Captioning Glasses You Can Wear All Day
 "Vuzix Captioning Glasses")
Source: Vuzix
Eyeglasses that provide live captioning of conversations in real time may be an idea whose time has finally come. At the CES 2023 consumer electronics show, Vuzix Corp. introduced new micro-display technology enabling real-time captions in a set of eyeglass frames that are small enough and light enough to be worn all day.
Vuzix says its new Ultralite Smart Glasses will break performance and form-factor barriers that previously limited adoption of eyeglasses enabling live captioning of speech and other digital augmented reality (AR) applications. The eyeglasses will have new miniature optics, new LED micro-display technologies, and enough battery power to run for two days on a single charge. And, weighing in at less than 1.5 ounces, they will have a smaller form factor than previous AR glasses.
 "Xander Captioned Eyeglasses")
Source: Xander
Vuzix CEO Paul Travers says the company intends to “make the dream of sleek and fashionable smart glasses come true for the broader market." He adds that the new technology platform will be offered to third-party original equipment manufacturers to deliver a range of new applications: “The Vuzix Ultralite OEM solution will enable leading consumer technology firms to accelerate deployment of AR smart glasses solutions to the masses."
The next step in real-time captioning glasses
Earlier Vuzix Blade technology is already available in Xander captioning glasses designed specifically for people with hearing loss. Xander Glasses are highly functional, including wireless Bluetooth audio features in addition to display of live captions.
 "Vuzix Caption Glasses Pix")
Next-generation Vuzix Ultralite Smart Glasses (left) are slimmer and lighter than the previous Vuzix Blade technology glasses (right). Sources: Vuzix and Xander
But the next-generation Vuzix Ultralite Glasses are expected to enable the same high-performance applications, with better visibility of captions, in a more consumer-friendly form factor. The new platform is sleeker, slimmer, and less than half the weight of the older Vuzix Blade glasses.
How captioning eyeglasses work
Captioning eyeglasses combine three advanced technologies: optical waveguides, micro-LED displays, and wireless speech-to-text apps driven from your mobile phone.
Vuzix says its new LED display engine is the smallest and brightest available, about the size of a pencil eraser, and can be paired with a range of optics technology solutions. Its optical waveguides—thin layers of either plastic or glass that capture and display images generated by the LEDs—are only about 1 mm thick, enabling the smaller and lighter eyeglass frames. The new micro-display platform earned Vuzix a CES 2023 Innovation Award in the Wearable Technology Category.
 "Vuzix Tech Components")
New Vuzix optical waveguide and micro-LED display technologies are integrated into Ultralite glasses. Source: Vuzix
And Vuzix expects to work with third parties to deliver the latest speech-to-text technologies along with other AR applications. Currently, the best-known speech-to-text captioning software is Google Live Caption, an app for Android smartphones, which people with hearing loss have been using successfully since 2019. And recent advances in artificial intelligence software are dramatically improving the quality of the live-speech transcriptions.
Competition in the captioned glasses market will heat up
Another early entrant in the captioning glasses market is XRAI Glass, which provides real-time captioning of conversations on eyeglasses with AR displays developed by Nreal. XRAI’s real-time speech-to-text app currently works with Android phones and can be downloaded from the Google Play store.
 "Xrai Captioning Glasses")
Source: Nreal
What will the future bring? Google was among the first to demonstrate micro-displays in headsets worn like a pair of glasses with its Google Glass experiment in 2014. Performance and design limitations limited consumer appeal, but Google has continued innovating in the space. Its research group in 2020 published a Wearable Subtitles Proof-of-Concept white paper that envisioned a small, lightweight set of eyeglasses with a powerful AR micro-display.
And at Google I/O 2022 in May, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai speculated about the possibility of lightweight eyeglasses that provide real-time translation of spoken foreign languages via the Google Live Translate app. Perhaps we’ll see product announcements in 2023.
With multiple third parties developing applications for Vuzix and other micro-display platform technologies, we can expect to see competition heat up with multiple announcements at CES 2023 (January 5-8, 2023, in Las Vegas).
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David - thanks for the new info. I am unsuccessfully dealing w online platforms like Rumble & Bitchute and others who refuse to add captioning to their videos and podcasts and will not provide full transcripts. Do either of these glasses show captioning when watching video- say from phone or laptop? Any news about Fed regulation like television requirements for captioning online?
For those applications that store audio communications via transcription in real-time, any buyer should check their jurisdiction's penal code concerning the recording of said audio w/o the explicit consent of the party being recorded. E.g., in PA, bilateral consent is required, even if passively acquired e.g., by a voice message alerting that "this conversation may be recorded for quality control purposes," and/or "continuing this conversation constitutes permission to record it." Failure to announce the recording AND getting permission from he other party is in PA USA a 3rd Class felony charge. I am not a lawyer, so get one you trust to find out the law in your jurisdiction.
Anthony