8 ms·

Why Google Glass Broke

95 points by kanamekun 12y ago

adnanh 12y ago
Personally I think it was the camera that killed it. That, and the fact that google put out an unfinished product without providing plethora of resources and apps for it, to get people excited, hoping the community would finish it for them... That, and the fact that people started calling Google Glass users "glassholes".
- spiralpolitik 12y ago
  What killed it was that it didn't solve any problems that weren't already solved by other devices (notably Smartphones) and introduced other problems (the 'glasshole' one you mentioned is but one example) that the other devices did not have. That and of course Robert Scoble wearing it in the shower.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  > That, and the fact that people started calling Google Glass users "glassholes". That was one weird thing I did not expect to happen after the release, but I can't stop thinking that a people calling Glass wearers "glassholes" are themselves actual assholes.
  - cowsandmilk 12y ago
    They positioned it as an up-market, exclusive, fashion device. If you drive a BMW, you've automatically classified as an asshole. Not at all surprising that people wearing glass were labelled that way.
    - jschwartzi 12y ago
      I thought it had more to do with the fact that there was no way to know if you were being recorded. Basically, think about the most embarrassing or terrible thing you've ever done. Now, imagine that that were a video on Youtube or Facebook and you were automatically tagged in it. Users were dubbed Glassholes because they chose to walk around with this kind of power in bars and public bathrooms.
      - tokenizerrr 12y ago
        Isn't there a light that goes on when it was recording?
        jschwartzi 12y ago
        I thought they added that later in response to people freaking out about being recorded.
    - TeMPOraL 12y ago
      I do felt they sold it to the wrong crowd - to the rich dudes instead of geeks. But still, the kind of reactions you described is a really shitty feature of society.
  - stesch 12y ago
    Oh, and the reactions of Google Glass fans was very off putting, too. The G word was like the N word for them. It wasn't possible to discuss this aspect of the product even if you reassured the fans that you don't like the word.
- Symmetry 12y ago
  One of the biggest potential uses of something like Google Glass I see is automatically pulling up information about things you're looking at and there's no way to do that without a camera. Now, as far as I know the Glass didn't have enough horsepower to do that usefully but theoretical future versions might. It's just too bad their advertising focused on people making recordings of what they were seeing.
  - AndrewKemendo 12y ago
    This is exactly right, any AR device needs a camera input, the problem is in the video recording aspect - it creeps too many people out.
greggman 12y ago
I'm not convinced it broke any more than the newton or the palm pilot broke. It's just too early. palm pilots, newtons, and other PDAs were around for 13+ years and were considered "for geeks only". It wasn't until iPhone that PDAs finally became popular with the masses. Personal HUDs or Google Glass etc will go through the same steps. Something, maybe not totally similar but something with a camera, a HUD, augmented reality, and hands free controls will happen someday and will become as mainstream as smartphones are today. It might be 5, 10, or 15 years down the road.
- vacri 12y ago
  We got a few at my old workplace, and the tone of this article really annoyed me because you had to be wilfully ignorant to think that Glass was a finished, polished product. The whole point of 'Explorers' was explicitly stated as being for finding the kinks in the system outside the lab. The people who claimed it 'worst product ever' were moronic linkbaiters. One of the problems it did have that I thought was a problem for adoption was that it didn't handle being lent out very well. If you calibrated it for yourself, it was pretty responsive, but hand it over to someone else, and it was out of whack in didn't really respond. I lost count of the number of times I'd show someone something cool, hand it over to them to try, and have it not work on them because the calibration wasn't suitable. Understandably, this left them with the opinion "this is shit". It was a marvellous bit of well-made kit, had a couple of problems, and as you say, was in the first generation of it's kind.
  - k-mcgrady 12y ago
    >> "The whole point of 'Explorers' was explicitly stated as being for finding the kinks in the system outside the lab." Originally. Then they started to sell it on the play store for $1500 with a full marketing page and no explanation that it was a beta product.
    - msabalau 12y ago
      Indeed. It was one thing to release a prototype to people interested in experimenting and playing around. It was another to push it through a retail channel alongside designer frames. Certainly the time they released it to the UK market Google would have known that they were selling an evolutionary dead end as if it were a product. I would assume this was more an act of internal political cowardness at recognizing reality rather than grubbing for money.
wodenokoto 12y ago
What I never understood about the whole explorer thing was, why didn't they send out a version 2 after six or seven months?
Shivetya 12y ago
because you could not use it without taking your eyes off what you were already doing? To be honest, it was too intrusive for both user and those not using it. I will be more than happy the day my phone/watch/etc can talk to me in conversational format and know when it should. Should being, would it interrupt my doing something more important or not.
lwh 12y ago
Once they can get it to fit in a contact or use BCI with a phone...
erikb 12y ago
Is it gone? My English is not the best but I would interpret the google plus status they are reffering to not as closing down but as "Hey we move to our own offices, beta is over, no new beta devices. We tell you when the final release will be available for purchase." https://plus.google.com/+GoogleGlass/posts/9uiwXY42tvc https://plus.google.com/+GoogleGlass/posts/9uiwXY42tvc
- pandatigox 12y ago
  "beta is over, no new devices" means no devices will available and the next sentence "we'll tell you" seems to imply never or a very in-the-future date. TLDR; It's an euphemism for closing up shop
  - erikb 12y ago
    Okay, yeah, maybe it's like that.
jkot 12y ago
I dont think Google Glass 'broke'. Just because new thing is not as successful as iphone, does not mean its failure.
- badusername 12y ago
  Suffice to say that, it was at least a very expensive experiment. And everybody I know hated it - it had a very antisocial vibe on the wearer.
yAnonymous 12y ago
- battery life - people don't want to talk to their device in public or make gestures around their head. it looks/sounds stupid
kefka 12y ago
I work in a capacity that reviews, tests, and develops proofs of concepts for new tech. We purchased 3 glasses when they came on the market. Our review: 1. pathetic battery life. You're going to have at most 6 hours of life. And that's with the GG radios off (and functionality at a nil). 2. You can't turn it off. it goes into a screen-off non-standby that still chews through battery. So when you think that youre conserving it for later... nope. 3. "Glass Overheating, shutting down". This showed up in the latter firmwares. Never fixed. It ruins the idea of recording video for lengths of time. I was trying to record a renaissance dance. Didnt work. 4. Forces a facebook style timeline. Horrible interface. 5. Has no use without wifi and bt on. The device is an Android... yet is completely dunb without data connections. Why werent there functionality built in that didnt need 24/7 internet access? 6. In order to use with a cell phone, you have to: turn on bt and pair, turn on WiFi tethering on the phone, allow data to tunnel through BT, and pair every connection from glass to phone. This, of course, eats battery. So, it was left at home, with the home WiFi, beating the purpose of with a cell. 7. Screen was offcenter and annoying. Itwas placed so you had to look up right to see it. Not to mention, it was askew on the face. That means recording video had an annoying 7deg tilt... unless you held your head like a dog. 8. $1500 . For "Google Quality". Not to mention, no support unless you count other people who wasted $1500 or more for the similar experience. And, they took out one of the neatest features: facial recognition. Because of "privacy", yet the device consistently chatters to home base. Yeah. Its a turd.
- aluhut 12y ago
  The "privacy" issue was not there to cover the privacy of the person with glass but the people around him. I can totally understand that. Even if I know that there will be (are) ways around but as long as not everybody can do it, it's something. You forgot one: 9. You look like an idiot. It's the same thing as the smart watches. Suddenly everybody had one but now they become a joke. As well as the people who wear them to work. They should throw in some more money and time and go for implants.
  - kefka 12y ago
    Unfortunately, most watch wearables are in the same class of "It's a watch that can display texts, emails, and has an accelerometer". Not to mention, they also have glaring holes in the BT communication, where they are easy to decrypt OTA. One wearable I do like for the innovation is Thalmic's MYO. Before they opened up Raw data to the sensor array, it was pretty much a doorstop. After what I did, they came to their senses. http://hackaday.com/2014/11/18/thalmic-labs-shuts-down-free-developer-access/ http://hackaday.com/2014/11/18/thalmic-labs-shuts-down-free-... There's a few other wearables in the class of "first of a kind". Those are the ones I'm interested in. Well, that and computer vision, ML, IoT, distributable computing, and other areas.
beilabs 12y ago
I'm going to put my neck out and say "watch this space". Google don't have this front and center any more with this glass product but I think they'll definitely be looking at different form factors in the future.
- stesch 12y ago
  Waiting for Google Wave integration in Google Glass?
  - beilabs 12y ago
    I think i'd be waiting a while for that one. I think Google Glass will be scraped as its form factor is just creepy but I believe it will be miniaturised, perhaps into contact lenses.
    - stesch 12y ago
      The future sure will be interesting. Maybe Microsoft's API Windows Holographic will be the dominant API then and Google produces compatible contact lenses. Or maybe not. I'm wondering when Apple will decide which technology has a chance to get copied and cleaned up for its own customers? (I have Apple products. But I'm aware that the ideas aren't coming from Apple.)
spiralpolitik 12y ago
I look at Google Glass as this decades 'Segway'. Hyped beyond all proportions, it failed as a mass market product, but found enough of a niche that you still see them to this day. That will be the future of 'Glass.
- schnable 12y ago
  That seems doubtful as they have stopped selling them.
- pvarangot 12y ago
  But it can't be bought anymore... if it does fill a niche, which I'm not sure it does, people in that niche will be buying GoPros and cellphones and strapping them to their heads.
ohitsdom 12y ago
This article made is seem like the demise of glass was due to Brin's love life...
- msabalau 12y ago
  I read that more as personal attachments and enthusiasms led Brin to over invest and over promote the project in a way that was harmful. Perhaps the author also saw this as further evidence demonstrating fecklessness.
- stesch 12y ago
  I'm waiting for the movie.
sleepersmith 12y ago
tldr Marketing and sales came in and fucked it over, as usual. Nothing new.
normloman 12y ago
What I like about phones is that you can put them in your pocket. If you're having a face to face conversation with someone, you can put the phone away, and give them your full attention. But if my phone was part of my glasses, it'd always be on. How annoying!
jonifico 12y ago
The project was interesting, but the technology nowadays is just not quite there yet. I've heard people talk about HoloLens, which might have been a point to consider as Google was basically the only people in this game, although the thing was falling anyway.
crumpled 12y ago
I don't understand why everybody is pretending that the Google Glass that "explorers" and developers have is a consumer product, and that it failed in the market. Google Glass has yet to hit the consumer market. All of the criticisms of it as a fashion statement or a consumer device are pretty much moot. It's like people pretended to understand that they were alpha/beta testers and then conveniently forgot. Yes, this explorer phase of the beta is over. Why do we need to make up some deeper reasons? Maybe a lot of issues were discovered, but that's precisely the point! Arguably, Google now has more insight into the real-world use of optical wearables than anyone else. When the market (that they incubated) develops more, they can be ready with a capable, fashionable product.
- untog 12y ago
  Does this page look like a beta: https://play.google.com/store/devices/details/Glass_Explorer_Edition_Shale?id=glass_shale&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/devices/details/Glass_Explorer... "Who are Glass Explorers? From chefs to cyclists, Glass Explorers are the first to make, move, and marvel through Glass. They're bold and inspiring and they're helping shape the future of Glass." It certainly doesn't even use the word 'beta' even once. And when there are frames made by DVF available I'd say that, yes, you can critique it as a fashion statement, too.
  - crumpled 12y ago
    I see the word "prototype" used all over this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Glass http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Glass And if you refer to the terms of service, it's pretty plain that it's not a consumer product.
    - untog 12y ago
      And if you refer to the terms of service is never a valid argument in the twenty-first century. When was the last time the average consumer read the terms of service before you bought a product?
  - crumpled 12y ago

95 points by kanamekun 12y ago

Personally I think it was the camera that killed it. That, and the fact that google put out an unfinished product without providing plethora of resources and apps for it, to get people excited, hoping the community would finish it for them... That, and the fact that people started calling Google Glass users "glassholes".

spiralpolitik 12y ago
What killed it was that it didn't solve any problems that weren't already solved by other devices (notably Smartphones) and introduced other problems (the 'glasshole' one you mentioned is but one example) that the other devices did not have. That and of course Robert Scoble wearing it in the shower.
TeMPOraL 12y ago
> That, and the fact that people started calling Google Glass users "glassholes". That was one weird thing I did not expect to happen after the release, but I can't stop thinking that a people calling Glass wearers "glassholes" are themselves actual assholes.
- cowsandmilk 12y ago
  They positioned it as an up-market, exclusive, fashion device. If you drive a BMW, you've automatically classified as an asshole. Not at all surprising that people wearing glass were labelled that way.
  - jschwartzi 12y ago
    I thought it had more to do with the fact that there was no way to know if you were being recorded. Basically, think about the most embarrassing or terrible thing you've ever done. Now, imagine that that were a video on Youtube or Facebook and you were automatically tagged in it. Users were dubbed Glassholes because they chose to walk around with this kind of power in bars and public bathrooms.
    - tokenizerrr 12y ago
      Isn't there a light that goes on when it was recording?
      - jschwartzi 12y ago
        I thought they added that later in response to people freaking out about being recorded.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    I do felt they sold it to the wrong crowd - to the rich dudes instead of geeks. But still, the kind of reactions you described is a really shitty feature of society.
- stesch 12y ago
  Oh, and the reactions of Google Glass fans was very off putting, too. The G word was like the N word for them. It wasn't possible to discuss this aspect of the product even if you reassured the fans that you don't like the word.
Symmetry 12y ago
One of the biggest potential uses of something like Google Glass I see is automatically pulling up information about things you're looking at and there's no way to do that without a camera. Now, as far as I know the Glass didn't have enough horsepower to do that usefully but theoretical future versions might. It's just too bad their advertising focused on people making recordings of what they were seeing.
- AndrewKemendo 12y ago
  This is exactly right, any AR device needs a camera input, the problem is in the video recording aspect - it creeps too many people out.

greggman 12y ago

I'm not convinced it broke any more than the newton or the palm pilot broke. It's just too early. palm pilots, newtons, and other PDAs were around for 13+ years and were considered "for geeks only". It wasn't until iPhone that PDAs finally became popular with the masses. Personal HUDs or Google Glass etc will go through the same steps. Something, maybe not totally similar but something with a camera, a HUD, augmented reality, and hands free controls will happen someday and will become as mainstream as smartphones are today. It might be 5, 10, or 15 years down the road.

vacri 12y ago
We got a few at my old workplace, and the tone of this article really annoyed me because you had to be wilfully ignorant to think that Glass was a finished, polished product. The whole point of 'Explorers' was explicitly stated as being for finding the kinks in the system outside the lab. The people who claimed it 'worst product ever' were moronic linkbaiters. One of the problems it did have that I thought was a problem for adoption was that it didn't handle being lent out very well. If you calibrated it for yourself, it was pretty responsive, but hand it over to someone else, and it was out of whack in didn't really respond. I lost count of the number of times I'd show someone something cool, hand it over to them to try, and have it not work on them because the calibration wasn't suitable. Understandably, this left them with the opinion "this is shit". It was a marvellous bit of well-made kit, had a couple of problems, and as you say, was in the first generation of it's kind.
- k-mcgrady 12y ago
  >> "The whole point of 'Explorers' was explicitly stated as being for finding the kinks in the system outside the lab." Originally. Then they started to sell it on the play store for $1500 with a full marketing page and no explanation that it was a beta product.
  - msabalau 12y ago
    Indeed. It was one thing to release a prototype to people interested in experimenting and playing around. It was another to push it through a retail channel alongside designer frames. Certainly the time they released it to the UK market Google would have known that they were selling an evolutionary dead end as if it were a product. I would assume this was more an act of internal political cowardness at recognizing reality rather than grubbing for money.

wodenokoto 12y ago

What I never understood about the whole explorer thing was, why didn't they send out a version 2 after six or seven months?

Shivetya 12y ago

because you could not use it without taking your eyes off what you were already doing? To be honest, it was too intrusive for both user and those not using it. I will be more than happy the day my phone/watch/etc can talk to me in conversational format and know when it should. Should being, would it interrupt my doing something more important or not.

lwh 12y ago

Once they can get it to fit in a contact or use BCI with a phone...

erikb 12y ago

Is it gone? My English is not the best but I would interpret the google plus status they are reffering to not as closing down but as "Hey we move to our own offices, beta is over, no new beta devices. We tell you when the final release will be available for purchase." https://plus.google.com/+GoogleGlass/posts/9uiwXY42tvc https://plus.google.com/+GoogleGlass/posts/9uiwXY42tvc

pandatigox 12y ago
"beta is over, no new devices" means no devices will available and the next sentence "we'll tell you" seems to imply never or a very in-the-future date. TLDR; It's an euphemism for closing up shop
- erikb 12y ago
  Okay, yeah, maybe it's like that.

jkot 12y ago

I dont think Google Glass 'broke'. Just because new thing is not as successful as iphone, does not mean its failure.

badusername 12y ago
Suffice to say that, it was at least a very expensive experiment. And everybody I know hated it - it had a very antisocial vibe on the wearer.

yAnonymous 12y ago

- battery life - people don't want to talk to their device in public or make gestures around their head. it looks/sounds stupid

kefka 12y ago

I work in a capacity that reviews, tests, and develops proofs of concepts for new tech. We purchased 3 glasses when they came on the market. Our review: 1. pathetic battery life. You're going to have at most 6 hours of life. And that's with the GG radios off (and functionality at a nil). 2. You can't turn it off. it goes into a screen-off non-standby that still chews through battery. So when you think that youre conserving it for later... nope. 3. "Glass Overheating, shutting down". This showed up in the latter firmwares. Never fixed. It ruins the idea of recording video for lengths of time. I was trying to record a renaissance dance. Didnt work. 4. Forces a facebook style timeline. Horrible interface. 5. Has no use without wifi and bt on. The device is an Android... yet is completely dunb without data connections. Why werent there functionality built in that didnt need 24/7 internet access? 6. In order to use with a cell phone, you have to: turn on bt and pair, turn on WiFi tethering on the phone, allow data to tunnel through BT, and pair every connection from glass to phone. This, of course, eats battery. So, it was left at home, with the home WiFi, beating the purpose of with a cell. 7. Screen was offcenter and annoying. Itwas placed so you had to look up right to see it. Not to mention, it was askew on the face. That means recording video had an annoying 7deg tilt... unless you held your head like a dog. 8. $1500 . For "Google Quality". Not to mention, no support unless you count other people who wasted $1500 or more for the similar experience. And, they took out one of the neatest features: facial recognition. Because of "privacy", yet the device consistently chatters to home base. Yeah. Its a turd.

aluhut 12y ago
The "privacy" issue was not there to cover the privacy of the person with glass but the people around him. I can totally understand that. Even if I know that there will be (are) ways around but as long as not everybody can do it, it's something. You forgot one: 9. You look like an idiot. It's the same thing as the smart watches. Suddenly everybody had one but now they become a joke. As well as the people who wear them to work. They should throw in some more money and time and go for implants.
- kefka 12y ago
  Unfortunately, most watch wearables are in the same class of "It's a watch that can display texts, emails, and has an accelerometer". Not to mention, they also have glaring holes in the BT communication, where they are easy to decrypt OTA. One wearable I do like for the innovation is Thalmic's MYO. Before they opened up Raw data to the sensor array, it was pretty much a doorstop. After what I did, they came to their senses. http://hackaday.com/2014/11/18/thalmic-labs-shuts-down-free-developer-access/ http://hackaday.com/2014/11/18/thalmic-labs-shuts-down-free-... There's a few other wearables in the class of "first of a kind". Those are the ones I'm interested in. Well, that and computer vision, ML, IoT, distributable computing, and other areas.

beilabs 12y ago

I'm going to put my neck out and say "watch this space". Google don't have this front and center any more with this glass product but I think they'll definitely be looking at different form factors in the future.

stesch 12y ago
Waiting for Google Wave integration in Google Glass?
- beilabs 12y ago
  I think i'd be waiting a while for that one. I think Google Glass will be scraped as its form factor is just creepy but I believe it will be miniaturised, perhaps into contact lenses.
  - stesch 12y ago
    The future sure will be interesting. Maybe Microsoft's API Windows Holographic will be the dominant API then and Google produces compatible contact lenses. Or maybe not. I'm wondering when Apple will decide which technology has a chance to get copied and cleaned up for its own customers? (I have Apple products. But I'm aware that the ideas aren't coming from Apple.)

spiralpolitik 12y ago

I look at Google Glass as this decades 'Segway'. Hyped beyond all proportions, it failed as a mass market product, but found enough of a niche that you still see them to this day. That will be the future of 'Glass.

schnable 12y ago
That seems doubtful as they have stopped selling them.
pvarangot 12y ago
But it can't be bought anymore... if it does fill a niche, which I'm not sure it does, people in that niche will be buying GoPros and cellphones and strapping them to their heads.

ohitsdom 12y ago

This article made is seem like the demise of glass was due to Brin's love life...

msabalau 12y ago
I read that more as personal attachments and enthusiasms led Brin to over invest and over promote the project in a way that was harmful. Perhaps the author also saw this as further evidence demonstrating fecklessness.
stesch 12y ago
I'm waiting for the movie.

sleepersmith 12y ago

tldr Marketing and sales came in and fucked it over, as usual. Nothing new.

normloman 12y ago

What I like about phones is that you can put them in your pocket. If you're having a face to face conversation with someone, you can put the phone away, and give them your full attention. But if my phone was part of my glasses, it'd always be on. How annoying!

jonifico 12y ago

The project was interesting, but the technology nowadays is just not quite there yet. I've heard people talk about HoloLens, which might have been a point to consider as Google was basically the only people in this game, although the thing was falling anyway.

crumpled 12y ago

I don't understand why everybody is pretending that the Google Glass that "explorers" and developers have is a consumer product, and that it failed in the market. Google Glass has yet to hit the consumer market. All of the criticisms of it as a fashion statement or a consumer device are pretty much moot. It's like people pretended to understand that they were alpha/beta testers and then conveniently forgot. Yes, this explorer phase of the beta is over. Why do we need to make up some deeper reasons? Maybe a lot of issues were discovered, but that's precisely the point! Arguably, Google now has more insight into the real-world use of optical wearables than anyone else. When the market (that they incubated) develops more, they can be ready with a capable, fashionable product.

untog 12y ago
Does this page look like a beta: https://play.google.com/store/devices/details/Glass_Explorer_Edition_Shale?id=glass_shale&hl=en https://play.google.com/store/devices/details/Glass_Explorer... "Who are Glass Explorers? From chefs to cyclists, Glass Explorers are the first to make, move, and marvel through Glass. They're bold and inspiring and they're helping shape the future of Glass." It certainly doesn't even use the word 'beta' even once. And when there are frames made by DVF available I'd say that, yes, you can critique it as a fashion statement, too.
- crumpled 12y ago
  I see the word "prototype" used all over this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Glass http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Glass And if you refer to the terms of service, it's pretty plain that it's not a consumer product.
  - untog 12y ago
    And if you refer to the terms of service is never a valid argument in the twenty-first century. When was the last time the average consumer read the terms of service before you bought a product?
- crumpled 12y ago