EssilorLuxottica Acquires Competitor Startup Pulse Audition

EssilorLuxottica just expanded its presence in the hearing space with the acquisition of an AI-driven tech startup in France and its talented team. The company, Pulse Audition, is just one of hundred of startups currently pursuing the concept of hearing glasses, in this case adding an edge with unique AI-based speech enhancement and noise reduction processing technologies embedded in the frames. The technology promises to accelerate the Nuance Hearing Glasses project.

CES 2024 was the best in a long time. audioXpress attended to report about the solutions and technologies that will enable the audio products of tomorrow, exploring the many hospitality and business suites where the audio industry is at during CES. We focused on attending closed demonstrations - about which we can reveal very little at this stage - because that's the only way to truly share the product developers’ experience, and gain a real perspective about the audio technologies that matter for product development and those that will determine the products in 2025 and going forward.

Facebook/Meta believes that adding features to glasses without improving its primary feature of augmenting/protecting eyesight is the "next big thing" - after the metaverse (which is not to be mentioned). In partnership with EssilorLuxottica, Mark Zuckerberg unveiled a new generation of Ray-Ban Meta "smart glasses" that have speakers on the side, and cameras and microphones in the front. Apparently they are better than the others launched before, that no one bought.