Less than 24 hours after the long-rumored Google Glass Enterprise model allegedly hit eBay, reports have surfaced that APX Labs, the company behind the Skylight smart glasses development platform and one of the companies thought to be part of the deploying of the Google Glass Enterprise Edition to the market has allegedly signed Tesla Motors as one of its clients and the latest reports suggest that the U.S. automotive and energy storage company is already using the new edition of Glass at its Fremont factory.
This isn’t the first report about APX Labs helping Tesla to modernize its Californian factory, but it’s by far the most specific one. Several hours ago, images of the Fremont factory could even be seen on APX Labs official website, and while they’re no longer available, captions above them mentioned the “secret to the factory of the future”. In addition, the current reports go on to note that an image of several Tesla Model S cars which was apparently taken with the aforementioned Skylight software. The Skylight software APX developed, not to mention the fact that its screenshotting function is extremely similar to Google Glass’ very own “Vignettes”. Is the connection obvious enough? Probably not, especially since APX Labs deals with all kinds of wearables, not just the ones that come in the form of glasses. However, given how the Enterprise Edition of Google Glass allegedly boasts some impressive features such as the new and improved robust design and waterproofed hardware, it seems like a natural fit for the Fremont factory working environment, or at least, that’s the conclusion many have come to in the last few hours since this news broke.
In case you aren’t in the loop, even though the consumer-grade Google Glass project was officially discontinued by the tech giant last year, it’s not completely gone. Apart from the fact that the industry-only Enterprise Edition hardware is apparently everything but officially confirmed and continues to live on as a part of Google’s Project Aura, sources close to the company claim that Google is just biding its time and looking to relaunch the consumer version of its smart glasses in the near future and likely under a different name.