Scott Stein has written an excellent overview of the current state of Google’s wearable computing efforts in the form of Project Aura and Gizmodo reports on the latest preview of the hardware from Google, but there is one thing a couple in this that worries me. Specifically, comments that were made about usability. 

Stein quotes XReal CEO Chi Xu as saying, “We’re not trying to solve the all-day wearable capability… But you’re going to find that you can totally use this for hours.” 

That, I think, is a mistake. Wearable computing has to be an all-day wearable thing to be usable and appealing. If you compromise on this, it’s going to remain what it is at the moment: a novelty. People buy the glasses, use them a few times to watch movies, then realize how uncomfortable they are, then stick them in a drawer and forget about them. They wouldn’t wear them all day any more than you would wear a pair of deely-bobbers, because they look obvious and stupid. 

It reminds me of the first cell phones, how they were initially an object of both status and derision. You had to be a super-important-business-type to have one, but everyone loathed you for having and using it. 

What changed for cell phones was phones like the Motorola StarTac that turned a phone from a tool to an object of desire (self-plug alert). They became the trifecta of gadgets: usable, desirable and well-priced. Note, I didn’t say cheap: they can still be expensive, but they have to be things that people want and can use, not loathed objects of status or job. 

To be fair, Xu does say that Google is working on all-day wearable solutions, but that they are some way down the line. Let’s just hope that Google has really learned the lesson of Google Glass: everybody hates a smug git wearing an annoying symbol of elitism, even if it does cool stuff.