginning of this year, they have not only been repeatedly criticized by the industry, but even Google itself seems to have lost its enthusiasm. For example, at the Google I/O Developer Conference held this year, Google did not mention Google Glass at all. In this regard, some industry insiders believe that Google has shifted its wearable device strategy from the previous glasses to smart watches. So why has Google Glass not made any substantial progress after two years of release?

First of all, the price is high. It is said that the price of Google Glass is as high as 1,500 US dollars, but through the disassembly of Google Glass by a professional consumer electronic device disassembly website, its overall cost is only between 80 and 100 US dollars. We don’t know why Google set the price of its glasses at such a high price? At least it is far higher than its own cost. Although some people in the industry say that the reason why Google set the price of its glasses so high is because Google believes that its glasses technology and applications are not mature yet, and it does not want it to enter the mass market as soon as possible. Instead, it hopes that developers will own and improve it before letting it enter the mass market. Maybe Google’s idea makes sense, but from the perspective of development and application, the performance of Google Glass is not satisfactory. The specific performance is that the number of applications is too small, and developers seem to be moving away from Google Glass. Do we think that the high-price strategy of Google Glass is a failure? (It has not achieved its purpose from the perspective of attracting users or developers)

Speaking of the applications for Google Glass, let's not talk about quality and practicality, just in terms of quantity, it is not even as many as the applications for the smart watches based on Google's Android Wear system that were released later (it is said that there are more than 100 applications at present). In comparison, Google Glass currently only has Google's customized applications for Gmail, Google Now, Google, Google Calendar, YouTube and Hangouts, as well as applications for Facebook, Twitter and several newspapers, a total of only 83 applications, but from actual use, it seems that only Google Maps is really useful.

What is even more fatal is that many developers are gradually giving up on developing applications for Google Glass. According to a Reuters survey, 9 out of 16 developers said they had given up on developing the Google Glass project. Even Twitter, which previously supported Google Glass, gave up on updating the Google Glass APP, and many companies that were interested in developing games for Google Glass also gave up. Why? Because Google Glass has no sales. Although some industry insiders believe that Google Glass has some professional and even profitable uses in the enterprise market, in the eyes of many developers, the possibility of this product becoming a popular consumer product in the short term is slim.

In fact, the Google Glass hardware itself has many flaws and shortcomings, not just the application. For example, it is slow to respond, has rigid functions, and always shuts down when the user least expects it. In addition, the network connection is not smooth enough, and the hardware is prone to failure. Even Google itself admits that the hardware of Google Glass is not mature.

If external support is an unfavorable external factor for the future development of Google Glass, then the internal disunity of Google is an important internal factor. For example, in the past six months, several key figures behind the Google Glass project have left Google, including chief developer Babak Parviz, electrical engineering director Adrian Wong, and developer relations director Ossama Alami. The Google Glass Funding Alliance, jointly established by Google Ventures and the two largest venture capital firms in Silicon Valley, KPCB and Andreessen Horowitz, has quietly taken down its website and redirected visitors to the main website of Google Glass.

In addition to the above-mentioned difficulties that Google Glass has encountered in its attempt to promote it head-on, and the weakening of momentum, the inherent negative effects caused by its product form and applications are increasing.

A previous report in the Journal of the American Medical Association stated that when testing the effects of Google Glass on people's vision, it was found that compared with normal glasses as a control group, Google Glass produced "clinically significant visual field obstruction" in the upper right part of the eye, causing "substantial" visual blind spots, and this defect was caused by the hardware design of the Google Glass frame and had nothing to do with the distraction problem caused by the software. This seems to confirm from the side what we said earlier that the Google Glass hardware itself has defects.

In addition, a study by the University of Central Florida shows that using Google Glass while driving can distract drivers, just like playing with a cell phone while driving, and is dangerous. In fact, more than a year ago, a study by the American Automobile Association (AAA) showed that sending voice messages while driving is also very dangerous and is more likely to distract drivers than making phone calls. And tests have also shown that drivers wearing Google Glass will also have slow reactions when braking. The latest research results from the University of Massachusetts show that Google Glass can not only be used to secretly shoot videos, but may even pose a threat to information security.

In summary, we believe that whether from the wearable device ecosystem (hardware, software, applications), marketing strategy (such as pricing) and the negative impact that a new type of product may have on the market and users, the positive driving force affecting the development and future prospects of Google Glass is gradually weakening, while the negative driving force is strengthening. Given Google's history of abandoning products such as Google Wave and Nexus Q and shutting down many "uncommonly used" services, we believe that the closure of this physical store is by no means what Google officially claimed to be shifting Google Glass sales to the Internet, but rather a precursor to its unfulfilled ambitions.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.