Google's glasses are escaping from the laboratory. But they aren't ready for the real world yet.
 
I had the opportunity to test-drive the eyewwear on Monday with Google Inc. GOOG -0.05% co-founder Sergey Brin at the company's New York office. The glasses are one of the projects Mr. Brin is overseeing as the head of Google X, a research lab for the Internet search giant.
 
Weighing a few ounces, the sleek electronic device has a tiny embedded camera. The glasses also deploy what's known as a "heads-up display," in which data are projected into the user's field of vision on a small screen above the right eye. A battery is built into one of the frame's arms.
 
In all, the glasses are like a wearable smartphone, allowing the user to take pictures, send messages and perform other functions via voice-activated commands. For instance, say "OK, Glass" into one of the glasses' two microphones and a menu pops off to the side of your vision showing icons that will let you take a picture, record a video, use Google Maps or make a phone call.
 
After 10 minutes of playing with the glasses—which the company prefers to call Google Glass, since they don't have lenses—I could see their long-term potential. The device fit well. It was easy to snap a picture or video without taking my smartphone out of my pocket. It was cool to see the information there in front of my right eye, though a little disorienting. I kept closing my left eye, which was uncomfortable.
 
Mr. Brin said his favorite feature is the time-lapse capability that lets him snap photos of his kids every 10 seconds when he is playing with them. "I never think about taking out my phone," he said. "That would really be disruptive to my play time."
 
"I have always disliked the feeling that with technology I am spending a lot of my time and attention managing it," added Mr. Brin, dressed casually in a white T-shirt and jeans. "The notion of seamlessly having access to your digital world without disrupting the real world is very important."
 
Google has been clever about building buzz around the device. It wasn't an accident that the devices showed up on several models at Diane von Furstenberg's runway show during New York's Fashion Week on Sunday—with Mr. Brin himself making a cameo on the catwalk—days before the much-anticipated launch of Apple Inc.'s AAPL -2.13% iPhone 5.
 
But models and hype go only so far. The glasses were ultimately disappointing because the software isn't finished. Much of the basic functionality that Google is building toward for the first commercial release later next year wasn't working. And we're just beginning to grapple with the privacy issues raised by such pervasive technology.
 
When I asked to use the navigation feature that would show me maps of places I want to go, Mr. Brin said it is prototyped but not in the version he showed me. The calling and messaging capability that would allow me to phone someone one or see and respond to a text message also wasn't functional.
 
Google plans to release an initial version early next year for the hard-core fans who shelled out $1,500 on pre-order, but Google Glass will remain a novelty item as long as the price tag stays that high.
 
Google will figure all that out, I am sure, as it has a track record for showing continuing improvements to many of its products. The company has even hired several of the researchers who worked with Steve Mann, who is considered the godfather of wearable computing, to help develop the glass technology.
 
What's really missing, though, is a killer app that could really show the technology's potential. As Mr. Brin tells it, the glasses are like a less obtrusive smartphone that rids the world of people looking down at their devices while walking on the street. That is great, but it doesn't seem ambitious enough.
 
I hope Google makes the project open like Android, so software developers can play around with the technology and come up with uses that even Google researchers haven't dreamed of. Mr. Brin says it has thought about that idea, but it doesn't have a concrete plan yet.
 
"We definitely like to make things open but right now we are working hard and fast to make something reliable we can get in the hands of users and developers," he said. "I expect lots and lots of people will be using technology like this in years to come."