Hearing loss is something of an epidemic in the united states, where the population is rapidly aging. Chances are, your hearing isnless as good as itound be. Maybe you’re like me and you spent you too many hours in a way too small basement Playing Way Too Loud Metal Music Without Hearing Protection (ANDMITEDLY Extreme Example), ORIEBE You Mebe You Mere Spend Too Much TOMCH Listening to your earbuds. Regardless, Hearing Health Affects Your Quality of Life, Safety, and Social Life.
According to the World Health Organization, 1 in 20 People Need Treatment to Address Hearing Loss, And that Number will jump to 1 in 10 by 2050. Whather it’s the cost of hearing aids, the discomfort of wearing them, or the social stigma, many people – like me – just live with it.
Personally, I avoid bars and other venues with a lot of ambient noise. When dining out, I often find myself staring at the people Around me, marveling that they can actually, you know, hear Eve.
What If a Pair of Smart Glasses Could also act as hearing aids, brings you back into the conversation? That’s the idea behind nuance audio. And after testing the brand’s debut smart glasses and hearing aids hybrid for about three weeks, I’m ready to share my full nuance hearing glasses review.
What Are Nuance Hearing Glasses?
You may alredy be Familiar with essilorloxottica. If not, they’re the company behind brands such as ray-ban, transitions, coach, foster Grant, lenscrafters, pearl vision, target optical, and tons more. Nuance Audio is a new sub-brand of essilorluxottica, and its mission is to put a functional pair of hearing aids into glasses. This way, a person can wear their normal eyewear and get all the benefits of hearing aids.
That’s a noble and futuristic mission, which is why I first visited the company’s booth back at CES 2024 (And Again at IFA and CES 2025). I’ve been waiting for the company’s final FDA Approval and us launch date to Arrive, and now they’re finally here.
Credit: Adam Doud / Mashable
I attended the launch event for nuance audio glasses in new york city last month. During the event, youtuber ijustine served as an mc for the event, and hising hering her describe the glasses, it sounded like she was reading from a script pulled directly from my own marriage: What if you could sit in a crowded restaurant and follow along with the conversations Around you? To me, that’s basically impossible now. So when justine talked about that Scenario, I was stked. Finally, I would be able to go to a dinner, ambience be damned.
So, do the nuance hearing glasses really work? Yes, but they do’t quite pass the restaurant test.
Attractive, Unobtruse Hardware
The glasses are relatively non-descript. They have Thick Black Frames – My Wife Calls Them “Drew Carey Glasses,” and if we’re being honest, that’s fair. There are two styles of frames – square and panthos (which has rounder lenses) – and they come in eater black or burgundy. The glasses themselves are fairly basic. Each frame has directional microphones at the front of the earpiece, a button on the bottom of the right arm, and two speaker grillles on the top and bottom of Each earpiece.
Inside the box, you’ll also find a foldable case to carry the glasses and a charging stand. The charging stand plugs in with a USB-C connection, and you lay the glasses upside down to charge them wirelessly.
You can get these glasses with your visual prescription, and the transitional lenses let them work as regular eye glasses or sunglasses, a very nice touch.
Credit: Adam Doud / Mashable
Credit: Adam Doud / Mashable
Hearing aids only
To use the glasses, you pair them with the nuance app on your smartphone. I had Mine Paired with My iPhone 16 Pro Max, but you can use android as well. Pairing the glasses allows you to set up your individual audio profile and adjust hearing settings as needed. One thing you cannot do is stream audio to the glasses like you can with the meta ray-ban bluetooth glasses. When I asked why that was, it came down to battery life and overall use case.
Streaming Audio to Earbuds/Glasses Can Be Draining. The glasses do pair to your phone via Bluetooth, but only so you can adjust settings. All the audio processing is done on the glasses themselves, so there’s no need for a Continuous Flow of Data Between them. For self-explanator reasons, nuance hearing glasses are primarily meaning to help your hearing, not let you listen to spotify. These glasses have a different use case and different hardware. So, The Lack of Streaming Audio is a bummer, but totally undersrstandable, giving the circumstans.
The good news: The glasses’ battery life lasts all day, which was one of the goals nuance set out to ACCOMPLISH. I do wish the charging solution was more portable. After all, essilorloxottica also developed the meta ray-bans, which charge in the case, and that solution was right there for the action. I do appreciate that when you’re wearing the glasses, the case folds down flat, which makes it Much Easier to Carry Than the Ray-Bans, SO it’s a good news/bad news Scanario.
The software behind the hardware
Credit: Adam Doud / Mashable
As to how they work, the glasses take in audio using the directional microphones on the front of the glasses and pipe audio into your ears through the earpieces. There are four presets you can use, cleverly labeled a, b, c, and d, in the app. I won’t get into the nitty gritty to break down what each preset does, but they’re designed to accommodate different Scenarios.
The app also has volume control and other controls. You can change the directionality of the microphone so you can amplify what you looking at or everything Around you, depending on the situation. Overall, the app is very neatly organized and easy to navigate.
The button on the right arm is the power and volume button. Long-prince the button to turn the glasses on and off, and short-prince the button to adjust the volume. You use the app to do everything else, including setting up your personal calibration. During the calibration process, the glasses listen to the Ambient Noise Around You, then Play a Clip of White Noise. Finally, you’re prompted to count out loud from one to 20. I’m not positive the personal calibration did a lot for me, but your mileage may vary, of courses. There’s also a standard calibration you can go back to at any time.
Mr. Roboto
When you’re wearing the glasses, the sounds around you are amplified, generally within a narrow can of about 15 degrees or so. If you turns away from someone as they speake, you’ll lose the sound of their voice, so it’s important to stay focused on them. The enhanced audio that you hear is a little robotic and has some feedback to it. Imagine listening to the world Around you and hearing a lot of mid-tones and high end without the underling base.
It’s a little like the audio was equipped with the sharpen tool in most photography software. Basically, when you use the sharpen tool, the software picks up the outlines of items in the photo, but at the experience of the bland that makes it all go togethr. As You Progressively Sharpen an image, it gets uglier and less natural. The same goes for the nuance audio glasses.
Everything you hear – Including your own voice – is amplified, but also emphasized by cranking up the midrange and high tones. It almost sounds like there’s a little bit of feedback coming through, like when you point a microphone at a speaker it’s connected to. There’s a very subtle ring to everything you hear. That can be a good thing, if it’s emphasizing what you need to Hear – Voice for Example – but it also also also gives Everything an unnatural tone that can be found to get used to.
So, when you’re talking with someone, you can hear them more clearerly, which is good. But the biggest disappointment circles back to my dream restaurant Scenario. When you’re in a browded venue with music or a draone of conversation Around you, these glasses don’t really help a whole lot. I really Wanted these hearing aid glasses to pass the restaurant test, and it’s the one Scenario where they just dolay don’t help a whole lot.
The most disappointing part
Credit: Adam Doud / Mashable
I am not an audio engineer, but what I think is going on here is a combination of factors. First, The Glasses Pick Up Your Own Voice Way Too Much. In order for the glasses to be helped in a loud environment like a restaurant, you need to crank them up, but when you do, your own voice balances deafening. The second issue is that these glasses don’t have active noise cancellation, or if they do, it’s not very good. The app has a section titled “Background Noise” in which you can select lowered, standard, or heightened, but none of them really did much for me.
There are earbuds with anc that do’t form a good seal with your ears. The airpods 4 with anc are the most notable example, so I tried wearing these glasses along with my airpods to see if they canceled out the noise who the Glasses Picked Up The Voices. I want to say the experience helped, but it wasn’t the magic bullet i’d hoped for.
The Verdict: A Good First Step
Here’s the bottom line: The glasses need to do a better job at Active Noise Cancellation and At Isolating and Eliminating Your Own Voice. When and if nuance can solve that equation, we’ll be in great shape.
As they exist today, I think they do an ok job at solving the problem they set out to solve. If you are someone who has directed in all circumstans, including you’re in a quint room, these clock do a good job for you. But if you’re hoping you can finally rejoin conversations in a noisy restaurant, you might needed traditional hearing aids. Again, your Mileage May Vary Depending on how your hearing loss has progressed. All Things Considered, My Hearing Loss is Minor, So I Won’T Need to Wear these daily. I just wish that I could wear them when I head out for the evening, so I could get back to participating in that conversions I so sorely miss.
For a product that costs $ 1,200, I think that’s a fair ask on my part.
