Google has been expected to be developing AR glasses, and the company indeed announced a prototype pair of glasses it’s developing at this year’s Google I/O conference.
The glasses look focused on helpful features, such as language translation. Google acquired smart glasses maker North in 2020, and its work with Google Glass pioneered smart eyewear nearly a decade ago.
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Google Gives Us a Glimpse of New AR Glasses With Live…
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Google’s tease of its glasses was brief, but the company’s continued strides in AR tools through its phones, search and Lens look ready to carry over to its glasses, too. But there’s no clear indicator when these glasses might be available to buy.
Google has been active in VR and AR for years. While no company has everyday smart glasses in regular use, Google looks like it’s going to try again.
One of the most interesting parts of its new glasses initiative is a focus on utility. The ability to be understood, or to understand, is actually useful. These glasses aren’t focusing on floating dinosaurs or magic experiences; they’re trying to assist. Meta’s recent smart glass ambitions also aim at utility, but Google’s experience and tools seem well suited for the challenge.
As Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai notes in a blog post, these prototype glasses are focused on delivering language in a line of sight experience. Google’s work with AR will likely be incremental, but it also looks like it’s trying for services first. In that sense, these glasses already seem a lot different than the more magical VR headset that Daydream was. In many ways, it seems like the sort of stuff I always expected Google Glass to do someday.
