Any updates on Glide release?

By Louise, 29 July, 2025

Forum
Assistive Technology

Hi all,
It just occurred to me that I haven't seen anything on here about the Glide in a long time. I looked on Facebook, but all I saw from the company were promotions of demo days and talk about successful pitches.

Has anyone here heard anything about how the actual product is progressing

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Comments

By Louise on Tuesday, July 29, 2025 - 03:12

I do wish they would update more often on how the product is coming along rather than just promoting demo days and such.
My guide dog will be relieved to hear that her job remains secure. LOL

By Laszlo on Tuesday, July 29, 2025 - 10:34

Glidance doesn't even call the current state of Glide "alpha 2.0" in their faq, it is just named as "in development and testing phase".
I don't consider it a good sign either that the roadmap page is virtually empty since theypostponed launch date to spring 2026. The older roadmap is of course gone and no new one is posted, just a general "we will tell you later" announcement. This looks very unprofessional to the outer world including "angel investors" whom the financing of the entire project relies on. Writing up a roadmap takes less than an hour, if you have any idea what to write. But I am afraid Glidance sees the future very foggy right now.
It's nearly August now, and fall is here in a month. If the spring 2026 launch date were realistic by any chance, then the beta program should definitely launch no later than in September, because it would take no less than three months to do it right, and the preproduction legal and administrative "mumbo-jumbo" is not a walk in the park either and would take much time in itself. According to the faq one tester would evaluate Glide for two weeks and then pass on the device to the next tester. It is not stated "of course" how many testers there would be altogether. Glidance simply doesn't have any idea about that, because they see that the beta state is still far far away. I have the firm opinion now that even a miracle wouldn't ensure the spring 2026 launch date.
I see unfortunately that Glidance is quite an "one-man show" and that is Amos. His intents are of course genuine. But a project of such scale cannot be done that way. That would need optimally 15, and no less than 10 full-time experts of various fields to achieve the goals set for the launch date.
I suspect now that roughly at least 80 % of the energy and momentum at Glidance goes into promotion, and no more than 20 % actually goes into development. I see that Glidance tries to maintain credibility by doing those promotions in the "We can do it and we will do it" style. I feel they may even want to convince themselves desperately by this. But Amos testing Glide alone in various settings is not a professional way of developing such a device. And credibility will begin to erode quickly sooner or later.
Frankly I am very thankful to myself to have hopped off from the "Glide train" after being swept into it in last June. I had my founding Glider deposit refunded in two weeks, and I am very glad I did that.

By Oliver on Wednesday, July 30, 2025 - 14:14

It's a really interesting device. I do hope it is everything everyone is expecting. I'd certainly like something to give me more confidence out of the house.

By SeasonKing on Wednesday, July 30, 2025 - 17:11

Strictly from product development perspective, I don't think they are doing anything wrong. I fact, Glide's development path must be the most open development process for an assistive device so far in a corporate/startup environment.
The founder/CEO need not worry about the cerckitry, the lines of codes etc. They would be having software devs sitting in an office doing it for them somewhere. What they seem to be doing is go out in the world with their proto-types, get feedback, see what can be improved, learn and apply. In a typical corporate structure, this would be something Market research or teams would be doing. In a startup environment, it makes sense that the founder/CEO is staying close to target audiance, demonstrating and showcasing product, getting feedback wherever possible.
Even then, it could be that founder/CEO is also involved in R&D at times, afterall we don't see him out and about 24/7. The guy who accompanies him, seems to be incharge of finding suitable factories/venders to make parts for glide, so naturally he travels allot.
Considering founder/CEO himself is one of the target audiance, it's not surprising that he would take up this kind of role.
Delays in a development cycle are not new. I would rather have it arrive late than arrive unfinished. Just not that late that funding runs out.