EssilorLuxottica Nuance Audio
At CES 2024 this week, eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica unveiled an exciting new product – Nuance Audio. These high-tech glasses aim to provide a solution for those with mild to moderate hearing loss while maintaining a stylish, fashion-forward design.
So what exactly are Nuance Audio glasses and why are they generating buzz? Let’s break it down.
Seamlessly Integrated Hearing Technology
Unlike clunky traditional hearing aids, Nuance Audio glasses have miniaturized amplified speakers built seamlessly into the temples. This proprietary open-ear audio system is intended to enhance hearing while retaining a sleek, subtle profile. No visible hearing aid components mean the glasses look like a fashion accessory while providing hearing assistance.
Customizable Audio Experience
Nuance Audio glasses provide a customized audio experience thanks to their built-in AI platform and accompanying app. Users can tweak audio settings to suit their specific type and degree of hearing loss. Active noise cancellation helps filter ambient sound when desired. Voice assistant integration even allows for commands and audiobook streaming through the eyewear speakers.
Mainstream Appeal
By ingeniously integrating hearing technology into fashion glasses, EssilorLuxottica aims to destigmatize hearing loss correction. Nuance Audio targets the almost 50% of people over 60 worldwide with disabling hearing loss who still shun traditional hearing aids. By offering the function of hearing aids while prioritizing aesthetically pleasing eyewear design, Nuance Audio may appeal to the mainstream consumer far more than current hearing solutions.
Gradual Global Rollout
Nuance Audio glasses will first launch in North America in late 2024 before expanding to other EssilorLuxottica markets. Pricing has not yet been announced but expect these high-performance smart glasses that also enhance hearing to demand a premium price.
What This Means for EssilorLuxottica
This launch represents EssilorLuxottica’s growing ambitions in the world of smart eyewear and vision-enhancing consumer electronics. Nuance Audio glasses build upon the capabilities of their existing Ray-Ban Stories and Meta smart glasses partnership with Meta and reinforce the company’s commitment to technological innovation.
With an aging global population experiencing increasing hearing loss and their expertise in eyewear product development, EssilorLuxottica is strategically primed to disrupt – and capture a heap of – the expanding hearing aid market.
Nuance Audio’s stylish, sleeker hearing assistance glasses provide our first clue into how EssilorLuxottica intends to fuse high fashion with cutting-edge functionality. More than glasses to simply correct vision or hear better, products like Nuance Audio glasses showcase how the company envisions integrated smart eyewear enhancing consumers’ lives in the future.
Giancarlo Viterbo is a Filipino Technology Journalist, blogger and Editor of gadgetpilipinas.net, He is also a Geek, Dad and a Husband. He knows a lot about washing the dishes, doing some errands and following instructions from his boss on his day job. Follow him on twitter: @gianviterbo and @gadgetpilipinas.
