Google to Begin Field-Testing Next-Gen AR Glasses in August

Now we have reason to believe we might soon see the AR glasses in person. In a blog post published Tuesday, Google revealed that what was an early-stage prototype back in May will begin seeing the light of day as soon as August.

“Testing only in a lab environment has its limitations,” Juston Payne, group product manager at Google AR and VR, wrote. “So starting next month, we plan to test AR prototypes in the real world. This will allow us to better understand how these devices can help people in their everyday lives.”

While the company seems to have gotten its technology’s translation and transcription capabilities down, certain use cases require real-life interactions with strangers, vehicles, and miscellaneous weather conditions. This is particularly true for navigation tools—a mainstay of wearable AR technology. A few dozen Google employees and “trusted testers” will try out the glasses in public spaces, albeit with strict feature limitations. While the prototypes will include microphones and cameras, they won’t support photography and videography. Instead, Payne wrote, image data will be used to facilitate text translation (like on a menu) or GPS navigation. Google’s AR privacy and safety sheet says testers won’t be allowed to use navigation features while driving or otherwise operating heavy machinery, so these will likely only be tested with walking and cycling.

Beyond knowing what the unnamed glasses look like and what they’re about to be tested for, we don’t have a ton of information on Google’s exciting new wearable technology. We don’t know the full range of the glasses’ planned capabilities, and we still have no idea how much they’ll cost when they eventually (presumably) go on the market. It’s reasonable to hope that they’ll be more affordable than Google Glass was when that exclusive little blunder went on sale, but AR goggles are still in their infancy, relatively speaking. Whether Google will price them to remain exclusive or find their way into the average household is currently unknown.