Timing is everything.
That's the lesson lots of tech companies have learned the hard way, and among those companies is Google.
In 2013, Google released Google Glass, a pair of smart glasses that had a camera slapped on the side and even featured a tiny display embedded in the lens. In some ways, Google Glass was revolutionary: it was futuristic, ambitious, and offered a new way of computing on the fly.
Ultimately, however, the glasses were one thing above all else: loathed. Despite Google's ambition with its pair of smart glasses, the wearable was ultimately felled by concerns over privacy, a bad battery, and their lack of functionality and support.
The journey for Google Glass was a messy ride that soured the company's interest in smart glasses for years, leaving in its wake a new pejorative for anyone bold enough to put a pair on their face; "glasshole."
That's why, naturally, Google appears to have real intentions of bringing its most hated wearable back in a big way.
Google Glass: The Glassening
According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Google is in talks to acquire a company called AdHawk, which makes eye-tracking software that's used in AR devices likes smart glasses.
While the deal apparently hasn't been finalized, it gives even more credence to the company's unspoken intentions of pushing back into smart glasses for the first time since Google Glass.
On one hand, that's surprising, given how poorly its experiment with smart glasses went last time around. On the other hand, there's never been a better time to resurrect tech's most infamous wearable. Hear me out.
A lot has happened between 2013 and now, especially in the world of smart glasses.
Two major differences are people's willingness to use XR as well as the overall sophistication of XR as it exists now. Look at Meta, for example.
Last year, according to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the company sold more than 1 million Ray-Ban-branded smart glasses. That's not exactly in the iPhone range of devices sold, but for a category that was previously untapped, it's a lot more than you'd expect.
And as an owner of Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses, I get it. While they aren't anywhere near the final form of what smart glasses could be, Meta's Ray-Ban glasses do a lot well: they play audio, take pictures and videos, and they squeeze all of those features into a pair of glasses that look mostly like regular Ray-Bans.
What's even more surprising is that those smart glasses are sold by a company that doesn't exactly have a big hardware presence — a company that isn't so dissimilar from Google back in 2013.
So, needless to say, Google Glass may have been too far ahead of its time to work, but this is a different world and a different Google, meaning Meta may have some real competition.
A great time for Google Glass
Google has been hinting at a Glass revival for a while now.
Last year, it teased a Gemini-powered computer vision model called Project Astra that can identify objects in your surroundings, describe things, and act as a general AI assistant.
What's even more interesting is the device on which Project Astra is being envisioned: a pair of glasses. From that demonstration alone, it's clear that Google is interested in expanding into XR.
And who could blame it? Even with the not-so-rosy history of Google Glass, tech titans have been pushing toward XR in a big way. Meta isn't the only company, either. Samsung is also rumored to be developing its own pair of XR glasses to compete with Meta's Ray-Bans.
That's exciting for several reasons. First, more big companies pursuing XR likely means more sophisticated, fun, and useful smart glasses. Second, it would mark the first time a major smartphone company is offering its own pair of smart glasses, which opens up a world of possibilities through deeper integration with your phone.
Like Samsung, Google is now a major player in the smartphone world. It could theoretically offer an equally rich experience that tightly integrates features like navigation, search, messaging, calls, and more.
And then there's AI. While I'm not convinced AI will be essential to a full-featured smart glasses experience, Meta is already pushing in that direction, and the results are at least intriguing. With computer vision through Meta AI, Meta's Ray-Ban glasses are able to describe objects in your environment, translate, or even look things up.
If Gemini were geared toward a similar goal, I don't doubt that a renewed Google Glass could offer an equal, if not better, experience.
With all of that, it's clear that Google has the ingredients to cook up a pair of smart glasses that are worth considering. Whether it can pull that off is entirely different, but the seeds are there.
I, for one, would love to see Google Glass get a second shot at turning the smart glasses narrative around and vindicate "Glassholes" of yore once and for all.
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