Smart Glasses Experience

Please write as much as you want, either as a private message or publicly even if I think most people who visit this thread would be interested in an accurate description.

Thanks!

Yes, please do write as often as you like. As an early adopter of the smart glasses who is hard of hearing, your impressions of transcription in English and other languages are incredibly important and very much appreciated.

@SayAgain3 said:

OK, let’s start pumping smart glasses specically for what’s being spoken and how it translates in another language. Forget basic benefits for the deaf and hearing impaired and let’s put all our research dollars into speaking Mandarin that will translate into English. Oh and lets put more research dollars into miniature cameras that can zoom in on what your partner is texting, without partner knowing. Etc.

As a long-time member who mostly stays quiet, I find your attitude disturbing. Any topic that can help those of us who are deaf or HOH is a worthwhile topic (IMHO). It’s so easy to just skip the ones that don’t interest you. Why rant and rave over something you have no interest in? Just move on…

Here are three options for smart glasses that do transcription aside from the Even Realities G1:

1. Xander Glasses at xanderglasses.com31
2. Transcribe Glasses at transcribeglass.com37
3. Xrai Glasses at xrai.glass

I know there are others but these four options are the ones that come immediately to mind.

In my opinion, the “winning solution” will have has as many of the following attributes as possible:

1. Looks like normal glasses (or something close).
2. Can offer prescriptive lens correction.
3. Has advanced microphones on glass lenses.
4. Has option to receive audio input from alternative sources than the the glasses microphones (e.g. bluetooth desktop microphones, HAs themselves, Roger On and other audio input assistants, etc).
5. Does as much transcription processing as possible on the phone (and at some point in the glasses themselves) as opposed to invoking a cloud service. Avoiding cloud processing should increase speed of display of transcription in glasses.
6. Some ability to modify adjust displayed transcription font (size, color, “distance”).
7. Priced no more than 10% above what high-end glasses might cost.

I don’t think any of the four options fulfill all of my personal requirements above but we’re starting to get closer.

If the G1s – at least according to what I’ve read and seen – could offer alternative audio inputs and process transcribing locally on the phone to cut down on glasses “display delay,” I think we’d have a winner.

Not aggressive at all. Did I hit a nerve since I have a different opinion than yourself. One has to wonder. I think I’ll wait for Consumer Report to do a study on smart glasses and read how well they work or how poorly they perform. Versus what others say here who might have some “skin” in the game because they work for a smart phone maker or have some personal gain to pump the pump.

Done a lot of research on smart glasses as it relates to beneifting the deaf and hearing imparird. Sorry to tell you this but we’re in the first inning of a very long game and right now and nothing stands out as “quality smart glasses” for those who have a hearing loss or those looking to use glasses for language translation. Google back in 2013 promoted Google Glasses and it was a dud. Train wreck. Now eleven years later we are back to square one trying to develop new technology that could benefit the masses. Question is will. you do your own homework and verity what works and what doesn’t versus some chat board.

@SayAgain3, I am from Poland, and I use the transcription feature (from English speech to English closed caption) on YouTube, etc., very often. I rarely use the translation feature. I have also found the Live Caption option very useful on my Samsung Galaxy phone (although non-ideal, I admit, but still enough for most use cases).

So, I don’t understand why waste energy on undermining someone’s experience, even if it was about an imperfect subject.

@SayAgain3 said:

Not aggressive at all

@SayAgain3
Thanks, glad to hear.
You’re totally right about the already for years now ongoing progression which seems not very promising
.
I also started with professional speech dictation about 25 years ago. And I saw how it became better all the time but not as fast as was hoped for.

I own a big expensive VR glas for flight simulation and gaming, with antenna’s for 3D positioning. Google glasses, Rayban, Meta and others are all in the actual race to compete.

But momentary we’re in a stadium where some devices become comparable to normal glasses with battery times of a whole day. So we are over the border of daily usable devices. That makes it interesting for us HOH

I’m just a retired medical doctor “like a normal human” and have nothing to do with financial or other involvement. Just dreaming about a better world for all of us. And of course a hearing aid user. Sharing my thoughts and experiences with glasses new on the market.

I totally agree that one still has to be very careful with the overwhelming stream of mostly exaggerating information that roles over us nowadays.

@DamonHill said:

So, how good is Teleprompt (live transcript) in your experience?

This function on the G1 allows to read textmessages projected into your glasses which you can compose yourself by typing text on your phone and saving it. Or you can search for .txt files on your drive, cloud or whatever and show that information.
You can let this text scroll through in automatic mode or manual by tapping the back of the left or right arm of your glasses. The speed is controllable. This can be used for lectures you want to give, or reading of a textbook or things like that. Personally I haven’t used it but you can see it commented buy a guy on YouTube who is telling about his experiences in a two weeks of using these glasses https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkNcK_hw1OY&t=1510s4
And Here you can see these settings you can change.

@DamonHill said:

Is it laggy?
Does it work well in noisy environments?

I think here your question is about what they call the translate function.
The capturing of speach and making it visible on the glasses.
Well in my opinion it works pretty well. It’s a bit laggy but how fast is the person you’re talking with awaiting your answer. It has to be send over the WiFi to the internet and come back also. So that’s the delay. But that goes pretty fast within about 1-3 seconds I think. I also have the extra pro version which I don’t think you need as an extra. There the recognition is faster and more accurate but not that much that it would matter.
This theme is also mentioned in the YouTube review in which I agree with the maker of it. It’s called the translate function where you can deal with non translated text by selecting the same language for in and output. Yesterday I had 4 visitors and if they are polite enough to talk one at a time it will be no problem. But if you’re in a noisy environment or people are talking all at the same time you’ll get the same problems as with or without your HA’s unfortunately. That’s why I hope that they will develop the opportunity to catch the speech of my Phonak Spheres to allow a better speech capturing. So don’t throw away your HA’s, they are still the best for HOH’s. But the addition can be a help for at least most word recognition problematic ones. And who knows what the future will bring us. I cannot imagine that a haircell transplantation as for bold heads will be available for our hearing organ before better G1 glasses will be invented.

Hope the linked video gives you some extra clues.
And for the “non- convinced” this guy is fair enough to also talk about what he dislikes and finds disturbing about the G1. I appreciate that very much. As this G1 is a step in the right direction but not the ultimate solution jet.

@DamonHill said:

And are the glasses functional outdoors, when it’s bright

Good question also. I use the clip for that which is an optional accessoire. But there also is a setting function for that to make it brighter or less bright which is relative good enough. The text you see is transparant visible in about 2 meters in front of you.

Yeah you‘re right, I meant the live translation feature!

Thanks for your very detailed feedback!

Thanks for this very detailed review.

To improve the lag time issue, my hope is Even Realities in the next generation will either move transcription processing onto the associated smart phone app (this is how TranscribeGlass glasses operate) or, better yet, to the glasses themselves (this is how Xander Glasses operate).

My strong suspicion is the G1s use a cloud API for transcription since in so doing Even Realities can repurpose the translation code to also power transcription (e.g. English>English is just another form of translation).

Transcribe and Xander really only focus on the HoH market, don’t do translation or other collaboration functions, and so were perhaps more focused on caption response time than Even Realties G1s. Unfortunately, both Transcribe and Xander lag well behind the G1s in their aesthetic profile and are readily identifiable as special function glasses.

Thanks again for the detailed info.

Thank you for your very accurate summary!

I’ve been using AirCaps smart glasses for about three weeks now and wanted to share my experience since there’s been some discussion here about transcription glasses.

The Good:

Transcription accuracy is actually pretty solid - I’d say around 90% in normal conversation, which is honestly better than I expected. Its a lot better than what I get with MS Teams transcription at work. The lag is minimal enough that I can follow along naturally without feeling like I’m reading subtitles that are 5 seconds behind.

Battery gets me through most of my day (6-7 hours of actual use). Not amazing but decent enough that I charge them during lunch and I’m good to go.

They look like regular glasses which I appreciate. No weird bulk or obvious “I’m wearing tech on my face” vibe.

The Not So Good:

Heavy accents can trip them up. Very noisy environments (crowded restaurants) are hit or miss. Battery life could be better for truly all-day use without thinking about it.

Bottom Line:

Are they perfect? No. But they actually work well enough to be useful now, which is more than I can say for a lot of smart glasses out there. If you’re tired of awkwardly holding your phone up to transcribe conversations, these are a solid option. They focus on doing transcription well rather than trying to be everything to everyone.

I think it is interesting that the privacy implications of smart glasses with cameras are very clear to everyone; yet, when smart glasses stream conversations to a cloud API (and who knows what is happening to that audio), this is generally overlooked.

I took part in early market research for one of these products and realized it would be a poor investment for me because I couldn’t possibly use such a device at work (and that most all employers would need to ban them). Until all the processing is done on-device, I don’t see how there is a reasonable trade-off here.

I also have concerns that smart glasses as a general product category, as used/abused by “enthusiasts”, will quickly start to make the public wary of body-worn assistive technologies broadly speaking. I don’t think it will be too long before people with normal glasses and hearing aids are accused of being a “creep” with smart glasses streaming from somewhere inappropriate…

Yeah, i definately see this happening. But for the deaf and hard of hearing community, I wonder if there will be a ‘compromise’?