Before Google introduced its software platform for smartwatches the company was working on another kind of wearable device. Google Glass captured everybody’s attention when it came out a couple of years ago but despite the lengthy “Explorer Program” and the invite-only sales process Glass never had a proper consumer release. In January Google shut down the Explorer program and moved the Glass project out of its Google X research lab and into a separate unit overseen by Nest’s Tony Fadell. Some believed that this was the end of the road for Glass, but Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt says Google is destined to return.
Speaking to The Wall Street Journal Schmidt said that Google placed the Glass project under Fadell to “make it ready for users.” Schmidt said that when Google announced the end of the Glass Explorer program “the press conflated this into us cancelling the whole project” which he says isn’t true at all.
Schmidt added that this is nothing about adjusting Glass that suggests the company is ending the project for good. “It is a big and very fundamental platform for Google.”
However he did point out that this was a long-term project, like Google’s self-driving cars, which still require quite a few years before they’re allowed on the road.
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