Glass is not dead. It has been spun off into its own department, spearheaded by Nest CEO Tony Fadell. While Fadell works to stage a turnaround in the hopes of winning over consumers, Google’s smart glasses and those from other hardware developers, like Vuzix and Recon Instruments, have already gained considerable traction in the enterprise.
While enterprise-wide deployments are still very preliminary, there’s tremendous potential for wearables like smart glasses among deskless workers across manufacturing, field services, healthcare, oil and gas, nuclear, automotive, security, logistics, and transportation. In fact, based on 2012 data from the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, 46 million Americans work in an industry where wearable technologies are applicable. If other variables remain constant, this number is set to increase to 52 million by 2022.
With such a vast population standing to benefit from wearables, we’re already seeing an ecosystem of third-party software developers emerge to support the most popular smart glasses devices. Companies like APX Labs, Augmate, Wearable Intelligence, Pristine, and Augmedix are all building enterprise solutions for smart glasses. By next year, the wearable tech industry could be a $10 billion business. Many of these new developers have already seen early success via partnerships with titans like Tesla, ExxonMobil, and Boeing.