In the past years, eyewear and eye care innovations have led to exciting products and solutions. Among many innovators in the market, Italian-French eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica has continuously invested in digital and tech developments to integrate into eyewear products made and sold by the multinational corporation’s many brands.
In a Reuters piece on EssilorLuxottica’s Q2 sales from 2023, the group announced it had expanded into the hearing aid market. This acquisition of Israeli hearing technology startup Nuance Hearing will see the eyewear group potentially release products combining hearing solutions and prescription eyewear. The company’s revenue report stated it would be “the first to remove the stigma of traditional hearing solutions” and replace it with comfort and style.
Months later, at CES 2024 in January, EssilorLuxottica debuted the Nuance Audio frames—the latest eyeglass innovation built around “directivity.” Seemingly similar in build and design to traditional glasses, the eyewear has built-in microphones designed to amplify the sound from whatever the wearer is looking at. This is a step forward from microphones merely designed to amplify external audio. The frames also support volume control via a companion app and a pocket-sized remote control. This innovation will be useful for those with hearing or hearing-related conditions.
In a previous post highlighting London-based Tympa Health, we emphasised that over 20% of the global population suffers from hearing loss, and the number is set to rise as we go forward. Fortunately, the demand for hearing loss aids and solutions opens an opportunity for many companies to innovate in this space — eyewear brands and manufacturers included.
The evolution of smart glasses
While seemingly a more common occurrence, smart glasses originated in 2004 and were made and developed by Philips. Before then, Bluetooth eyewear was being developed in the 1990s. Almost a decade later, Google introduced the now-obsolete Google Glass, the brand’s first attempt at developing smart glasses. The Google Glass — also called Glass — displayed information to wearers using a built-in head-up display. Google also offered four prescription frame choices for the Glass unit. EssilorLuxottica announced in 2014 that the company had plans to design and sell new versions of Google Glass under famous brands like Oakley and Ray-Ban to offer more unique designs.
While Google Glass was met with lukewarm responses due to its clunky design at the time, eyewear and tech companies have since worked to improve the delivery and design of smart glasses. Ray-Ban made headlines a few years back for its partnership with Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta to develop new, discreet smart glasses. The first iteration of this project was called the Ray-Ban Stories, which were marketed to younger generations and Internet influencers. The frames allowed wearers to capture images and videos using built-in cameras.
EssilorLuxottica’s Ray-Ban and smart glasses development
Since then, Ray-Ban and Meta have improved on the Stories project by releasing an update aptly named the Ray-Ban Meta. The updated smart glasses build on its predecessor by taking on famed Ray-Ban sunglasses models like the Wayfarer, joining the brand’s long line of Wayfarer family, including the Original, New, and Folding variants. Whereas Stories also featured models like the Round and Meteor, Meta released in Wayfarer and Headliner designs for a more modern look. Improving upon features introduced in the first-generation Stories, the Ray-Ban Meta featured an upgraded 12MP camera that allows full 1080p recording with full spatial audio. The built-in speakers are also 50% louder and feature bass characteristics that are twice deeper. The Meta frames also charge faster than Stories and have more designs and colourways.
Most recently, Ray-Ban and Meta introduced a new Skyler frame for the Ray-Ban Meta, joining previously debuted smart frames like the Headliner and Wayfarer. Some of the upgrades and improvements included better integration with Apple Music, support for multimodal AI, and compatibility with messaging apps WhatsApp and Messenger. The latter update allows wearers to stream what they — or the Meta frames — see to contacts in these apps.
One of the most exciting features that the Ray-Ban Meta introduced is the integration of multimodal AI. Wearers can easily access the device’s built-in AI assistant from Meta by speaking to their glasses. The Meta AI assistant can help by displaying information in various forms, from images and audio to video and text. This update emerged from the rising popularity of other AI language models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and followed the launch of other wearable technologies with multimodal AI, like the Humane Ai Pin and the AI-in-a-box product Rabbit’s R1.
In March, Mark Zuckerberg posted a series of videos on his official Instagram boasting the features of a beta version of the multimodal AI. In the videos, Zuckerberg can be seen wearing the Wayfarer variant of the Ray-Ban Meta, asking various built-in AI questions and requests. Based on the videos, Meta’s AI can use smart glasses to capture real-time images of objects like a local monument and provide information and history of said monument through speech. Zuckerberg also showed off the AI’s sense of humour by asking it to explain how snow is formed as if it were a caveman.
What the acquisition means for the future of smart glasses
The growing success and continued investment in the Ray-Ban Meta is more proof of EssilorLuxottica’s interest in venturing into the tech world. Paired with the 2014 endeavour to partner with Google Glass, it’s clear that the eyewear corporation is heavily invested in exploring the potential and innovative solutions that future eyewear can bring.
By partnering with Nuance, consumers and health experts may see a future where fashion and technology meet to provide much-needed accessibility options and support for those in need, like people who are deaf or hard of hearing.
This also means that consumers and industry experts can expect more partnerships and collaborations between the eyewear giant — or its many brands — and other tech companies, big or small. As new startups continue to push the boundaries of modern digital technology, it’ll be interesting to see how eyewear can overlap with other markets and industries.
For example, Cornell University researchers studied eye tracking and facial expression recognition functions and their ability to “fit into” smart glasses through standard frames. This can circumvent the age-old issue of how companies can fit more technology into something as physically limited as eyewear without making it look too clunky, like Google Glass. Like Nuance and their dedication to hearing technologies, the development of eye tracking tech can also serve as assistive technology for disabled individuals and a range of other uses like gaming, virtual reality, and medical diagnosis.
EssilorLuxottica and more smart glasses
After merging Essilor and Luxottica in 2018, the multinational company has been dedicated to covering all aspects of eyecare and eyewear, from design and production to distribution and innovation. Over the decades, the group has brought together various eyewear brands to create unique innovations and transform the market entirely, from Luxottica’s 1999 acquisition of Ray-Ban to Oakley’s 2007 acquisition. The group also acquired numerous luxury brands, such as Persol and Armani.
However, the company remains faithful to its brands’ distinct identities. With its Oakley glasses, the sports performance brand uses silhouettes, materials, and design sensibilities aligned with the Oakley ethos. These designs have remained popular among Oakley customers over the decades, with some frames being more iconic than others. The Holbrook, for example, is a classic, comes in eight colourways, and is available in prescription and sunglasses lenses. This provides flexibility for consumers catering to various lifestyle needs and preferences.
Like Ray-Ban, Oakley is also no stranger to smart glasses. The brand’s famed sunglasses silhouette, the Radar, also entered smart glasses territory in 2016 through the Radar Pace sunglasses, created in collaboration with tech giant Intel and Austin-based Mixer Design Group. The Radar Pace gained praise for delivering a lightweight and comfortable design with Bluetooth headphones compatibility. At the same time, the smart sunglasses could also provide real-time coaching and feedback for athletic wearers, such as during physical activities like running or biking.
