Google Glass: A Firefighting Tool?

When Google announced their “Google Glass” product earlier this year, a long awaited technology idea had finally begun to come to fruition. Glass is essentially a pair of glasses, on a relatively normal frame, with a high-definition screen projected in the lenses, comparable to a 25-inch television screen viewed from eight feet away.
Glass functions much like the average smartphone—allowing users to browse the internet, connect to apps, watch videos, record data—all while doing so mostly hands-free through the use of voice commands. There is a small touchpad on the side of one of the glasses’ arms in case you aren’t able to get to where you want, or would prefer to touch, but for all intents and purposes the Google Glass is a hands-free device.
Currently, hundreds of tech-savvy Americans are testing the initial release of the product for Google, paying a pretty penny for the chance to be one of the few with the new set of lenses.
But while Google Glass isn’t expected to be available on the market for consumers until sometime near mid-2014, some within the fire industry are eager to see how the Google Glass could be used in emergency services, myself included.
Many business executives are looking into the product to see how their companies would be able to utilize it in business procedures: through meetings, information transferring, communication during busy work processes—the possibility for implementation to streamline and simplify many daily actions are plentiful.
The same can be said in the fire service, with several obvious uses coming to mind quickly. It’s important to note that the Google Glass’ image is transparent, so while you can see the image in front of you, that doesn’t restrict you from seeing your surroundings as well.
Imagine the driver of an emergency vehicle receiving a GPS signal at the time of dispatch, pulling up a map complete with the quickest route of travel to the scene of an emergency, all while factoring in traffic, construction, and hazards along the way. Now imagine the image right on the driver’s glasses, his eyes never having to leave the highway in front of him. This is just one of the possibilities that Google Glass presents for the fire service.
With the ability to access applications and internal storage on Google Glass’s 16 GB removable memory card, while the driver of an apparatus is navigating with the use of maps to an incident, the officer on the truck could be accessing pre-plan reports on the emergency location, additional information from dispatch, locations of hydrants and incoming units, diagrams of vehicles that will need to be extricated—the list goes on and on.
Managing major emergency incidents could become simplified for incident commanders when utilizing Glass’s 5.0 megapixel camera and microphone to record video and take photographs. Rather than having to pull personnel from particular divisions of the emergency, officers would be able to stream real-time video of incidents to command through the use of network connections in order to give a chief officer a first-person point of view.
The ability to conference amongst multiple commanders in different spots would essentially create a virtual status check, complete with all the visual components needed to help those not in the immediate spot make a better decision on the steps needed to be taken next.
The emergency medical field could benefit greatly from the use of Glass, too. Much time is taken into documenting the personal information and past medical history of a patient, requiring paper and pen or tablet and keyboard, and the medical technician to stop what they’re doing to obtain it. Imagine the task with Google Glass—securely recording the conversation you have with a patient to document the information you need, all while never halting you patient care.
Documentation of fire scenes would also be aided. Photographs, audio, video, and verbal documentation could all be obtained and filed using the Glass technology. Even uploading important information to an external source, or updating social media outlets to keep the public informed on major incidents would be possible.
While there are still many questions regarding Google Glass, it’s actual release date, price, and how functional it will be, it is certainly technology that should be given a long look by fire service members. Not often does a single piece of technology come around that has the chance to drastically improve the way emergency services are delivered, but Google Glass could be just that. Stay tuned.
Knoll, 21, of Eldora, can be contacted by email at beyondtheflamescmc@gmail.com. He is a student at Rowan University.