Google ends existing Google Glass program, restructures program under Nest CEO



After months of controversy and limited visibility into the future of the program, Google has decided to restructure the Google Glass division, end the Explorer program, and hand the project off to the CEO of Nest, Tony Fadell.

This move marks the end of an extended beta test often characterized by consumer blowback, privacy debates, and fundamentally limited hardware. Google’s decision to charge $1500 for a device with $150 worth of components drew early criticism, as did the behavior of several early adopters who became known by the pejorative term “Glassholes.” The ensuing debates over freedom of speech and personal privacy deepened battle lines, but drew only a modest response from Google itself. The company published a guideline of recommended best practices for its early adopters (nicknamed “Explorers,”) but did little else to revise the hardware or respond to privacy concerns. Meanwhile, even the device’s ardent supporters were put off by its limited storage, battery life, camera quality, and overall performance. Even for a beta product, Glass had a number of rough edges.


Google first unveiled its Glass prototype in 2012.

Glass was a secondary focus at best throughout 2014 as app store submissions shrank and it became increasingly clear that Google wasn’t going to put the device front and center of any major wearable push, choosing instead to focus on products like Android Wear and the burgeoning smartwatch market.

Glimmers of promise point to need for reinvention

Handing the project over to the CEO of Nest could be a stroke of brilliance. Nest’s peripherals do a remarkably good job of offering useful capabilities without requiring tremendous amounts of user interaction and the product UI has been praised by multiple reviewers. UI design and usability are critical points for any wearable product, and Google is at least turning Glass over to an executive used to running a company with a great deal of success on that front.



Meanwhile, even the first generation of Glass devices showed promise in potential segments, particularly in medical markets, where they might give surgeons an assisted view of a patient, allow for remote observation, or even give quadriplegics a better, more effective means of communication. Augmented vision may still be more science fiction than anything, but that’s no reason to give up on the concept. Google is promising a new version of the hardware will ship in 2015 (though it hasn’t given a set date). The company is promising improved sound quality, a better display, and longer battery life.

Ignoring the elephant in the room

Google’s plan for winning increased social acceptance for the device, however, appears to revolve around adding more familiar types of eyewear — and that implies the company still doesn’t understand what it is that many people don’t like about Google Glass in the first place. This is a situation that Robert Scoble, an early huge proponent of Glass, summed up beautifully in a Facebook post last April.



Google didn’t just launch the product poorly, it failed to account for the fact that the overwhelming majority of people don’t like having cameras pointed at them 24/7. The stereotypical reaction of celebrities to invasive paparazzi is shared, to some degree, by almost all of us. While Glass proponents liked to argue that cell phones could accomplish the same task, few people seriously walk around pointing their cell phone camera at people for prolonged periods of time without encountering hostility.

The best way for Google to promote Glass in the future would be to strip the camera out of future versions of the device. If it doesn’t, it will likely continue to encounter the same consumer pushback that has characterized the product thus far.