Glass runs on Android and displays information in a smartphone-like format on that tiny screen, which is like looking at a 25-inch computer monitor from around two metres away. During my two weeks with Google Glass, that transparent screen was always slightly out of focus and uncomfortable to look at, despite being adjustable.

At its core, Glass is a hands-free camera, and for most users, that's probably about it. It can operate by spoken word ("Glass, take a photo) but it manages only five-megapixel photos and 720p HD videos.

The quality isn't bad, but what you see in the viewfinder and the photo that is actually taken differs significantly. One effective feature - although slightly worrying to those for whom privacy is important - is an experimental one that takes photos when the wearer winks, albeit in an exaggerated way.

The handling of those photos is impressive, although all that happens in the Google ecosystem. Photos and videos are uploaded - when Wi-fi access is available - to a private album in your Google+ account, and can also be shared on social media.

It's a comprehensive feature, with various options to share with specific Google+ circles such as friends, acquaintances, family, or keep it private. Google+, however, isn't what most of us are using.

If Google+ is unnatural, so is the way Glass works. As well as voice, the right-hand arm of Glass can be used like a mouse. Learning how and when to tap, drag, touch and rub the side of Glass is like learning a new language, and it took me weeks to get used to it. You swipe back on the arm to toggle through the menus, and swipe down to go back, with a tap to enter/agree/confirm actions.

It's also tricky to set up. It's not obvious how it switches on, how to pair it with a smartphone (which is pretty much essential), or how to prevent the tiny screen from switching itself off every minute or so. Although the basics of Glass work with most Bluetooth-capable phones, to use GPS and SMS through Glass requires the MyGlass companion app, although it's available to iPhone users, too.

But using that app to establish a connection to a phone's personal hotspot was long-winded. That's annoying, especially since Google promises that Glass will "just work".

The desktop software is eons ahead of the Glass app, and inside you'll find stacks of "Glassware" (apps) that can be added to a Google account and thus to a Glass headset.

There's not much to choose from, with Google-made apps for Gmail, Google Now, Google+, Google Calendar, YouTube and Hangouts the pick of the bunch, as well as the likes of Facebook, Twitter and various newspapers.

The latter is an interesting use of the screen, which displays news and headlines on the head-mounted display.

There are 83 apps so far, although only Google Maps shows any promise as something that could be genuinely useful.

It's a new genre of gadget that's been said to herald a new dawn in wearable electronics, but is Google Glass swish, sleek, natural to use and totally awesome? No, it's really not.

It has some great features, in theory, but as a package it's slow, ponderous, it times-out when you least expect it, the connectivity is less than smooth and the hardware is jumpy.

If this was an Apple device, it wouldn't have seen the light of day yet. In fact, it would probably be in the lab in a box awaiting both a leap in technology and a real demand for headsets like this. If you like attending to gadgets all day (not forgetting the need to recharge it each night), Glass is for you.

For those wanting to extend the reach of their smartphones into their lives, smart watches will be a better option.

However, all wearables - a new genre of gadgets that has promised to "life log" using fitness data, GPS mapping and sometimes photos and video - appear to have had a somewhat frosty reception.

Global analyst company Brandwatch did some research recently with digital strategy agency Brilliant Noise that revealed discussion on social media about wearable devices is exploding; conversations about them increased by 190 per cent in the first quarter of 2014 from the same quarter 12 months previously.

Interestingly, the most negative comments about wearables came not from those who were sceptical about the technology, but from those who owned it. On a global level, wearables also appear to be restricted largely to the US and, more specially, men in the US.

"Google Glass is the most exciting science-fiction reality to land flat on its face," says Will McInnes, chief marketing officer at Brandwatch. "The use of technology like this is inevitable - we will soon see the world around us layered with data from networks."

The chance to overlay reality with navigation hints from Google Maps is genuinely exciting - at least at first - but the need to keep touching Glass, or talking to it, and learning its ways soon makes it more of a hassle than a help.

But none of these early bugs and physical inadequacies lie behind why Google Glass has gone from must-have to must-not-have in the public consciousness. The real reason Glass hasn't been welcomed (it's even been banned in many places) is that it's considered intrusive and, for drivers, distracting.

That's because of its "secret" camera.

"The reaction to Glass shows us how powerful and subversive the politics of such technology is, and how it can incur such a strong negative reaction from most people," says McInnes.

Most intrusive is the capability to instantly send or upload photos and videos. Having the internet at the tip of your nose might sound great, even something of a "God mode" to geeks, but it has some big problems.

"I don't want a Google Glass," says McInnes. "I don't want to be that guy, but do I want smart, contextual, helpful data and interactivity in my eyeballs. We see this 'data in the wild' as an inevitable and imminent part of everyday life."

Google Glass has a future as a tool for surgeons and engineers, but as a lifestyle add-on it's unnatural to operate and too demanding on the user.

"Geek utopia" demands a far better user interface, but so far it is just a "public beta". Expect version 3.0 to be much better, although, by then, the wearable revolution could be going on everywhere except our heads