Watch the GLASS

Background

Google Glass is considered one of Google’s latest and hottest gadgets. Wearable technology industry will be one of the most promising and rising ones during the following years. Smartwatches and smart glasses are already competing in the wearable devices battle.

Purpose of survey

Google Glass survey aimed to provide deeper insights on people’s opinion regarding Google Glass.

What do people think about Google Glass? Would they buy one? What are their concerns? Would people feel comfortable having dinner with someone sitting on the other side of the table and wearing a Google Glass? What kind of devices are more desirable in the wearable devices world after all? Google Glass or iWatch? Samsung’s Galaxy Gear smartwatch is already in the battle too. Is Google Glass not the hottest gadget in the wearable devices battle any more?

Answers to all these questions in Pollfish Google Glass latest survey findings!

Key Results

Google Glass survey findings showed that 7 out of 10 would buy a Google Glass in the future. Google Glass design choices is under debate among survey respondents and 40.8% of them would like to see a left screen version of the Glass too. 65% believe that Google Glass will revolutionize the way we interact in while almost 3 out of 10 have concerns on how they will look wearing one. 57% of the respondents believe that Google Glass will become socially acceptable but only 31% of them think it will stay in the long run. In the wearable devices battle, according to survey findings, Google Glass seems to win easily, since only 1 out of 4 would prefer an iWatch from a Google Glass.

Deeper Insights

Now, let’s have a deeper look on Google Glass latest survey findings:

1. 40.8% would prefer the screen to be on the left side

People have spoken and an astonishing 40.8% would actually prefer the Google Glass screen to be placed on the left side!

2. 65% think it will revolutionize the way we interact

Although people may not completely agree with the design choices made by Google they definitely seem to be overwhelmed by the product, since over 65% of the survey respondents feel that Google Glass will revolutionize the way we interact. Breaking down our survey according to age shows that Google Glass is not a gadget just for the young and seems to be highly desirable from ages 20 up to 50.

3. 70% across all ages would buy it –  15% will not buy it due to pricing and useless!

The support for Google Glass is great with more than 70% interested in buying it! As we dig deeper we see that one of the top reasons for not buying a Google Glass is that it is too expensive (27%) but also 20.6% seem to think it is useless. Furthermore more, several other reasons came up for not buying a Google Glass  such as personal data privacy concerns (18.6%) and battery issues (5.4%). In addition to the above 28% don’t seem to find Google Glass attractive and worry about looking strange wearing it.

4. Awkwardness increases in places

Another thing that is quite interesting according to the survey findings, is the feeling of sitting around when someone else is wearing a Google Glass. Privacy seems to be a real issue here and hard to tackle since more than 35% of the respondents would not feel comfortable to sit around. This high percentage coming from smartphone users is something that should be taken under serious consideration and needs to be handled. On the one hand, many organizations and companies have not decided whether or not to allow people wearing Google Glasses walking around due to privacy concerns and a vast majority of users, over 76% of the respondents, seem to share the same concerns regarding privacy. On the other hand, users seem to think it is revolutionary and many of them express interest in buying a pair of Google Glass so this contradiction is expected to raise a lot of debates..

Although users have many concerns regarding privacy more than 57% believe it will become socially acceptable eventually and at least 31% of them believe that Google Glass is here to stay in the long run.

5. Affected market sectors

The ultimate question lies on which sector Google Glass will actually make a difference and how it will do that. People seem to think that Google Glass will be more of a personal gadget used for entertainment and travel, maybe it will have some interesting applications in education and a few businesses like media but not so much in financial services, healthcare and more. Although healthcare was not considered to be affected much we already know that the first surgery with Google Glass has been conducted so the Google Glass “experiments” have a long way ahead.

So users might not be sure about which sector will be affected more and how, but they seem to have tracked the most useful features for Google Glass like Turn-by-turn driving 18%, taking pictures 13.5%, making phone calls 13.3%, recording videos 12.5%, texting and chat 8.2% and at the bottom of the list we can find Google voice search and video chats with google+ hangouts.

6. iWatch with privacy issues

Pollfish knows wearable computing begins to emerge and would like to track down a key question such as which kind of wearable devices most people want. As you already understand Pollfish could not have left out a question debating Google Glass and iWatch! Respondents seem to favor Google Glass with 74.7% voting for it, while only 25.3% voted for iWatch. As we watch closely, iWatch fans seem more worried on privacy concerns (81%) compared to the 76% of the total sample.

Conclusions

In conclusion Google Glass will probably be one of the most debated products regarding privacy. In addition to that, pricing seems to be a serious issue but this will probably change when it gets mass production. Finally, although users feel they need more design options regarding the screen, Google seems to got it right since Google Glass seems revolutionary in many ways and as the survey showed we are not yet capable to think of all the applications that go with it. In general, wearable devices are in our front door and the debate will be which one will dominate the market.

Survey Audience

Google Glass survey was conducted on a global scale without using specific targeting options, among 900 randomly selected mobile users.