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“Smart Glasses for Hearing Loss: More Than Just a Gadget?”

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I haven’t had a chance to yet. Using contact lenses is a good idea, thanks!

Edited

I finally had a chance to try the Even Realities G2 smart glasses. I went to the closest store to me that stocks them, Alexander Daas in San Clemente. A staff person there set me up with a pair and allowed me to try them in the store and walking around outside. I wore contact lenses for the demo, but would need a progressive subscription to use the glasses regularly.

Overall, I was impressed with the device's performance. Captions were clear, appeared in a timely manner, and were about 95% correct. At first the screen was washed out when I stepped outside, but after clipping on the sunglasses attachment I was able to read captions easily again. Unfortunately it was very quiet both inside and outside the store, so I could not evaluate how well the device works when there is background noise. I'm sure that the lack of a camera and speaker contributed to making the device feel as comfortable to wear as my regular glasses.

When I was finished with the demo we went through the device details. I never would have guessed that this device would cost as much for me as my hearing aids. The price is $600 for the frames, $100 for the sunglasses clip, and progressive lenses start at $1,000. There is an one-year manufacturer's warranty, but no accidental damage coverage.

I'll be watching and hoping that some more players come into the market and the price drops after these devices reach their third generation.

Thanks for this Kev. I came to the same conclusion to hang on and see happens after contacting the nearest optician offering them. 50 miles away and I would have to go and be measured up for the ring , pay in full and then they would order them for me. So no opportunity to try before you buy at all. Just the 14 days trial which I don’t think is long enough and would require a further 100 mile round trip to return them no doubt.

I was in such a state of shock over the price that I forgot to ask about returns. The Even website states that subscription glasses ordered directly from them are not returnable at all. I'm guessing that their partner optical stores have the same policy, which is quite outrageous.

I have a severe / profound loss but normally function fine in daily conversation with my super power Oticon Real . However, I do struggle with understanding my other languages — French and Spanish — which I speak fairly fluently. So, I’m the reverse of many people who love languages — I speak well but understand poorly.

I bought the G1s about a year ago and took them to Guatemala on a trial run. While I had pretty good access to wifi (I was doing volunteer work where there was good connectivity), I found the transcription speed (I asked the glasses to just transcribe what they heard, not translate) was too slow and I also lost connectivity frequently. I experimented using both the G1s microphone and expensive using my iPhone. I was using the free transcription / translation service, not the paid one.

I think I paid about 800 dollars for the glasses and am loathe to spend that much money again for the G2s. For all those who have used both G1 and G2s, is the difference in latency and connectivity very much improved? Is there perhaps a discount for G1 users?

I’ve also thought that glasses like Captify which do transcription locally (not via the cloud) would be a better choice. But I don’t get the sense from reading reviews that local processing (via phone/glasses) works much better and in some cases doesn’t work well at all. Has anyone tried both Captify (or any other locally processed transcription / translation) and cloud based glasses and noticed a difference?

Lastly, Rayneo IO glasses were just released and seem to be getting positive press for transcription / translation although they appear to be cloud based as well. Has anyone tried them?

Thanks for any thoughts on this topic!

Edited

More than a gadget, rather another tool that is good in certain situations and will no doubt improve. My is 20% now, and I rely on visual and context clues to have simple one on one conversations, and pretty much can't follow any group conversations.

I am 80 and I think I am kind of entering end stage natural hearing. I can still communicate with my wife and family members one on one and face to face, and my wife also serves as an interpreter.

This spring I decided to try smart glasses so maybe I could better hear my family members when we get together. After some study, I purchased the Xrai glasses, one of the glasses reviewed here in a previous post. Here are my impressions:

The glasses were very easy to use though getting used to the touchpad and controls took awhile. I don't wear glasses except for reading, but I found these glasses fit well and the weight doesn't bother me at all. They seem rugged and well made. They are advertised to have a battery life of eight hours and that is way more than I could wear them at one time. The case is very nice and holds a lot of charges. I think the Xrai glasses are really a pretty good deal as hearing devices are concerned. They have made quite a few improvements to the app in terms of getting them connected in the half year I have had them. They can do translations though that is of no use to me.

The captions are easy to read and text size can be large, medium or small and placed top, center or bottom. They appear as though they are pasted on whatever you are looking at. If the object is close they are fit on object or speaker but if the object is at a distance they get proportionately larger. If you are in a car they can appear on the dash in a readable size, or if you look out the window they look like a billboard moving down the road a telephone ahead. Obviously they would be worn by the passenger, not the driver. Pretty cool though.

The Xrai app is pretty easy to use. It was a bit glitchy at first with typical bluetooth connection issues but has gotten much better. The glasses work both with the cloud as the engine, using prepurchase minutes, or off line on my iphone. The cloud version is supposedly quicker and has a number of features including speaker ID but I don't use it. The captions are more or less perfect off line, and very quick to appear, maybe a couple words behind the speaker, if that. The microphones on the glasses are very impressive and can pick up voice 20 feet or more away or in another room even.

So how do they work. On a one on one or two conversation they work well and catch the words but I can't really get the visual clues even if the captions are on the person speaking. But if I concentrate I can follow a long conversation, easily if one person is speaking, and progressively more difficult as more people are in the room. In a family gathering it is like word soup and stressful to make sense of. I don't think they would be effective in a restaurant. So they would be good say in a classroom listening to a lecturer, or with a friend you can't really understand, or my granddaughters who I have never been able to understand, or in a car where road noise blots out everything.

It gets tiring after an hour of reading conversations and the phone gets pretty warm. The phone battery or my brain will peter out long before the battery on the glasses.

So they don't solve the family gathering hearing issue that I purchased them for, but they are a good tool to have, better than reading captions on a phone, and better than notes on paper at end stage hearing.

PS. I am long retired and live a quiet life. They would certain make it easier to communicate with my wife but I am in and out of the house and we have our ways of face to face communication face to face. While you can look at a person and read the captions, I at least have not been able to read their face and the captions at the same time. I have a pay as I go cell service with limited data so I really haven't explored the wifi cloud mode much. It does have some advanced features. If I was working in a quite office with a need to understand people in a situation where face to face and pretend hearing just didn't cut it I think they could be a game changer. If I was sitting in a chair or bedridden I think they would be very helpful. When I know there is a conversation I really need to hear and understand and there are only one or two people speaking I pop them on, sit back in my Stressless chair, and read what they are saying on the ceiling. That works really well.

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