Finally, Smart Glasses With a Use Case That Isn’t Icky

In a market overwhelmed by glasses looking to record your entire life, Nuance Audio’s latest smart glasses could be an excellent use case for how smart glasses could actually be perfect for accessibility. The company—which is a subset of EssilorLuxottica, Meta’s partner for its Ray-Ban smart glasses—just announced the Nuance Audio Plus, a pair of frames that includes FDA-cleared hearing aids in its arms. At $829, the Nuance Audio Plus are certainly more of an investment than your typical smart glasses (the Meta Ray-Ban Gen 2 are less than half that price). But they’re not meant to be for everyone; these are specifically targeted at those with mild to moderate hearing loss. The hearing aid mechanism is really packed in tight to the frame’s arm. © Nuance The Nuance Audio Plus boast some significant upgrades over the company’s previous pair of smart glasses, including improved sound boosting, which should make them more useful for their designated use. The company also says the Audio Plus have better voice clarity and an improved battery life of up to 10 hours. Folding the smart glasses puts them into sleep mode to extend that battery life, and they come with a wireless pad for on-the-go charging. (A more robust wireless charging case is also available for an extra $149.) Nuance Audio Plus Square frames. © Nuance Nuance Audio Plus Upturn frames. © Nuance Nuance Plus Audio Panthos frames. © Nuance Because they’re not trying to squeeze in a camera or a litany of AI features, the Nuance Audio Plus actually do resemble a standard pair of glasses frames, a much more discreet option than other smart glasses. They come in three frame styles (Square, Pathos, and Upturn) and five colors (olive green, deep blue, amber, shiny black, and shiny burgundy). The price point goes up if you add prescription lenses to the mix. The Nuance Audio Plus make use of Nuance’s smartphone app, which includes customizable settings to improve speech clarity. The glasses’ two main modes are “Frontal” and “All-Around;” the former focuses on face-to-face conversations, while the latter is an audio boost for all sounds in your vicinity. Like many dedicated hearing aids, the smart glasses can filter background noise at different levels depending on your environment—four levels, in this case. On this new Plus model, double tapping the frames can also quickly switch the audio mode without pulling out your phone. The frames also include Bluetooth for the first time, allowing for easy call answering. The Nuance Audio app includes quick switches to help the hearing aids adapt to your environment. © Nuance While plenty of wireless earbuds, including popular ones like Samsung’s Galaxy Buds, have now been cleared by the FDA for use as hearing aids, it’s still pretty novel for smart glasses to be built with this accessibility feature in mind. Nuance’s Audio Plus are available now in the U.S.