One of the more controversial aspects of Google's Glass experiment has been the $1500 price tag that Explorers have to pony up to get their hands on the hardware. Most people expect Google to lower the cost by a significant amount when a final version for public sale is finally available. Just how low Google can go on their pricing and still have a profitable product may have been partially answered by a new teardown of Glass completed by TechInsights' Teardown.com division. They have estimated the costs of the components to be less than $80.
The team is still working on completing their teardown, but their initial cost estimate has raised some eyebrows and prompted a Google spokesperson to declare the estimate "absolutely wrong." One item that seems to be priced suspiciously low is the display itself which is very small yet produces a high resolution image. Teardown.com pegged this part, including the touchscreen portion, at only $3.
The other issue with Teardown.com's estimate is that it only deals with the hardware components and does not factor in any of the R&D costs or production costs. These are probably quite high and sales in large numbers will be needed to spread those out and reduce them significantly. As some are discovering thanks to recent problems with software updates on the device, Google has quite a few people devoted to support for the Explorer program, only adding to the costs that have to be factored in.
At what point would the price be right for you to invest in a pair of Google Glass?
source: Teardown.com
via: Wall Street Journal
Come comment on this article: New Google Glass teardown estimates cost of hardware at under $80
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