Glasses for reading lips

When artificial intelligence is put to the service of accessibility, it gives glasses that subtitle, in real time, everything that is said around you. We can now literally read lips.

They look like regular glasses with just thicker arms (a bit like sunglasses). Why? Because inside there is, on one side, a microphone and on the other, a tiny projector. The microphone will do voice recognition and transcribe the voices into text. And the projector will display the result on the glass inside the glasses.

It’s very discreet. From the outside, you don’t notice anything. Only the person wearing glasses can see the text. It’s exactly as if they had subtitles but in real life. So it can be very practical when you’re hard of hearing. It avoids fumbling around by reading only on your lips.

Several models are expected from startups like Xander Glasses, TranscribeGlass or XRai. Even Google is working on it. What’s new? We’re also starting to offer real-time translation. That is to say, we speak to you in Chinese, for example. And you will have the subtitles, in real time, in French, directly in your field of vision. This can change everything when you find yourself facing people whose language you don’t speak.

These glasses are not yet available. For now, they are just prototypes. Commercial models will not be available until next year. In addition, they are likely to be expensive. For example, we have a model announced at 600 euros, another at 4,000 euros, which is totally out of price for real-time translation, when applications like Google Translate already do it for free. It is really a shame because the advantage of glasses is being able to look your interlocutor in the eye, to stay connected with them rather than having to constantly switch to the screen of your phone.

There are two reasons for hope, though. The first is that these glasses will also be available for rent or provided free of charge when you attend international conferences or trade shows. This is a great way to break the language barrier. The second is that Google is also preparing glasses that translate with subtitles. Since it plans to make them a mass-market product, the price should remain reasonable. It would also be a great opportunity to make people forget the flop of Google Glass.