Bad news: Google Glass will probably launch with terrible battery life

[V-Tech]

Whether or not Google?s connected eyewear will appeal to the mass market, early reviews painted Google Glass as a very intriguing product. It?s not without some faults, of course, and one of the biggest problems with early units was battery life. Glass reportedly goes for about five hours on a charge with average usage, which isn?t very impressive at all. Use the device for something like capturing long videos, however, and battery life can drop to as low as just ?a couple of hours.? The version tested by earlier reviewers was just a prototype though, and Glass fans are hoping that Google will improve the device?s efficiency before launching it. But according to recent comments from Google cofounder Sergey Brin, that may not be the case.

In its deep dive into Google?s X Lab, Bloomberg Businessweek spoke with Brin about a number of things ?Google X? is working on. Glass is clearly the division?s most widely publicized project, and Brin made an interesting, possibly troubling comment while discussing it.

From the report: ?Asked about Google Glass, a project he championed and which he has been photographed testing on the New York City subway, he points to the device perched on his nose and says, ?You know, this is basically done.? ?

There are a few ways to interpret that comment. One interpretation suggests that while the ?Explorer? models currently in use are prototypes, an updated version that is ?basically done? exists within Google. Another interpretation, however, is that the version of Google Glass currently being used by early adopters is the version that is ?basically done,? and we can expect Glass to launch with terrible battery life.

In either case, Google previously announced that Glass will launch to the public sometime in 2014.

http://bgr.com/2013/05/24/google-glass-battery-life-sergey-brin/

[_neutrino Veteran]

Until a new battery technology is ready i would venture to say any small device such as that which would have features such as wifi, bluetooth a display or even a camera the battery is not going to last very long just by its nature.

[Hum]

That's OK -- I wasn't going to buy one anyway.

[BajiRav]

It's ok, it's made by Google.

[Astra.Xtreme]

Besides the crappy battery life, that picture above is more-so the reason this thing isn't going to take off. Not only do you look pretty dumb wearing it, but everybody is going to think you're a creeper walking around filming everybody.

They should have partnered with Oakley or Ray-Ban to integrate this into sunglasses or something. It would at least look more natural then.

[jakem1]

It's going to be difficult to constantly invade other people's privacy with crappy battery life.

[+DonC Subscriber²]

That's OK. It's probably enough to power the device for the average time it takes for it to be relegated to a drawer.

[techbeck]

So a guess based on nothing. Still developing it and things could change from now and until launch date.