(NewsNation) — When TranscribeGlass founder Madhav Lavakare was in high school in Dehli, India, he had a friend who was experiencing hearing loss and had to drop out because the facility didn’t provide any accommodations.
He asked his friend why he didn’t use speech recognition software on a smartphone.
“He said, ‘Well, that doesn’t work very well for me because as someone with hearing loss, I rely on reading lips… looking at a phone is really inconvenient because I’m doing this back and forth as if I’m watching a tennis match,'” Lavakare said.
That’s how he got the idea to design TranscribeGlass, which consists of an augmented reality device clipped onto the frame of a pair of glasses. The device works in tandem with a smartphone that is using speech recognition software to produce real-time subtitles that transcribe what is being said to the user.
Lavakare, who is now studying at Yale, teamed up with Stanford student Tom Pritsky in 2021 to start building the prototype of the device. They’ve now gone through six different iterations of prototypes, each one being revised after getting feedback from users.
Oer 10,000 people have singed up for the next phase. TranscribeGlass plans to release a beta version, sending 100 to 150 units to users, mostly in the U.S over the next couple of months.
During this beta phase, the unit will cost $55; the company hasn’t decided on a cost for the final product just yet, but will adjust the pricing after the beta period. Lavakare said affordability is one of TranscribeGlass’ priorities.
“A lot of people may not have high purchasing power to be able to buy devices that cost thousands of dollars,” Lavakare said. “It may also help people who are skeptical about a solution to give it a shot and try it out and see if it works for them because the barrier to purchasing it is pretty low.”
A similar product costs about $380.
Because the product relies on speech recognition software, that means TranscribeGlass can provide captions in the full range of languages that are supported by Google and Apple-based smartphones. But the beta currently supports only English alphabets.
Lavakare emphasized that the device isn’t intended to replace a hearing aid.
“We’re not trying to tackle the hearing, the neurological part of the issue,” he said.
But Lavakare thinks the device can offer an affordable path for those who are hard of hearing or deaf to be able to understand the spoken language around them.