Google Glass AR smartglasses has discontinued its enterprise sales

Google announced on Wednesday that it will no longer sell its Glass Enterprise smart glasses. According to Google, its software will also cease to be supported in September.

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The move marks the end of one of the first -- and still most recognized -- smart glasses product lines.

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As a successor to Google Glass, which was a lightweight glasses product that displayed tiny bits of information in the field of view of the user, Glass Enterprise was a lightweight glasses product that displayed tiny bits of information on a transparent screen.

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Developers and early adopters first purchased Glass in 2013 for $1,500, and the device quickly caught the attention of tech enthusiasts. Even though the Glass project at Google had the backing of Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the product failed to catch on as a mainstream product despite their support. Due to the built-in camera, it caused a lot of controversy over privacy, and the product became the stuff of jokes on late-night television as a result.

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Google was positioning the product in 2017 as a tool for enterprises to stream healthcare appointments or train factory workers.

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The hardware was most recently released for $999 by Google in 2019.

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The move by Google comes as rivals, such as Meta and Apple, are investing in augmented reality and virtual reality, which could result in devices that are much more sophisticated than Google Glass in the future.

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The company Meta has released Ray-Ban smartglasses that have no display but have cameras, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has spoken publicly about a final form for the product line that will look something like Google Glass.

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Apparently, Apple is working on a virtual reality headset that displays the outside world using video from outward-facing cameras.

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HoloLens, Microsoft's augmented reality glasses for businesses, was reportedly laid off earlier this year, and its creator, Alex Kipman, left Microsoft in 2022.

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Even though Glass has been discontinued, Google does not abandon augmented reality or smart glasses. The company announced last summer that it would continue testing augmented reality glasses prototypes in public after previewing a different pair of smart glasses that could translate and transcribe speech in real time.