Smart glasses offer live captions for deaf users

Smart glasses that display real‑time AI captions in the wearer’s field of vision are being presented as a significant accessibility advance for deaf and hard‑of‑hearing users. In demonstrations in London, attendees used the glasses to read live subtitles during conversations, enabling them to follow speech without diverting their gaze or relying solely on interpreters. Users described the experience as reassuring and empowering, saying the captions act as a reliable backup and help them stay engaged in noisy or crowded settings.

The device-maker XRAI Glass combines augmented reality with on‑device artificial intelligence, automatic language recognition and live translation across hundreds of languages. Company representatives say the system can identify different speakers, suppress background noise and adjust text placement and size to suit individual needs. The product was inspired by the company founder’s experience with a relative who struggled to follow conversations despite using high‑end hearing aids; adding captions on a TV markedly improved engagement and sparked the idea for wearable captions.

Early users, including people who wear hearing aids, said the glasses helped them focus on a single speaker in group situations such as social gatherings or club events, provided the speaker does not talk extremely fast. Advocates for deaf communities have welcomed the potential for increased independence: real‑time subtitles can make meetings, classrooms, medical appointments and spontaneous interactions more accessible where traditional captioning or interpreters are unavailable.

The glasses are priced at £699 (about $935) and are undergoing pilot programmes in several countries to gather user feedback and refine functionality. Developers acknowledge persistent challenges: speech recognition can misfire with rapid speech, strong accents, technical vocabulary or overlapping conversations, and ongoing AI training is needed to improve accuracy. Privacy is another concern; companies say audio can be processed securely and, in some models, locally on the device rather than transmitted to the cloud to reduce exposure of sensitive information.

Researchers and industry observers note that as wearable hardware becomes lighter and AI transcription improves, smart subtitle glasses could move from niche assistive technology toward mainstream adoption. If reliability and privacy safeguards advance sufficiently, the devices may reshape how deaf and hard‑of‑hearing people engage in social and professional life by providing immediate, discreet access to spoken information and reducing reliance on lip‑reading or human interpreters.