Google urging Glass owners to turn in their Glass for a newer unit or risk lack of updates

BY Stefan Constantinescu

Published 5 Dec 2013

If you’re one of the less than 2,000 people lucky enough to have Google Glass, you’ll soon get a pretty strongly worded email from Google telling you that it’s time to upgrade. The letter, published in full over at Engadget, encourages Glass owners to mail in their Glass by February 5th for a free replacement or else face a lack of updates since all future Glass development will be done on the new version of the device.

How exactly does Glass v2 differ from Glass v1? The bone conduction mechanism has been replaced with a single earbud, and that’s all that’s known. As far as I’m aware, no one has dared to take apart the new version of Glass to see if any of the internals have been updated, but I’ve got to think that they have, otherwise Google wouldn’t say anything about a potential lack of updates.

But let’s ask the important question here: When will you, the man on the street, actually be able to buy Glass? Google is being very coy about providing a date, and for good reason too. When they launch Glass, they’re going to want to give it the marketing campaign it deserves, so the company is still trying to figure out who to target Glass at and how to price it.

If I had to take a guess, I’d say expect a second half 2014 launch.