Google Halts Glass Consumer Sales, Ends Explorer Program

Google (GOOG) said it will stop selling its Glass eyewear technology to consumers and will close the Explorer program in which thousands of beta testers paid upwards of $1,500 to sample the wearable device.

Glass, which features a processor, camera and small screen affixed to an eyeglass frame, boasts a number of important distribution agreements, most prominently with Luxottica, which owns Oakley and Ray Ban, and vision care provider VSP Global to train some 30,000 eye doctors in its network on the device. Those deals were designed to blunt the impression that Glass is a niche product only for techies. In addition, Intel (INTC) recently signed on to replace Texas Instruments’ (TI) chips in the next round of Glass devices.

But Monday, January 19 will be the final day consumers can buy the eyewear, which Google began offering to the public only a year ago but never has caught on in any significant numbers. Along the way Glass caught both supporters who hailed its quirkly design and detractors who dinged it for its clunky look.

“Glass was in its infancy, and you took those very first steps and taught us how to walk,” Google wrote in a Glass blog post. “Well, we still have some work to do, but now we’re ready to put on our big kid shoes and learn how to run,” the search giant said.

“In the meantime, we’re continuing to build for the future, and you’ll start to see future versions of Glass when they’re ready,” Google said, signaling its plan to target future versions of Glass for specific uses in vertical markets, such as hospitals, manufacturing, distribution and retail.

The Glass project still will be led by Ivy Ross but will be relocated from the Google X research lab of its origin and move under the direction of Tony Fadell, the co-founder and chief executive of home automation developer Nest, which Google acquired for $3.2 billion a year ago.

To take stock of Google’s chances with Glass among consumers, Reuters last November surveyed 16 Glass developers, nine of which said they’d either stopped working on Glass projects or had walked away from the platform entirely.

“If there was 200 million Google Glasses sold, it would be a different perspective,” Tom Frencel, Little Guy Games chief executive, told Reuters. “There’s no market at this point,” he said.

Prior to hints of an eroding consumer market, Google suffered some serious defections from the Glass ranks. Last July, Babak Parviz, who headed development of Google’s Glass project and has been with the company since 2010, jumped ship to Amazon (AMZN). Adrian Wong, electrical engineering head, and Ossama Alami, director of developer relations director, also left.

And, the Glass Collective, a partnership between Google Ventures and venture firms Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins, Caufield & Byers to catalyze a developer ecosystem for Glass, shuttered its website and redirected users to the main Glass site.

In what may have provided the most telling clues about Glass’ shaky consumer future, the device was selling on eBay (EBAY) at cut-rate prices—in some cases half of the list price.

“All of the consumer glass startups are either completely dead or have pivoted,” Alex Foster, See Through founder, told Reuters.