After the home streaming device Nexus Q, Google has now decided to manufacturer its second hardware product in the United States. According to a report by Financial Times, Google will manufacture Glass in Silicon Valley.
Google is reportedly working with Hon Hai, the company behind iPhone/ iPad assembler Foxconn, to assemble this futuristic AR eyegear at Santa Clara in California.
“The small scale, high cost and complexity of the project’s initial run makes it practical to base manufacturing operations near the search company’s Silicon Valley headquarters, according to people briefed on the plans,” FT noted in the report.
Traditionally, top US electronics companies have outsourced the assembling of products to China and other cheap labour countries.
It is not sure whether Google wants to manufacture all Google Glass devices at this US factory or will shift the base to China after the initial run, which is currently scheduled to be made here and consists of a few thousand Google Glass devices.
Company has just finalized the second list of 8,000 early adopters, which will get access to this wearable computing device before public. It had earlier allowed, developers at Google I/O 2012 to order the Glass for $1500 to test drive it before anyone else outside Google.
It is likely that Google is only making these 8,000 Google Glass products at this California factory, but a lot will depend on the company’s experience with this “made in USA” manufacturing process and if everything goes better than expected Google might decide to keep the Google Glass manufacturing in US. But, these are lot of ‘if’s and we would rather wait and see the next course of action then speculate more.
Google Glass is an ambitious project from the search giant, which is aiming to take it to the mass market by the end of 2013.
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