About

Years with Google Glass

Getting started

In 2014 the first version of Google Glass Explorer Edition was made public in the US. As a photographer and world traveler, I thought this would be useful in chronicling my travels and being used to create timelines for complex journeys for later review.

Three generations, ten years

Over 10 years I’d used the Explorer Edition and subsequently bought the Enterprise Edition 1 and Enterprise Edition 2 updates to the product line.

The deprecation

To make way for a future smart glass device powered by the new Gemini tools (codenamed Astra at Google I/O 2024), the former Glass product line was discontinued. All support from the Android App Store was removed at this time, so that subsequently customers needed to use Android Debug Bridge to interface with their device. This meant that millions of people who owned the device would need to use Terminal command line to back up their device.

Fortunately, Google Glass Explorer Edition and Enterprise Edition 1 had a DCIM folder — standard to many camera-enabled devices — that allowed a Mac, Linux, Chromebook, or Windows machine to back up photos by connecting over USB. Enterprise Edition 2 deprecated use of DCIM and stored images on a path specific to that device, such that a connected computer could not read the images or movie files.

Building the importer

The devices I bought still function very well. I wished to continue their life without always having to use Terminal CLI to back up the device. So I wanted to share this utility with others who own the device, to give them a means to back up images and movies from their Enterprise Edition 2 Google Glasses.

Looking ahead

I look forward to the release of Astra soon! But I’d like to say a special thank you to all the engineers who made such a compelling product for photographers. Still going strong after 12 years!

Try it

Grab the utility from GlassEE2AutoImport.zip in this repo, or see the README for setup details.