Google Glass Reborn? I Tried Android XR Smart Glasses, and One ...
Android XR is still in the early stages, but I got to try a prototype pair at Google I/O. The hardware looks promising, and it should benefit from changing attitudes about smart glasses.
Prototype Impressions
The remarkable thing about putting on a pair of Google augmented-reality glasses for the first time in a dozen years was how unremarkable they appeared. While the Google Glass eyewear I tried on at a fancy tech dinner in 2013 made me look like a well-dressed member of the Borg collective, I would like to think that the thick-framed prototype Android XR glasses I tested briefly at Google I/O here on Tuesday gave me more of an Elvis Costello vibe. (Especially since their built-in camera would ease watching the detectives.)
New Design
Where Glass packaged its electronics in a large pod above the wearer’s right eye, these glasses, briefly shown in a demo video at last year’s I/O, hid their gadgetry inside thick temples. And while Google showed off Glass at 2012’s I/O with the still-unmatched stunt of having wing-suited skydivers livestream themselves parachuting onto the roof of San Francisco’s Moscone Center, Android XR’s spot near the end of Tuesday’s keynote was much more low-key.
Hands-On Experience
My first impression: They were lighter than I expected, although Google isn’t citing a specific weight. The display embedded in the right lens showed a calendar entry, "Glasses Demo in 6 mins," and the current weather. A Google rep encouraged me to look at any of the artwork hanging on the walls of this room and ask Google's Gemini AI about them. Looking at a pointillist print, I asked "Is that painting by Georges Seurat?"; Gemini replied that it was Henri-Edmond Cross’s Two Women by the Shore.
Future Prospects
But at any price, Google’s new venture into smart eyewear should benefit from a vastly changed environment (PCMag's sibling site CNET agrees). A wide variety of vendors sell smart glasses, with Meta’s $329 Ray-Ban smart glasses the best-known example. “The market really has changed,” says Avi Greengart, president and lead analyst of Techsponential.
