Skip to content
HearingTracker
Log in

Time for a Hearing Aid - AR glasses combo

12 replies620 viewsLast reply

Link to this topic
Reply
Edited

I’m ready for Meta, Apple, Google, Samsung, etc., to enter the hearing aid market via new AR glasses that are gaining popularity. Sorry, but over the years, most of the hearing aid manufacturers have been bought out by larger companies. So big fish eat smaller fish, all chasing a piece of the market.

Consumers need companies with deep financial pockets to provide better products. And what better companies than the ones I’ve listed, all of which are bringing AR glasses to the masses. Glass frame temples and temple tips are placed near the user’s ears, so it’s a no-brainer to somehow use the glasses frame space in conjunction with hearing aids to provide a better hearing experience. Add the aid body with a glass frame body, and you have way more room for battery storage and aid parts. More room for microphones, etc. And I bet the market for people who wear glasses and have a hearing loss is in the multi-millions. Like 500 million plus.

It’s time for the HA industry to think outside the box, rather than slow-motion stagnation.

6 people in this conversation6 min readJump to latest

The Nuance glasses, a vision and hearing aid combo, have been around for some time. Reviews on HearingTracker are positive, though they lack Bluetooth or AR features.

The latest Meta glasses now feature a hearing function introduced with the newest firmware. Called Conversation Focus, it’s great for noisy environments, especially for those with mild to moderate hearing loss. The best part is you can combine it with your hearing aid, and the combination works really well for me.

And there is the Apple Vision Pro which can be combined with the APP to provide lossless audio. AR and features. Expensive , not very portable but it is definitely exciting to use.

So yes, there are companies that are investing in this.

Where I live, there are two startups I know of that are working on these types of devices. I’m lucky to live in a place with many startups doing exciting things.

I disagree with you; I don’t believe there’s the “stagnation” you mentioned, but perhaps things just aren’t progressing as quickly as some of us would like.

Hearing Glasses with Built-In Hearing Technology | Nuance Audio12

Nuance Audio Glasses Review: Audiologist and Lab Tested9

They would have to be powerful enough for the ones of us with severe to profound hearing loss. And the glasses would have to be able to have prescription lenses. That would cause them to be even more expensive as they would have to be able to have custom ear molds on top of the corrective lenses.

In reply to @OcramSagev

All good, but I’m looking for an aid/glasses combo that helps someone beyond the mild to moderate hearing group. Why disregard the moderate to profound hearing loss category when it could actually benefit that group more? Larger batteries or additional batteries open up a new playing field for those who are hearing challenged. Heck, you might even see a reduction in cochlear implants if some company looked into improving the connection between ’s and AR glasses.

In reply to @cvkemp

You’re throwing stones and missing. AR glasses are now offered with prescription lenses, which will be standard going forward. As far as cost, we can’t determine the final price yet. Right now, AR glasses will run you $500 to $1000. With more competition, prices will come down substantially. And many claim that someday, smart glasses will totally replace the cell phone.

Heck, I’d buy AR glasses if they helped my vision, replaced my cell phone, and assisted me with my severe hearing loss. Bet it happens for under $3,000 to $ 4,000, which is far cheaper than two hearing aids that can run $ 4,000 plus.

Not everyone wants their visual field constantly interrupted with ‘content’, assistive or not.

It’s hugely distracting (and potentially illegal for diving) - even sidebar fly-outs on W11 are massively annoying and interrupt your task at hand. I can’t imagine how/if you’ll get by on a subscription service that diminishes in quality as the price incrementally rises over time.

There’s a great ‘Black Mirror’ episode about this……

In reply to @Baileyhere

That is great if you can afford it.
I am retired, . I know all about electronics, and software I have degrees in both. I worked on the early forms of . And what AI is now is scary. As someone that has an imagination that has protected things years before they have happened I am scared of what AI has become.

Captify is another one.

Captify -- Captions for real life10

Captify is the world's first pair of captioning glasses designed specifically for the deaf/hard of hearing. Captify's onboard microphones accurately pick up conversations in noisy settings and transcribe them as words in front of your eyes.

Captify glasses have gotten poor reviews, and the transcription display wording on the glass lens repeatedly freezes up. Unfortunately, there are still a lot of bugs in many new smart glasses.

In reply to @cvkemp

So posters here probably would have been scared of the Modet T when it came out, versus just riding a horse. A.I., in my opinion, will have a lot of advantages and also concerns. It all depends on how far you want to push the envelope. But it’s coming. I’m not sure I buy this idea of camera/glasses/cloud lip reading link, but thank God some people think outside the box.

New glasses will supercharge hearing with AI4

A research team led by Heriot-Watt is developing 'hearing glasses' that could dramatically improve how people with hearing loss experience sound.

Edited

I stand by that will be the death of humanity if it keeps going the way it is. In equipment for war. It will come to the conclusion that all humans are its enemy.
I do understand and accept there are some very hood use for it. But it can be influenced by evil as much as good. AI has already been found to create its own language that humans cannot understand. AI may have many useful uses as long as we can control it. What happens when it decides to no long pay attention to our commands.
And by the way the Model T didn’t think for itself. So it was totally under the control of the driver. Not so with a lot of AI capabilities.

This is good information for me, also very interesting. Two things I worry about is” 1. I use reading glasses, such as when reading a book or looking for something on a shelf in a store, etc., so I don’t use glasses all the time. 2. I love to listen to music when I’m alone, walking my dog, or just lounging around the house when my wife is gone, so these would not allow that.

I agree that is dangerous. What cvkemp is referring to called the “singularity point”, a well-known mathematical term which means that it can improve itself without human intervention, resulting in uncontrollable and exponential technological growth. For those who know scripture, God Himself addresses this in Genesis 11:6 (You should read it).

Edited

Seriously - we’re talking glasses that display simple conversation. Is that too advanced for some here? Sorry if that bothers hearing aid dealers who just want to deal with hard plastic in someone’s ear for decades. Secondly, it’s a well-known fact that performance, battery staying power, is limited by the small size of a hearing aid. So if somehow a hearing aid/glass frame marriage could take place, the added real estate would be amazing. You could add so many more parts to increase storage space, and just think of the increased battery power potential in each eyeglass temple. We’re not talking 2001, A Space Odyssey here with Hal trying to control your every move, CVkemp. We’re talking a hearing aid/eye glass combo that really makes Spock sense. Of course, if you want to live in the Stone Age, there’s always Iran.

Related discussions