Yes, I admit it, I’m a technophile, aka “nerd,” “geek,” or perhaps a “neek.” I picked up the Explorer Edition of Google Glass when it became available to the public. I thought it might have some interesting applications in the medical field. I liked the idea of using it for navigation, and I was curious to see what you could do with it. It’s a great concept and in many ways a great device. Here are some of my observations.

1. If you wear Google Glass in public, people notice the device and worry that you’re recording them. There are perhaps hundreds of devices out now that can record or take photos, and people carry them everywhere: smartphones, watches, pens, glasses, clip-on cameras and plenty of others. I think people feel uncomfortable around Google Glass because it’s so visibly recognizable to everyone who isn’t wearing it. It’s the opposite of covert.
2. People will stop and ask you about it. You might get a small group gathered around you wanting to know more, so if you’re already late for work, you might not want to wear Glass on your walk, or you could find yourself running further behind schedule.

3) You need to pair it with your smartphone, not only over Bluetooth but also Wi-Fi. I found it challenging to pair with my iPhone’s personal Wi-Fi network. It seems to lose the connection and then have trouble re-establishing it. Worse, you don’t even know it’s disconnected from your phone, or from another Wi-Fi network, until you try to use it. I’m not sure whether that’s a problem inherent to Glass or to the iPhone personal hotspot feature. It may work better with Android devices, but I can’t say.

If you’d like to connect to a different Wi-Fi network, it isn’t easy. You enter the settings into Glass, then create a QR code in the Google Glass application on your phone, and then Glass photographs the QR code to store your network information.

4) It seems to lock up or stop responding at times. One of the supposedly great things about wearable tech is that it’s ready whenever you want it, without having to pull anything out of your pocket. If Google Glass would wake up whenever I wanted it to, that would be a good start. Sometimes it also decides to update itself without asking, and during that time it’s completely unusable.

5) Google advertises it as a device you can use all day, but I find the battery dies quickly. With regular use it lasts about three hours. The battery also gets very warm.

6) At least at this point, you’re limited to Google Calendar, with no other options. If you’d like to add all of your phone contacts to Glass, that isn’t easy or intuitive either.

7) Scanning through the Glass timeline to find your photos, tweets, missed calls, text messages or other data can be time consuming and difficult.

8) The audio quality is very poor. Google has tried to remedy this by supplying a small earbud you can plug in, but in my opinion that isn’t a great solution.

9) The screen, the glass that projects in front of your eye, has very low resolution and can be difficult to see in bright sunlight.

10) There are a very limited number of applications available right now. Applications that interact with Facebook or Twitter only let you post an update or a tweet. Be careful taking a photo, because it’s very easy to accidentally share it to your Facebook timeline or send it out as a tweet.

11) Perhaps the best feature is navigation. Having directions appear right in front of you is great, but you need the Google Glass application already open on your iPhone before you use it, or it won’t work. I can’t tell you how many times I asked Glass for directions only to be told to open the Glass application on my phone. So much for hands free.

12) There’s a beta feature that lets you take a picture by winking. This is genuinely cool, if a bit creepy, but it doesn’t work all the time. That feature is in beta along with the rest of the device.

13) At $1,500, Google Glass costs more than most people will want to pay. If the device worked 90 percent of the time, and there were more you could do with it, and better application support, meaning Facebook, Twitter, medical applications such as Epocrates, better audio, and music apps, I would pay $500 for it.

Is Google Glass ready for prime time? I think it’s a great device with real potential. You be the judge. What do you think about Google Glass? Post a comment and share your opinion.

Scott Rennie, D.O.

Board Certified in Obesity Medicine and Family Medicine