My Love/Hate Relationship with Google Glass
One month after I walked into the Google office at Chelsea Market, I spent some time reflecting on the experience. After checking-in at the desk, I met with my Google Guide and put on my Google Glass for the first time. From that first moment, I have been amazed and in awe, but that’s not to say the device has reached perfection.
Google Glass is a magical experience and was everything I expected it would be. The whole time it felt Apple-esque, paralleling my wonder and excitement for past Apple products. On that fateful day, I brought my friend Sean with me to pick up my Google Glass. For over an hour, we learned, played, and were constantly amazed. Even though we were there for a long time, it was all surprisingly simple. Our Google Guide walked us through the entire process, from meeting us when we first walked in to showing us how to use every feature, which provided a level of intimacy and comfort rarely found in technology services. I never really looked into it but I believe that my guide actually works on the team. It sounds odd but she had a level of knowledge about the product that was greater than a typical employee introducing customers to a new device.
It was the little things that Google did that day that made the experience so memorable. The view of NYC, the language the guide used, the feeling of the space and the accommodations all lead to the idea that this was no half-assed product experience.
In contrast, the day when I got the first iPhone, it too was an experience to remember. I remember opening the packaging and gasping as I pulled the cover off. I also sadly recall the fear of bringing it home and breaking it somehow. With the iPhone, I immediately got a case for it, however with Glass the same cannot be said. This, to me, is a device meant to be used to the fullest extent in our lives. With Google, there was no fear of accidentally clicking the wrong dialog box or putting it on wrong.
Looking back, the hand holding from the guide was greatly appreciated and gave me a comfort when I left. Plus, for two college kids to be treated with desserts and complimentary beverages added the right icing to the cake.
While I loved the device during that time, the shine and sparkle began to fade and the realization that the honeymoon period had ended started creeping in. Even though it was not the first one for me, the experience felt like my own personalized launch day.
After the initial month, I started losing the love for the device that I had held so dear that it became a chore to wear. Not from any fault of the device, but from the fault of the environment in which I and the device live. I loved using it, but I did not love the impact it had on my social interactions and my relationship with the public. I consider myself an introvert with extroverted tendencies, so there were times where I would not wear the device for the sole reason that I did not want anyone to ask me about it. I started to feel that when I put on Glass I was taking away my ability to blend into a crowd and disappear among the faces and live anonymously. I know this sounds like a non-problem, but it was getting to the point where I was thinking of making cards to give out and have it explain Glass than spending five minutes rehashing a speech I had only given less than ten minutes ago. The whole point of the product is to be used as a secondary device and have it bring little bits of important information into my everyday activities, however, it became a primary device through people’s reactions and constant interest. By wearing it, it is supposed to enhance how I live, enhance my relationship with the world, enhance my everyday, when in reality it did not enhance, it changed my everyday. It changed how people looked at me, it changed how people interacted with me. The question becomes: is this the problem of the device or the problem of the early adopter and the environment we live in?
On the morning of my brother’s wedding, I discovered to my chagrin that my precious Google Glass broke while traveling from my home in San Jose to the wedding in Napa. The battery pack snapped and hung just barely by the tiniest bit of plastic to the frame. I scrambled to my phone and for the first time called Google Glass support. It was the best support call I have been on: after a short automated system, I was directed to a person who understood what I was talking about. He walked me through the entire process and calmed me down, taking care of the problem with ease. The only downside to the entire process was the length of time it took to replace the device due to the fact that I didn’t want to put a $1,500 charge on my credit card to allow them to immediately send me a new one. So, Google had to send me a box to put my broken Glass in and send back to them before they would send me a new device.
While I have oscillated on the values Glass gives to users, I can say without a doubt that the future for this device is bright.
Even though I currently do not see myself using this everyday, I’m still super excited to see where it goes. It really requires Google to continue injecting life into this product line in a way that involves a fledging community and empowers people to take risks on the future of this device. I’m personally excited for the unveiling of the new line of accessories and plan on getting one of the ear pieces immediately.
I also think that Google X’s efforts to enable speech recognition and extraction of objects from video will make the device fundamental to our everyday life. Once Google Glass can recognize and store information in my environment for me to access at a later date, it will digitize the way I live. Imagine if Glass remembered where you left your keys or if it could translate signs in a foreign country in real-time. It would change the way we travel. It would change the way we lived at concerts, experience museums, lived our lives. What if we could ask, “OK, Glass, what song at the Lorde concert did I dance the hardest too?” Imagine if it knew how often your head banged to the music, how much your heart elevated, and could analyze and provide information to better understand your experience. This device has the opportunity to mesh our environment with our bodies in a way that allows us to better understand our desires and our lives. Maybe Glass can become like the universal translator in Star Trek, pick up foreign languages and translate in real time. I look forward to that day and seeing how it can change politics, the way we communicate, and the way we view the world.
Overall, I see this device as pushing the wearable technology sector. It’s going to have an impact, but will it last?
If I were on the Glass team my focus would be on solving two key issues, what does this change in people’s daily lives and how can we tell everyone about it? It needs to solve an essential need of either communication or of layered information, because right now its just another device. It feels like an open platform that will only become amazing once it is able to do that one thing. I would ideate a number of different “one things” ranging from adding augmented reality to having it capture 5 second clips of data and producing an environmental blueprint. Right now the device solves the same problem as my phone only from a slightly different approach, but it also needs to uniquely solve its own problem that only it can solve. From there I would really work towards Glass integration into society. The fact is that not everyone understands it or can see a use for it in their daily life. First of all, stories about how explorer’s lives have been improved or changed should be at the forefront of all information about Google Glass. The “How It Feels” video did an amazing job of this but now the community needs to tell their story and show to everyone else its value. One way to accomplish this is by putting the device in the hands of more people. Apple does this amazing well with their stores, Google needs to do the same thing. One idea that Google could easily implement would be to promote Glass in the hands of social influencers like famous YouTubers. Sourcefed creator, Philip DeFranco is a Google Glass owner but after the initial videos, he appears to have not used the device since. How can we get people in the spotlight to want to use this everyday? Once we can show that it has a daily use that daily improves peoples lives then it will start to become adopted by the mass market.
I believe that Google Glass has the potential to change how we live. If you do too, tell me why on Twitter using the hashtag #GlassWillChange.
