Google Glass costs $1,500 now but its tiny parts may actually cost only around $80.
According to reports, Google Glass' most expensive component is the Texas Instruments processor (OMAP4430) which costs only $13.96. The device's 570mAh battery is the cheapest part at $1.14. The camera is estimated at $5.66 while the display is supposedly at $3 and the 16GB Toshiba NAND flash memory costs $8.18. IP consultant TechInsight's subsidiary Teardown.com estimated the device's BOM at $79.90, a 94.7 percent reduction that prompted Google's spokesperson to say it was absolutely wrong.
"Our [estimated price was] for the imager, about the size of a dime, which creates the display itself," expert Al Cowsky from Teardown.com said. When a prism projection rig is added to the imager, the total display cost would bump to roughly $5 but he admitted that this estimate might be a little low.
Otherwise, Cowsky said the report will undergo a couple of revisions but he is still very confident about the total estimate. His team mistakenly assumed that the device had a TFT type display but it actually employed an LCOS rig. We were thinking, OK, it's just a TFT using prisms to project," Cowsky said. "Apparently it's not."
The estimate may raise some eyebrows and questions about the Google Glass' high price, in the hopes that the price tag would be reduced especially when the device is released for sale to the public. Currently, there are only 10,000 Google Glass users and if the company starts to sell more, the high production volumes and lower bulk prices may help reduce the cost.
Aside from the Google Glass parts, the manufacturing cost may have bumped the price as well. The device is assembled in California, where labor is more expensive than other parts of Asia where mobile devices are commonly built. There are engineers and designers who have worked on the device since 2011 and they must have a hefty salary.
Google's experimental division, Google X created Glass and the team is now trying to produce driverless cars. A Google Glass prototype weighed about 3.6 kg in 2011 but today, the device is so light and small that it can substitute as a normal pair of glasses.
