Smart glasses upgrade your vision, help you hear better

“We’re not a medical device. Insurance doesn’t even cover hearing aids, (so) it’s a long shot to get covered by insurance,” Westner says. Xander is collaborating with the Veterans Health

Administration, which could offer the glasses to qualified vets.  Dual noise-canceling microphones capture speech, but none of the captions are stored inside the glasses or online, keeping

conversations private and secure. The company claims about 90 percent accuracy in crowded restaurants, city streets and other noisy environments. TACKLING ISOLATION. Though some people might

find the glasses a tad nerdy — the frames are fairly thick — Westner says those with severe hearing loss tell him, “I don’t care what they look like anymore. You’re giving me the ability to

have a conversation with my family again.” “And then they wear them, and they’re like, ‘They’re actually nicer than I thought they would be. They’re more comfortable,’ ” he says. Users who

connect to Wi-Fi will get six to seven hours of battery life and improve captioning accuracy, Westner says. The battery lasts two to three hours without Wi-Fi. They charge through a USB-C

cable in a couple of hours. GLASSES ADD-ON MAY BE LESS EXPENSIVE CAPTIONING SOLUTION A cheaper, if somewhat less elegant, approach to the problem comes from a Cupertino, California, start-up

called TranscribeGlass. It has built a device that mounts onto pretty much any pair of glasses and beams near-real-time subtitles into your field of view. You can change the font size of

the subtitles and position the device so captions appear where you want them to inside the glasses.  The company’s core focus for now is transcription, though language translation is on the

horizon, CEO Tom Pritsky says. The hardware cost is $199, plus $15 a month to use an app that will let you connect to a live captioning service and save conversation transcripts. As does

Xander, TranscribeGlass has a waiting list. GLASSES FOR THE BLIND ACT LIKE VIRTUAL GUIDE DOG Lumen glasses from a Romanian start-up of the same name are meant to mimic the benefits of a

guide dog. By incorporating artificial intelligence, autonomous driving and robotics technologies, Lumen uses a combination of motors, haptic vibrations and audio feedback to steer a blind

person where it is safe to walk and help them avoid stairs, lakes, puddles and other obstacles. The system has an emergency stop to prevent someone from bumping into an object.  Unlike

conventional glasses, you wear Lumen over the forehead, making them loosely resemble a crown or virtual reality headset. “It’s a matter of a trade-off,” says Lumen’s hardware lead, Elena

Pop. “By using the device, you are able to go anywhere in the world by yourself … while the glasses are keeping you safe.” Lumen conducted clinical trials in Europe, where the product is

expected to be available at the end of this year, classified as a medical device. Units are expected in the United States in early 2025. Pricing will vary by country and is not yet public,

but Pop acknowledges it won’t be cheap. “We don’t want the blind user to pay for the device,” she says. Lumen will look for subsidy or reimbursement programs in the public and private

sectors.