Here’s What Happened When I Wore Google Glass Overseas

I recently spent some time in France and Germany. I was extremely excited about the trip, mixed with a slight reservation about how Google Glass would be received. My French and German were not advanced enough to help alleviate any misunderstandings, and I was unsure of the “right thing to do.” In the end, I decided I would just wear Glass, and see what happened. I had enough confidence in my diplomacy skills to hope that would resolve any issues (if they would happen to arise).

I’m happy to report there were no issues, in fact — quite the opposite. Let me tell you a few stories to illustrate how Glass was received.

Google Glass in Paris

We spent four days in Paris. During that time, we went all over the city, enjoying sights, sounds, food and everything else Paris has to offer.

I wore Glass the entire time. I did start to notice a trend: The other Americans knew right away it was Glass. We heard a lot of the “look at that girl, she has Google Glass” whispers.

However, the only time anyone actually approached me was if I was alone in a store or similar situation. I would be in a store, and the salespeople would stare, until one of them would approach me and ask about Glass. At that point, I would do a demo for anyone who wanted to try them, and this would continue until my husband would come find me (wondering what was taking so long!).

Google Glass in Germany

In Germany, we found that more people knew what Glass was, and they were extremely excited to see it and have a chance to try it. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to speak with many people, who were very kind and explained that Glass had been on the news quite a bit — people were familiar with the device.

I spent one afternoon trying to sketch some of the buildings with little success. Here’s why: I was sitting alone with a sketchbook and, literally every five minutes, a very polite person would say, “Excuse me … Google Glass?” and of course, I would offer to let them try the device and take some pictures.

I have to say, people were REALLY excited to see Glass and try it. I’ve seen people in America get excited, but the people in Germany were REALLY excited. I mean, excited to the point that when we would see them again, they would yell, “Google Glass!” and smile. In particular, there was a candy store by our hotel — they were absolutely delighted to try Glass! It’s really hard to NOT have that excitement be infectious! In fact, I did so many demos, I started uploading an album, just as a funny thing to share, because I had so many pictures of myself! (Like the one above!)

One Exception

The only exception to this experience was a very high-end store, but I take some of the responsibility for that. We went into the store, and immediately the salespeople were a bit wary. I understand this store has issues with copyright and counterfeit, which is a valid concern. They asked us to not record, and we explained that the device was off — that we were not recording. However, they all continued to stare at us. As they obviously didn’t like us being there, and we felt uncomfortable, we just left.

So the moral of the story is, happily, that my fears were unfounded. Google Glass was well received by almost all of the people that I interacted with. To be completely transparent, there were A LOT of stares. A lot. I cannot overstate the amount of stares. There were enough looks that our traveling companions pointed out several times, “Every person we pass is staring at you guys.” The looks were not unkind; I’m sure most people simply didn’t know what was on my face, and I probably would have reacted the same way. There was no point at which I felt threatened or unsafe, and (to my knowledge) no one said anything unkind.

I think the takeaway is simply to be polite and respectful, be aware of your surroundings and maybe, just maybe, Google Glass is starting to be more widely accepted.