Anyone who has attended a major trade show, such as CES in the above interview, knows how unforgiving the acoustic environment can be. For someone with hearing loss, noisy settings like crowded convention centers or busy restaurants are notoriously difficult.
Tom Pritsky, who has bilateral hearing loss and wears hearing aids in both ears, founded Captify after years of dealing with this firsthand. While smartphone captioning apps exist, they require users to look down at a screen—breaking eye contact, disconnecting from social body language, and missing the visual cues of lip reading.
Captify takes a different route:
- Ultra-Lightweight Form Factor: At just 37 grams, they wear like everyday eyewear rather than bulky tech gear.
- On-Glasses Microphones: High-powered, directional microphones mounted directly on the frame capture nearby speech even against heavy background noise.
- No Cloud Required: Unlike conventional speech-to-text engines that stall on congested public Wi-Fi, Captify’s model runs completely on-device and offline. It handles both live transcription and translation across dozens of languages without pinging the cloud.
- Fast Charging & Battery Life: The glasses provide 4 to 5 hours of continuous transcription, last well over a day on standby, and reach a full charge in roughly 37 minutes
Purpose-Built for Real Human Engagement
While testing them in the above video, this author noticed a slight processing cadence, but the utility was undeniable. For someone with hearing loss, having real-time subtitles hovering right in your peripheral field of view means you can look someone in the eye, read lips, and follow the conversation naturally.
As Tom pointed out, as people age and hearing naturally declines, the cognitive load of trying to piece together muffled dialogue increases. Smart captioning glasses fill in those missing auditory gaps seamlessly.
Captify has moved beyond prototypes into production units. The team is partnering with audiologists and offering direct consumer trial periods, giving individuals who struggle in social environments a tangible way to stay in the conversation.
This content is AI-generated, but edited and orchestrated by Ken Pyle.