Glasses is the ideal form factor Why Meta is bringing hearing enhancement to its smart glasses

Date:
Wed, 23 Sep 2026 23:31:51 +0000

Description:
At Connect 2026, Meta announced that its glasses can now double as an FDA-cleared hearing aid. We sat down with Meta's Ravish Mehra to find out how the feature works and why he thinks glasses beat earbuds for the job.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter Meta Connect 2026 is busy. Alongside the next-generation Meta Glasses, a camera-free version of the Ray-Ban Meta Glasses, and a new collaboration with Korean pop star Lisa, Meta is adding a significant new capability to its glasses: hearing enhancement.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared the feature, which
turns a pair of Meta Glasses into a hearing aid for people with mild to moderate hearing loss. It amplifies sound based on your hearing profile and uses machine learning to boost voices and suppress background noise. Meta isn't the first here, though. Apple's AirPods Pro 2 are already cleared as over-the-counter hearing aids and Nuance offers a pair of smart shades with a similar function. Meta, though, is betting on its form factor: glasses sit outside the ear, and many people already wear them all day. Latest Videos
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It's not free, though. The feature launches with a free 30-day trial, after which it costs a one-time payment of $149.99, or comes as part of a Meta One subscription. In the US, it's also FSA/HSA eligible, with Meta saying it will share more details closer to the launch, which in the US is set for later in 2026. Even including the price of compatible glasses, Meta says it's significantly cheaper than traditional hearing aids.

The feature is launching in the US first, with Meta planning to expand to other countries as it works through each region's medical device regulations. You may like Meta Ray-Ban Scriber Optics hands-on: superb 2026 smart glasses We got a first look at Samsung Intelligent Eyewear, the smart glasses
entering a fraught market worried about privacy Meta just fixed a big privacy vulnerability with its Ray-Ban smart glasses I spoke with Ravish Mehra, Director of Research Science at Meta, about why Meta thinks glasses are the right home for hearing enhancement. Mehra, who has spent nearly 12 years at the company, says the work started more than five years ago.

"We have a very unique audio platform that has microphone arrays, that has glasses, is socially acceptable in terms of people wearing glasses, and we have onboard compute," he says. Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. According to Mehra, one in six Americans have mild to moderate hearing loss, yet only around 15% of them do anything about it. He notes that hearing aids are expensive, uncomfortable to wear all day, and signal to others that you have a hearing impairment. So people "put the issue under the rug," Mehra says, telling themselves, "Okay, it's just people are mumbling, and that's why I'm not able to hear."

Glasses sidestep the stigma in his view: "Nobody else can tell just by
looking at your glasses that you have hearing impairment. A hearing test at home "Every person's hearing loss is slightly different," Mehra says. Instead of a clinic visit and multiple fittings, Meta's hearing test takes around one to two minutes with your phone, through the Meta AI app, and your glasses.
You listen to sounds at different frequencies, indicate when you can barely hear them, and the system builds a hearing profile showing where you need amplification. What to read next What to expect at Meta Connect 2026 I dont love camera-less glasses, but RayNeo iO might finally get it right I want to just love my Meta AI glasses, but I cant get over privacy fears

"You don't have to go anywhere to get these glasses fit for your hearing profile," Mehra says. "You just do a very simple test at home, and whenever your hearing needs change, you just redo the test."

That test was central to the FDA clearance. Meta tested the feature with a group of people with mild to moderate hearing loss, and its results showed
the phone-based test was equivalent in performance to a professional fitting, within an acceptable margin.

"We are actually the first self-fitting hearing aid on glasses in the
market," Mehra says. How it works The glasses' six microphones capture sound around you currently being used on Meta Glasses which is then amplified where your profile shows a deficit. That also amplifies noise, so a machine learning model trained to recognize voices brings the background down. It all runs on-device, and speed is critical. "All of this has to happen in a very short latency, because otherwise you start hearing echoes or start hearing distortions," Mehra says.

There are two modes: 360 mode amplifies sound all around you, while Focus
mode suits environments like a restaurant, where you want to hear the person across the table.

"We actually use the microphones to first do beamforming, which is like focusing in the forward direction more," Mehra explains. "And then [] we
train the system to enhance the voices while not enhancing or suppressing the noise."

The frame helps, too. "Because the glasses have a much wider baseline, you
can put the microphones much farther away," says Mehra. This makes it easier to isolate speech from noise than with microphones placed millimeters apart
in the ear.

I got a brief demo: Meta had us put in earplugs to simulate hearing loss,
then wear the glasses. They did properly amplify the people directly around me, and even those a bit farther away. Focus mode noticeably singles out the person in front of you, but it wasn't perfect, and of course earplugs are no substitute for real hearing loss. The feedback problem Amplifying sound isn't the hardest part, though. "One of the issues that any kind of real-time amplification feature faces is called feedback," Mehra says. "When you
amplify something through the speakers, they feed back into the microphones."

On glasses, with their open-ear design, nothing separates the speakers from the microphones. Meta's system has to detect feedback before it builds, suppress it, and still deliver enough amplification. "If you're not able to cancel that feedback, then you hear these very sharp noises," Mehra says.

Then there's processing, which is added on top of a broader feature set the glasses offer, so Meta had to squeeze the feature into what Mehra calls "a very small envelope" of onboard compute power. Meta hasn't confirmed which glasses will support it, only that they must meet a minimum performance bar, or confirmed a rollout schedule other than late 2026. Given the processing involved, I'd be surprised to see it on older models like the first-gen Ray-Ban Meta glasses; all of the demos at Meta Connect have been on the more recently released Meta Glasses.

Meta isn't just trying to make its glasses hear for you; it's trying to help you hear, too. It's a new category for the company, but Mehra is in no doubt about the bet, telling me: "We strongly feel like glasses is the ideal form factor." 269 at Amazon (Blue) 269 at Meta 284 at John Lewis (Black) Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.



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