Earlier this month we reported on the wearable technology market, and where it is expected to be by 2018. According to analysts, the wearable tech market is supposed to reach a worth of $19 billion. Currently Google is working hard to bring the public, Google Glass, but in order to reach these predicted number of sales, they will need to make Glass available to everyone. One step to do that, is by working with prescription glasses manufacturers.
Now, The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Google has begun the necessary talks to take care of the prescription market. Teaming up with VSP, a vision benefits firm that is US based but has grown to cover Canada is the perfect partnership. So who is this partner that Google is working with?
VSP has been working in the vision benefits field since 1955, but in the past few years have expanded into eyewear manufacturing and design. VSP has acquired Marchon Eyewear, which has reach from the U.S. all the way to Tokyo, and a few places in between. That acquisition was only complimented by ownership of Allure Eyewear, which builds the frames.
Through teaming up with VSP, Google can now perfect the art of making Glass available for those of us which need prescription lenses in order to function properly. Which some may argue, that Google has already done that simply by making adjustments to the original Glass device. This adjustment has been shown before, in images of Glass being attached to sun glasses. The problem here is with most prescription lenses and frames, Google Glass isn’t runway model ready. Working with companies that already manufacture and design fashionable prescription frames and lenses, will allow them to design around Google Glass, and make it pretty.
In the past, we have seen prescription lenses attached to Glass or the other way around. Mainly these were seen on Google employees, or the Macgyver Glass explorers out there. The ones Google employees were sporting, were made in house at Google, and didn’t look all that bad, but the public is a bit of a different beast. Demands to fit in, and look good are high in the real world. Not to mention having fashionable versions of prescription Glass, would greatly help the easing in of society to get used to seeing people walking around, looking up and talking to themselves.
We also can’t forget that Google likes to make products easily attained by everyone. According to Statistic Brain, 75% of Americans alone, have a need for prescription lenses. Out of the number, 64% of Americans use glasses. That’s a huge number of possible sales people, were talking millions, and that’s just in the US alone. So it only makes sense for Google to make sure their new Glass product be stylish and easily acceptable by the public.