Google’s Glass dreams live on with the arrival of enterprise hardware

Google Glass was ahead of its time. That's not to say that the people who wore it out in public didn't look like giant dorks, of course, but in hindsight it seems safe to say that the world just wasn't ready for wearable augmented reality. The phenomenon has, however, seen a resurgence among enterprise applications, courtesy of companies like Epson and Microsoft.

Google's ready to ride that wave. In May, the company announced the arrival of the second version of its Enterprise Edition of Glass. Today, the headset is available for developers as a direct purchase from a handful of resellers. The Android-based device, which graduated from Google X mid last year, looks remarkably like the earliest versions of Glass, albeit with a slightly refined design.

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Seven years after the arrival of the original model, the Glass Enterprise 2 isn't cheap, either. It runs $1,000 from partner sites. There are a few suggestions for potential applications, including card text, imaging samples and QR scanning.

As Lucas noted in his initial write-up, the Glass system is much more limited than the likes of the latest HoloLens, which is focused on a more XR experience. Google, instead, is focused on lightweight usability - which could certainly serve as an advantage in certain settings. Key applications for the product include settings like construction sites, where contextual environmental information can otherwise be difficult to access.