Google Glass has been in development for years, and yet we still don’t know when it’s going to be released on a commercial scale. Sure, you can sign up as an Explorer right now and spend $1500 on your own Glass unit, but most consumers aren’t going to drop that kind of cash. The general public doesn’t know why they would want to spend any money on Glass, yet. Google has stated in the past that Glass should be commercially available sometime this year. When is Glass coming to the masses?
We still don’t know. Re/code is holding an event called Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, right now. At this event, Sergey Brin mentioned that “Google Glass will be a commercial product this year…plus or minus.” Brin still hopes that Glass will be here by the end of the year, but the company isn’t putting a hard timeline on it. Unlike Project Ara, which is on a tight schedule, the Google Glass team is working towards a date that isn’t set in stone.
What we can expect when Glass is finally made available on a larger scale is a drop in price. There’s debate about how much Glass hardware costs to manufacturer, but it doesn’t cost $1500 per device. The high cost is an unspoken way to keep only mildly curious parties from diving in. The only way you’re spending that kind of money on your own set of Glass is if you are a developer, someone in the media, or just have some expendable cash lying around. It’s not priced anywhere near impulse-purchase range.
Brin also hinted that Glass may be waterproof or water resistant. He was asked at Code Conference if Glass would be waterproof and he responded that the device is not waterproof “yet.” For as much as has been revealed about Glass, there’s still a lot we don’t know. Here’s hoping that more is revealed at Code Conference, which is scheduled through tomorrow afternoon.