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I Tested EssilorLuxottica’s Visionary Nuance Hearing Aid Glasses. Do They Work?

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Worst case scenario for severe loss is that the processed signal gets transmitted to your earing aids via or UWB. That might not appear in the first iteration I guess. The speakers in the glasses is a nice feature but the big news for me is the denoising. Matthew Allsop described it as a Roger on your head. Sounds good to me.

Audiotelligence in Cambridge have similar tech I think. They’ve been trying to sell the concept of a tabletop beamforming device, then the concept of such a device built into a hearable’s charging case. They’d be itching to find a partner to incorporate it into glasses as well.

It was analog hearing aid built in the rear of glasses. I don’t know the details or the specifics of my late grandmother hearing aid glasses. They were popular from the late 50s to mid 70s.

On its website Nuance Hearing claims its products yield a “direction coefficient” of 15 decibels, which is 3x the “world’s most advanced real-time products”.

To me, this is the exciting part. I would love to see a technology like this be applied to regular .

Maybe these glasses provide more physical space to accommodate the processing power necessary to achieve this performance. If so, Nuance-enabled RIC HAs could use the “Brain” concept that Whisper used. Also, the Nuance technology combined with sounds like a possible game changer.

It seems like there are multiple HA innovations proceeding along different tracks: AI, much-improved beam-forming, accelerometers, processing done by a brain or smartphone in addition to a processor in the HA housing, etc. It seems inevitable that, within a very few years, these technologies will be brought together to produce the next big leap in HA performance. I can hardly wait!

But how do they work, since there are no tubes, wires, etc. is it already known or is it still covered by industrial secrecy?

And is there any hope that they will cover even serious/profound losses like mine?

Coming from an audiologist, the contrast between these two assertions gave me pause:

It so happens that hearing better in background noise is the #1 priority for people with hearing loss when it comes to purchasing hearing aids.

and then this:

First, there’s something you should know about me. I don’t have hearing loss . But, I do have difficulty hearing in background noise. I actively avoid going out to loud restaurants and bars because I find it exhausting trying to keep up with the conversations.

Any audiologist would say that difficulty in discerning speech in high-background-noise environments is usually a symptom of hearing loss. So what do you think is making it so hard for you to hear in noisy environments?

In reply to @lello58

I was thinking about this last night.

Probably no with the wireless doodah, but have you seen the way the receivers are connected on the newer GN products? Omnia etc. I doubt it’s beyond the realm of their engineering to provide a location in the earhook that can take a similar flat socket, fitting a range of receivers.

In reply to @happymach

@happymach said:

So what do you think is making it so hard for you to hear in noisy environments?

hidden hearing loss / synaptopathy / auditory neuropathy / auditory processing disorder. I’ve read too that extended high frequencies have a role to play in understanding speech in noisy environments. Not tested in most hearing tests I believe.

@Um_bongo said:

I doubt it’s beyond the realm of their engineering to provide a location in the earhook that can take a similar flat socket, fitting a range of receivers.

Just me probably, but I’d prefer just a wireless connection between aids and glasses. That way you’re not tied to a brand or even ecosystem and you can wear your aids with or without the glasses.

@d_Wooluf said:

Just me probably, but I’d prefer just a wireless connection between aids and glasses. That way you’re not tied to a brand or even ecosystem and you can wear your aids with or without the glasses.

Fair enough, but this topic is specifically about modified eyewear that fulfils the hearing aid role. And several of the posters asked for a more powerful version; which is difficult to do wirelessly.

These aren’t intended to replace discrete hearing aid fittings.

In reply to @AbramBaileyAuD

Your site is one that I use regularly.

I commented after dpreview was scheduled for shut down. I use that site a lot too. Site was sold by Amazon, and remains open for all to use. They showed integrity keeping the site open while they negotiated to sell.

That taught me a real lesson–don’t take sites for granted. It takes a lot of work and time to keep them open.

DaveL
Toronto

In reply to @Um_bongo

@Um_bongo said:

Fair enough, but this topic is specifically about modified eyewear that fulfils the hearing aid role. And several of the posters asked for a more powerful version; which is difficult to do wirelessly.

Ok. There’s the product which really isn’t for me (I asked about a more powerful version) and then there’s the big idea. The big idea to me is that you can carry a Roger on your head. I’m sure we’ll see a bunch of variations on the theme in the years ahead.

Only slightly off topic… but what has happened with smart glasses that could ingest and display text in the glasses themselves? I would happily carry a Roger type device if it meant I could read “captions” in my glasses.
I wear glasses anyway.

Added bonus: I speak both Spanish and French and the quality of real time translation of these languages has become excellent the last few years as long as one indicates in advance what language is being spoken. So glasses captions could be translations of spoken language as well.

My optometrist has no knowledge of hearing aids, and how they are to be worn. Their assumption has compromised my vision causing distortion with previous glasses purchased and I hated that.

It’s time the manufacturers considered how their products are used.

Meanwhile my latest hearing aids:

  • I can’t hear conversation if I’m in a noisy environment (restaurants/outside/inside too)
  • I have trouble with word recognition in noisy or even quiet environments
  • My hearing aids aren’t properly setup by the audiologist in spite of being used; he’s quit.
  • Rant is over.

I have wished that Jobbs was still alive so that new thought would take these issues on.

I view this thread as an amazing possibility and have real hope.

DaveL

@DaveL said:

My optometrist has no knowledge of hearing aids, and how they are to be worn.

They don’t have to know about hearing aids or anything else on your ears. They should know how eyeglasses are to be worn. The bows must sit on your ears and next to your temples, with no interference from any other ear encumbrance.

Yeah, I used to help them out a bit and Coselgi. There’s been a couple of other entrants to the market over the years, but like you say, there’s limited success and a bit niche.

I see many unknowns, the weight of the glasses, the battery life, how to recharge them. Service, where it would be dispensed, the signal processing. In this business signal processing is the most important thing, it doesn’t seem like they put a lot of emphasis, I would have make more sense if they partner with Sonova for example…

Time will tell

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