Google Deal With Luxottica Will Bring Glass to Ray-Ban, Oakley

Google Deal With Luxottica Will Bring Glass to Ray-Ban, Oakley

ROLFE WINKLER

March 24,2014

With Luxottica’s help, Google hopes to use style to overcome consumer doubts about Glass. Astro Teller, who oversees Glass among other projects at Google X, the company’s innovation lab, said it is a “very large

Google Inc. GOOG -2.12% has won a powerful ally in its fight to make Google Glass cool.

Italian eyewear maker Luxottica LUX.MI +0.39% Group SpA, owner of the Ray-Ban and Oakley sunglass brands, said Monday it had agreed to design, develop and distribute new versions of Google’s Web-connected eyewear.

It is the latest sign of interest in Google Glass from the eyewear industry, even as consumers remain unsure of the merits of the device.

“Google has opened up a new potential opportunity of use of glasses,” said Andrea Guerra, chief executive of Luxottica, in an interview. Mr. Guerra said that his company and Google began working together last year.

The Luxottica deal follows Google’s January agreement with vision-care giant VSP Global to offer prescription lenses, subsidized frames and training for optometrists on how to properly fit the device.

hump” to convince people to wear computers on their face. “This is a fashion problem as much as it is a technology problem,” he said.

Messrs. Teller and Guerra declined to say when Luxottica’s Google Glass products would be available or to offer details of what they might look like. Mr. Guerra said Oakley and Ray-Ban designers, among others, have been working with Google designers to develop eyewear that will incorporate Glass technology without simply mounting Google’s device on top of Luxottica sunglasses, for instance.

The companies also didn’t disclose financial terms of their arrangement.

“Partnering with Luxottica is a huge coup for Google,” said J.P. Gownder, an analyst at Forrester Research who studies wearable-computing devices. “In one fell swoop, Google could get Glass in front of tens or hundreds of millions of consumers in an eyewear-appropriate setting.”

Luxottica’s extensive distribution will help with that. The Italian company led the market for eyewear in 2012 with 12.4% share, according to Euromonitor International. It also controls LensCrafters and Sunglass Hut retail stores among others. Those outlets will offer Google Glass products through more than 5,000 U.S. stores, said Mr. Guerra.

Google also is getting distribution help from VSP, which has a network of 30,000 eye doctors nationwide and 60 million people enrolled in its vision plans.

The assistance from eyewear giants will be welcome for Google, which is already fighting a backlash against the device. One San Francisco bar has banned Google Glass due to customers’ concerns about being recorded. A Glass user in Columbus, Ohio, was pulled out of a movie theater by federal agents who suspected he might have been recording the movie.

Google last week tried to counter the concerns with a blog post titled “The Top 10 Google Glass Myths.” Google has also admonished its early users not to be “glassholes” by surreptitiously snapping photos, for instance.

Forrester’s Mr. Gownder said Google also must combat a perception that Glass will mostly be used commercially. For example, Augmedix Inc. last week said it had raised $3.2 million in financing, hoping to use Google Glass to help doctors manage patient health records more efficiently.

Announcing a deal with Luxottica long before there is a product “should reassure developers that Glass is a serious consumer product,” said Mr. Gownder.

Google is still discussing internally how much to charge for Glass, according to a spokesman. It also hasn’t finalized a release date for the consumer version, though the company hopes to do so later this year.

Luxottica, Google clinch Glass eyewear deal

Mon, Mar 24 2014

MILAN (Reuters) – Ray-Ban sunglasses maker Luxottica said on Monday it had sealed a strategic partnership with Google Inc over its Glass eyewear that could pave the way for a new market in smart glasses.

In a statement, Italy’s Luxottica said it would design, develop and distribute a new kind of eyewear for the U.S. group’s Internet-connected Glass eyewear.

Google Glass is a small stamp-sized screen attached to a pair of eyeglass frames. It can record video, access email, and retrieve information from the Web by connecting wirelessly to a user’s cell phone.

Luxottica said the two groups would work together to create innovative wearable devices for the iconic Glass brand.

No financial terms were disclosed.

Luxottica said its two major brands, Ray-Ban and Oakley, would be part of the deal with Glass but it gave no further details.

“We believe that a strategic partnership with a leading player like Google is the ideal platform for developing a new way forward in our industry and answering the evolving needs of consumers on a global scale,” Luxottica Chief Executive Officer Andrea Guerra said.

Many believe wearable computers such as Google Glass represent the next big shift in technology, just as smartphones evolved from personal computers.

But some concern has been expressed over possible privacy intrusion issues the device might entail.