Google glasses cost only 150 US dollars

The Forbes magazine website estimated the future price of Google Glass in a dismantling report today. The site said that after high-volume shipments, this wearable product will bid farewell to the expensive price of $ 1,500. The real selling price may be as low as 500 US dollars, and selling 299 US dollars is not impossible.

From the dismantling report, it can be seen that Google Glass has many components used on smart phones, as well as some custom components. It has a touchpad for manipulation in the temple position, followed by a main circuit board for the entire device, which is responsible for WiFi and Bluetooth functions. The opposite side is equipped with a battery that can be used for balancing weight. According to early wearers, this product's weight balance is very good and it's coordinated.

In addition to the temple parts, the lens portion of Google Glass looks like a fairly standard, low-end smartphone camera and monitor. This is called the "microdisplay" of Google's display components, its area is about 1/8 iPhone, and fewer pixels. There is also a prism-like element that maps the displayed content to the immediate location.

The article draws on IHS iSuppli's report on the dismantling of the Samsung Galaxy S4 to evaluate the component costs of Google Glass. There are quite a few common components between the two products: memory, processor, WiFi/Bluetooth, battery, power management components, sensors. On a low-end Samsung phone, its processor specifications, number of sensors, and battery performance go beyond Google Glass. The total cost of these components is $85.60. For Google Glass, the cost of components should be lower.

One source pointed out that the unique "microdisplay" component cost of Google Glasses will not exceed $30. Considering that custom design and precision machining are involved, it may be assumed that the production cost of Google Glass is higher than that of Samsung. Together with some packaging and the rest of the cost, it adds up to $60 in component costs. In this way, the production cost of the entire product is above 150 US dollars. To consider it more broadly, and as if it were $200. The cost price thus calculated is at the same level as the low-end Galaxy S4 or iPhone smartphone.

That being the case, why is the company now launching Google Glass products up to $1,500? The report speculated that Google hopes to use this price to limit initial demand. Now just let the whole world become familiar with this concept.

Google has already expressed its desire to sell this product at a very low profit margin, which is to add 50 US dollars to the production cost of iSuppli. Samsung and Apple, which use the opposite strategy, rarely sell their products at three times the production cost. Based on this calculation, the final price of Google Glasses should be between 199 US dollars and 599 US dollars. If the selling price exceeds this range, it means that Google does not want to sell too many such products for a period of time.