Google has begun to sell its Glass Explorer Edition of eyewear gadgetry to the American public amid high demand, as long as customers are all right with shelling out $1,500 and as long as supplies last, ahead of another mainstream rollout later this year
Last month, Google sold its wearable tech product on the open market for a single day and nearly worked through its inventory. But the company has since built up its Glass supplies and is now selling its Glass Explorer Edition in the U.S. for as long as its inventory lasts, according to a company blog post.
[related-posts] Considering the high demand for Glass, the open sale could be short-lived. Google is still selling its beta version and continuing to tweak its hardware, but for now, if one-and-a-half large isn’t too steep a barrier to entry, you can buy Glass here.
Glass costs far more than its components, analysts have said. IHS Inc. pegged Glass’ gadget hardware and manufacturing costs at $152. But IHS also said a large portion of the missing $1348 per Glass likely goes to non-recurring engineering expenses and expensive software and platform development.
And Google has said that the estimates were off. “While we appreciate another attempt to estimate the cost of Glass, this latest one from IHS… is wildly off,” a Google spokesman said, according to the Wall Street Journal. “Glass costs significantly more to produce.”
Reasonably priced or not, Google is planning to open up to a wider consumer launch later this year.
Credit: TIME.com
