EssilorLuxottica just made its hearing aid glasses better at the one thing that actually matters: hearing people clearly in noisy rooms.
EssilorLuxottica, the eyewear giant behind Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses, has released the Nuance Audio Plus, an upgraded version of its over-the-counter hearing aid glasses. The FDA-cleared hearing tech is built into temple arms barely thicker than a normal pair of frames. The new model adds stronger sound boosting, clearer voice pickup, more on-device controls, and up to 10 hours of battery life. It ships now in the US in three styles: Square, Pathos, and Upturn.
Hearing aids have a stigma problem as much as a technology problem. Many people who need one wait years before buying, often because they do not want to look like they are wearing a medical device. Building the electronics into glasses people already wear solves that visibility problem in a way a beige earpiece never could, and it gives EssilorLuxottica a head start on owning that format before a bigger tech company does.
A traditional hearing aid can run for days on a tiny battery. These need a nightly charge, so the price of looking normal is one more gadget to plug in.