Private, live subtitles in your line of sight.
A concept for smart glasses that show captions for movies and television only to the person wearing them, so deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers can follow along without changing the screen for everyone else in the room.
Try the simulated previewWhy this concept
Subtitles on a shared screen are a compromise. Personal captions could let each viewer choose what suits them.
Private
Captions appear for the wearer only, so the shared screen stays untouched.
Personalised
Size, colour, background and position set by the viewer, not by the broadcaster.
Readable first
High-contrast and readable-font options are built into the design from the start.
Interactive preview
This is a simulation on your screen. It imitates how captions might float in a wearer’s field of view. Choose a source, press Play, then adjust the settings.
(a film or TV show would be here)
How future glasses could work
A possible approach, described conceptually. Nothing here has been built, tested or specified.
Capture audio
The programme’s sound is picked up, for example from a microphone or a connected device.
Turn speech into text
Speech recognition, or a subtitle track where one exists, produces the captions.
Send to the glasses
Text is sent wirelessly to a small display worn by the viewer.
Show privately
The wearer sees captions in their view, styled with the settings they chose.
What this prototype is, and is not
- This is a software simulation running in your browser. It does not connect to physical hardware.
- It cannot display captions inside real glasses.
- Demo mode plays pre-written sample dialogue. It is not live transcription.
- Microphone mode uses your browser’s built-in speech recognition where available. Accuracy varies, and in some browsers the audio is processed by an online service run by the browser vendor.
- It does not capture sound from a TV or film. Microphone mode only hears what your device’s microphone picks up.