It’s said that Google Google is experimenting with Google Glass and prescription lenses. To cater to those who need eyesight correction but don’t want to either wear contacts or to cram the Google Glass frames on over their regular spectacles. Which sounds exceedingly sensible to me I must say. However, this then brings its own problems, at least over here in Europe it will. For over here, at least in most countries, you either can’t sell prescription glasses online or face strict restrictions upon who may do so. And Google Glass is going to be much too expensive to want to have pairs in each and every opticians so that the opticians can sell them:
You had to look closely on the Google I/O show floor, but a few Google employees were wearing Glass prototypes with actual prescription glasses attached. Designed in-house at Google, they actually look good: crisp modern lines, but not exactly for the Ray-Ban set. Mark Shandy, seen above, was kind enough to show them off and discuss how they felt so far.
It’s been reported that Warby Parker could be getting into the Google Glass-designing game, but there’s a good chance that Google’s own in-house design team will come up with some good-looking frames, too, based on these early results, although how easy it’ll be to fit those frames with standard prescription lenses isn’t clear.
Here’s what the problem is with making prescription lenses. There’s an almost infinite variation in the number of prescriptions that can be needed. Reading glasses come in very few variants, which is why in many countries you can now just buy them off the rack at the drug store for a couple of $ a pair. But the more traditional prescription glasses have tens of thousands at least of lens variations. Left and right eye prescriptions can be wildly different, one must correct for pupillary distance (in case you’re wondering, yes I have looked into all of this as part of a business plan just recently, although not with Google Glass in mind), then there’s setting of the lenses for astigmatism, and that’s before we get into bifocals and varifocals, tints and so on.
There is simply no way that one can stock stores with all of these variations: one has to stock frames, then lenses separately and then assemble (and often, fine machine the lenses to meet the exact prescription) them to order for each individual customer.
Traditionally this is done by the optician in the shop for very simple sets. Or the numbers are sent off to a small manufacturer who fits the required lenses to the frames and sends them back to said optician. I don’t think that this model would work for Google: the major reason being that Google Glass isn’t going to be cheap but such a model would require a full stock of frames (with all of the associated computing parts) at opticians across the land available to be so modified with the correct lenses.
In recent years it has been possible, in some countries at least, to do this over the net. The prescription itself is provided by the optician but then is copied into the website and then the lenses are fitted to the frames and shipped. It’s actually an acquaintance of mine who broke the UK opticians monopoly in this area. This means only one stock of frames: greatly reducing costs over the opticians model.
However, this model is not legal in all European countries. In some it’s definitely illegal, in others one would have to have a locally qualified optician on the staff to sign off on prescriptions: essentially, it’s one of the areas where the Single Market of the European Union just isn’t a single market. National regulations would prevent you from running a single website to supply across the continent.
Which leaves Google with something of a problem as to how to distribute Google Glass over here. One method, using the traditional opticians networks, would be extremely expensive in terms of stock. And a centralised website wouldn’t be legal to supply right across the continent. There is a possible solution but that in itself might well imply the necessity to pay corporation tax on any profits. So that’s out for Google too then.
Of course, if Mssrs. Schmidt, Brin and Page want to get in touch to hear that solution I’m always open to a consultancy gig……
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