Google chairman Eric Schmidt said that the company is still hard at work perfecting its wearable, calling it a “big and fundamental platform for Google.” Everyone pretty much stuck a fork in Google Glass earlier this year when the company ended its Explorer program and stopped selling the original Glass.
The project was moved out of Google’s research labs and transferred to a new unit that was under the watchful eye of Tony Fadell, who runs Google’s Nest connected home division.
“We ended the Explorer program and the press conflated this into us canceling the whole project, which isn’t true,” Schmidt told the Journal. “Google is about taking risks, and there’s nothing about adjusting Glass that suggests we’re ending it.”
Schmidt also told the Journal that Fadell would “make it ready for users” and that “these things take time.” What we should perhaps call this hibernation period of Google Glass’ journey to our faces is happening just as Apple is preparing to release the Apple Watch next month.
Google’s smartwatch platform, Android Wear, is still struggling to gain any meaningful traction, but the wearables space may be just too big for the search giant not to continue to experiment.