But it's still all business
Google has announced the next iteration of its Glass smart glasses, the Glass Enterprise Edition 2. Like the previous Enterprise edition, the new glasses aren’t made for general consumers but specifically for business use.
Google says the new Glass is faster, running on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon XR1 chip, which is made especially for VR and AR products. However Google Glass is more what we’d call “assisted reality” – it acts like a heads-up display, projecting images into the wearer’s eye, rather than overlaying those objects on the real world.
Read this: The best augmented reality glasses 2019
The Enterprise Edition 2 packs in a bigger battery and, thanks to a partnership with Smith Optics, comes with the option of “safety frames” that help it look more like a regular pair of glasses and less like a cyborg accessory. There’s a beefed-up camera and it runs on Android now too, and Google has added support for Android Enterprise Mobile Device Management.
While you might be surprised to be reading about Google Glass in 2019, the arrival of the Enterprise Edition 2 isn’t all that shocking. While the original Google Glass was considered a flop by many (and a privacy headache for Google), the company changed tack in 2015 and started selling Glass as a purely business product.
Google even says it’s moved the Glass team out of its Google X moonshots division and made it part of the core company, a sign that it’s taking Glass more seriously. But still, don’t expect anything for consumers on the horizon, with augmented reality glasses not yet lucrative enough to go mainstream.
The Enterprise Edition 2 costs $999, which is less than the original Google Glass’s $1,500 price tag. It will be cheaper still for some companies who are able to strike up partnerships with Google.